It Really Does Get In
By Darryl Mason
As I've said here before, the Rudd government has to be very careful when it comes to censoring what Australians can read, see and buy online. No Australian election has yet seen Internet Censorship become a Major Election Issue, and if Rudd & Friends keep pushing this Censor The Net stupidity, they are going to find most Australians online are against them. And when it comes to a federal election, that could be extremely bad news.
GetUp! is planning to run the below ad as part of its fight against online censorship.
The message is clear enough, but a parody ad won't really hit home about what Online Censorship really means, and how a constantly expanding blacklist open to undue influence and corporate vendettas will change our online lives. Yes, many "hate sites" will make the list, but soon enough torrent and peer-to-peer file sharing sites will also get blocked. Well, the blacklist will attempt to block such sites, but there are many ways around even mandatory web filters, which you'll learn a bit more about here when the time is right. Obviously, you can already such info online.
The GetUp! anti-censorship ad is a good start, and the line about Iran and Online Censorship should be the ignition point for whatever ad they make next.
Stephen Conroy's Net Filter Will Block Access To eBay And Amazon
Showing posts with label government censorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government censorship. Show all posts
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Internet Censorship Clampdown Begins In One Month
Chatrooms Will Be Forced To Undergo "Professional Assessment" To Continue Operating
Will Fight Against Child Pornography Prove To Be The Trojan Horse For Far-Reaching Online Censorship?
By Darryl Mason
A new wave of "restrictions" on mobile phone content, websites, chatrooms and message boards will be introduced in Australia by late January, 2008.
Do you like the way this has been announced only days before Christmas, and will be in place by the time most Australians return from their Christmas holidays? Surely, it's just a coincidence?
The first push in this new wave of censorship of Australian internet content begins with what may well prove to be a 'trojan horse' of sorts - the almost unanimously supported push to keep children from viewing "unsuitable material".
You are supposed to immediately think of child pornography, or graphic adult pornography, but the censorship regime is wide open to interpretation. For example, "violent imagery" also falls under these news bans. It doesn't simply mean photographs of children being abused or raped. It also means imagery that shows the results of acts of violence. War violence, for example. The censorship body in Australia has already tried to ban imagery from a video game that showed two animated android-like women kissing, and backed down to widespread outrage and mockery.
story continues after...
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Other Blogs By Darryl Mason
Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'Your New Reality'
Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Orstrahyun'
Go Here To Read The Latest Chapter From Darryl Mason's Online Novel About Life After The Bird Flu Pandemic
--------------------------
story continues...
Earlier this year, The Orstrahyun reported on moves to censor online content that is deemed, by the government censor, to be supportive of terrorism, or supplies information on how to carry out acts of terrorism. President Bush tells us we must read what Osama Bin Laden has to say to understand the threat of terrorism, but the Australian internet censorship body will be moving to stop you from getting access to that kind of information. Which must also mean you can forget about reading histories of Jewish terrorists fighting for the establishment of Israel, and the history of the IRA.
The new censorship regime for internet content was introduced by Howard government in September, and emulates the steel fist approach used by China. More on that here.
Back to the current story :
The censorship of website content will begin with tough restrictions on access to pornography and "violent images", but the temptation will be strong to broaden the scope of what material is deemed to be unsuitable for under-18s. Or what should not be available online to Australian web surfers at all.
Pornographic images of children are clearly unacceptable to all Australians, but what about an image of children torn apart by NATO bombs in Afghanistan?
Will a particularly feisty message board about government corruption or filled with commenters voicing great displeasure at the 'War on Terror', with lots of swearing, fall under the censor's blanket bans and restrictions?
Not yet.
But what about six months from now?
And what happens when independent internet media in Australia start pulling the same sort of visitor numbers as the mainstream media news sites?
