I’ve accumulated a number of interesting links regarding Australian censorship, statistics and hot websites so I thought I’d cheat and just whack them all in one post.
Firstly, Catharine Lumby, one of the authors of The Porn Report, has given a fascinating talk about the history of censorship and porn to the Sydney Institute. You can find a video of the event here.
While despairingly contemplating the state of Australia when it comes to censorship and moral panic, I found Somebody Think Of The Children, an excellent pro-free speech blog. Writer Mike Meloni casts a wide net. At the moment he’s discussing the crazy censorship of computer games and the looming threat of government ISP filtering. Worth checking out.
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While the politicians and conservatives outdo each other to protect us from ourselves, a poll reveals – once again – that Aussies love their porn. A Newspoll survey found that 70% of Australians want bans on X rated films overturned. This figure rises to 82% of 18-24 year olds. Interestingly, 80% of people with children are in favour of legalisation compared to 69% of those without. I’m wondering if priests were included in the latter group.
Meanwhile, Sexpo has just finished in Sydney, attracting 50,000 or so visitors. The organisers say nobody is shocked by it anymore, Australians are really relaxed about sex.
Given this information, I’m now speculating on the previously mentioned plan to place mandatory filters on ISPs to block porn. I’ve seen a