This is already happening in the US, where sites like Crooks & Liars and PrisonPlanet, on a good day, can pull the same volume of readership as CBS News. Will the mainstream media work behind the scenes to freeze out the new competition? Will they push for tighter censorship and restrictions that makes it all but impossible for the independents to remain in business?
The use of the extremely distressing issue of child pornography is the beginning of the widespread censoring of internet content in Australia. It remains to be seen just how far this new censorship will go, or how far independent media and bloggers will allow it to spread before they start fighting back.
Government Expands "Black List" Of Banned Internet Sites
Porn, Violence, 'Terror' And Social Networking Sites Now In Firing Line
Australia Now Bans More Video Games Than Any Other Country In The World
'Terror' Books And Movies To Be Banned Under Extraordinary New Censorship Laws
"Patriotic" Movies, Video Games That "Glorify War" Will Be Excluded From New Ban Regime
Chatrooms Will Be Forced To Undergo "Professional Assessment" To Continue Operating
Will Fight Against Child Pornography Prove To Be The Trojan Horse For Far-Reaching Online Censorship?
By Darryl Mason
A new wave of "restrictions" on mobile phone content, websites, chatrooms and message boards will be introduced in Australia by late January, 2008.
Do you like the way this has been announced only days before Christmas, and will be in place by the time most Australians return from their Christmas holidays? Surely, it's just a coincidence?
The first push in this new wave of censorship of Australian internet content begins with what may well prove to be a 'trojan horse' of sorts - the almost unanimously supported push to keep children from viewing "unsuitable material".
You are supposed to immediately think of child pornography, or graphic adult pornography, but the censorship regime is wide open to interpretation. For example, "violent imagery" also falls under these news bans. It doesn't simply mean photographs of children being abused or raped. It also means imagery that shows the results of acts of violence. War violence, for example. The censorship body in Australia has already tried to ban imagery from a video game that showed two animated android-like women kissing, and backed down to widespread outrage and mockery.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will be able to force content providers to take down offensive material and issue notices for live content to be stopped and links to the content deleted.
But ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said adults will not be affected by the new laws.
Of course not. Not yet, anyway.
"In developing these new content rules, ACMA was guided by its disposition to allow adults to continue to read, hear and see what they want, while protecting children from exposure to inappropriate content, regardless of the delivery mechanism," Mr Chapman said in a statement.
Providers of live services, such as chatrooms, must have their service professionally assessed to determine whether its "likely content" should be restricted.
And what if you are a one man chatroom operator who can't afford what is likely to be very expensive "professional assessment"? You won't allowed to operate your business online.
story continues after...
-------------------------
Other Blogs By Darryl Mason
Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'Your New Reality'
Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Orstrahyun'
Go Here To Read The Latest Chapter From Darryl Mason's Online Novel About Life After The Bird Flu Pandemic
--------------------------
story continues...
Earlier this year, The Orstrahyun reported on moves to censor online content that is deemed, by the government censor, to be supportive of terrorism, or supplies information on how to carry out acts of terrorism. President Bush tells us we must read what Osama Bin Laden has to say to understand the threat of terrorism, but the Australian internet censorship body will be moving to stop you from getting access to that kind of information. Which must also mean you can forget about reading histories of Jewish terrorists fighting for the establishment of Israel, and the history of the IRA.
The new censorship regime for internet content was introduced by Howard government in September, and emulates the steel fist approach used by China. More on that here.
Back to the current story :
Personal emails and other private communications would be excluded from the new laws and so would news or current affairs services.Is that all news and current affairs services, or just the ones approved by the government censor?
The censorship of website content will begin with tough restrictions on access to pornography and "violent images", but the temptation will be strong to broaden the scope of what material is deemed to be unsuitable for under-18s. Or what should not be available online to Australian web surfers at all.
Pornographic images of children are clearly unacceptable to all Australians, but what about an image of children torn apart by NATO bombs in Afghanistan?
Will a particularly feisty message board about government corruption or filled with commenters voicing great displeasure at the 'War on Terror', with lots of swearing, fall under the censor's blanket bans and restrictions?
Not yet.
But what about six months from now?
And what happens when independent internet media in Australia start pulling the same sort of visitor numbers as the mainstream media news sites?
This is already happening in the US, where sites like Crooks & Liars and PrisonPlanet, on a good day, can pull the same volume of readership as CBS News. Will the mainstream media work behind the scenes to freeze out the new competition? Will they push for tighter censorship and restrictions that makes it all but impossible for the independents to remain in business?
The use of the extremely distressing issue of child pornography is the beginning of the widespread censoring of internet content in Australia. It remains to be seen just how far this new censorship will go, or how far independent media and bloggers will allow it to spread before they start fighting back.
Government Expands "Black List" Of Banned Internet Sites
Porn, Violence, 'Terror' And Social Networking Sites Now In Firing Line
Australia Now Bans More Video Games Than Any Other Country In The World
'Terror' Books And Movies To Be Banned Under Extraordinary New Censorship Laws
"Patriotic" Movies, Video Games That "Glorify War" Will Be Excluded From New Ban Regime
Monday, October 29, 2007
'Violent' Pro-Howard Blog Gets Blocked By Government's Web Filters
Is Tim Blair's blog really too dangerous to be viewed by children?
Does it contain adult content? Offensive content? If you visit Blair's blog, will you come across 'High Impact Material' that falls under an X-rated classification as determined by the Howard government censors?
A reader e-mailed Blair recently to let him know that the Howard government's "Won't Someone Please Think Of The Children?" free internet censorship program rates Blair's blog as "violent" and blocks access.
The Howard government recently unfurled an $80 million-plus NetAlert program to provide free content filtering software to all Australian families.
The filtering software responsible for the virtual banning of Blair's blog in tens of thousands of Australian households is called Intergard, which also blocks all peer-to-peer file sharing, and appears to allow third parties (outside the home) to access web surfing histories, without the computer's users being aware.
Such outside access to temporary or hard drive computer files, via free programs like 'net nanny' content filters, are known in intelligence circles as a "backdoor" and are usually accessible through the use of auto-updates, as the Howard government's own content filtering Q & A page admits :
A government that could get their hands on records of the web surfing habits of possibly hundreds of thousands of Australian children and teenagers, through the sharing of information derived from content filtering programs, would be a very well informed government indeed. How many kids are visiting, say, the Kevin07 site, and for how long? What information are they downloading from that site? How many times are they viewing Kevin07 videos?
Valuable information for a government. Particularly if they happened to be in the middle of an extremely grim election campaign.
But back to Blair and his X-rated "violent" blog.
Exactly how does the Howard government's NetAlert content filtering programs go about determining which sites should be blocked, or are deemed to contain prohibited content?
Some info from the NetAlert site :
High impact material.
How's that for a loose and open-to-personal interpretation definition of what can or should be censored?
What is particularly interesting about the above definitions is that you would presume it refers strictly to violent or pornographic images or photographs or videos. Not so.
As Blair has discovered, simply writing about certain subjects, or allowing your commenters to call for the violent deaths of journalists and celebrities (even if they're supposedly 'joking') may be enough to get your site blocked by Howard government online censors.
Or maybe it was Blair's publication of the infamous 'MoToons' that got his site on the blocked list.
Whatever the reason, this is extremely disturbing news.
How will young Australians learn about Evil Lefties, the Great Global Warming Conspiracy, Al Gore's bizarre cold-weather attraction, President Bush's non-plastic turkey, unhinged columnists for the Melbourne Age and David Marr's clearly absurd claims that the Howard government is restricting debate and censoring free speech (oh, right) if they can't get the scoop from Tim 'High Impact Material' Blair?
I'm sure Communications Minister Helen Coonan will move very fast indeed to have Blair's site removed from the blocked list, possibly within a day or two.
The Howard government needs every supportive blogger it can get.
Is Tim Blair's blog really too dangerous to be viewed by children?
Does it contain adult content? Offensive content? If you visit Blair's blog, will you come across 'High Impact Material' that falls under an X-rated classification as determined by the Howard government censors?
A reader e-mailed Blair recently to let him know that the Howard government's "Won't Someone Please Think Of The Children?" free internet censorship program rates Blair's blog as "violent" and blocks access.
The Howard government recently unfurled an $80 million-plus NetAlert program to provide free content filtering software to all Australian families.
The filtering software responsible for the virtual banning of Blair's blog in tens of thousands of Australian households is called Intergard, which also blocks all peer-to-peer file sharing, and appears to allow third parties (outside the home) to access web surfing histories, without the computer's users being aware.
Such outside access to temporary or hard drive computer files, via free programs like 'net nanny' content filters, are known in intelligence circles as a "backdoor" and are usually accessible through the use of auto-updates, as the Howard government's own content filtering Q & A page admits :
These updates are automatically added each time you connect to the internet.
A government that could get their hands on records of the web surfing habits of possibly hundreds of thousands of Australian children and teenagers, through the sharing of information derived from content filtering programs, would be a very well informed government indeed. How many kids are visiting, say, the Kevin07 site, and for how long? What information are they downloading from that site? How many times are they viewing Kevin07 videos?
Valuable information for a government. Particularly if they happened to be in the middle of an extremely grim election campaign.
But back to Blair and his X-rated "violent" blog.
Exactly how does the Howard government's NetAlert content filtering programs go about determining which sites should be blocked, or are deemed to contain prohibited content?
Some info from the NetAlert site :
Internet content filters can be used to help filter offensive web pages.
Some internet content filters use a variety of techniques to detect unwelcome content. One of the most common are ‘black’ or ‘exclusion’ lists to block access to content. These ‘black’ or ‘exclusion’ lists contain websites or website pages that have been deemed to carry inappropriate content...
If the user types in an internet address or click on a link to content which is on a black list, they will be blocked from viewing that content.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) regularly update a list of prohibited content. These websites, or web pages, are blocked by the free internet content filters being provided by the Australian Government’s NetAlert – Protecting Australian Families Online initiative.Prohibited content is determined according to classification guidelines under the National Classification Scheme.
The Australian Government has implemented an online content regulatory scheme which allows the Australian Communications and Media Authority to require websites hosted in Australia to ‘take down’ prohibited material.
Prohibited content is internet content within the classifications RC (‘refused classification') or X 18+.
Certain kinds of extreme content are refused classification...
The RC classification includes content that contains: child pornography; bestiality; excessive violence or sexual violence; detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use.
A third category of strong content is also regulated. Content classified R 18+ includes content that depicts high level violence, implied or simulated sexual activity or other high impact material.
High impact material.
How's that for a loose and open-to-personal interpretation definition of what can or should be censored?
What is particularly interesting about the above definitions is that you would presume it refers strictly to violent or pornographic images or photographs or videos. Not so.
As Blair has discovered, simply writing about certain subjects, or allowing your commenters to call for the violent deaths of journalists and celebrities (even if they're supposedly 'joking') may be enough to get your site blocked by Howard government online censors.
Or maybe it was Blair's publication of the infamous 'MoToons' that got his site on the blocked list.
Whatever the reason, this is extremely disturbing news.
How will young Australians learn about Evil Lefties, the Great Global Warming Conspiracy, Al Gore's bizarre cold-weather attraction, President Bush's non-plastic turkey, unhinged columnists for the Melbourne Age and David Marr's clearly absurd claims that the Howard government is restricting debate and censoring free speech (oh, right) if they can't get the scoop from Tim 'High Impact Material' Blair?
I'm sure Communications Minister Helen Coonan will move very fast indeed to have Blair's site removed from the blocked list, possibly within a day or two.
The Howard government needs every supportive blogger it can get.
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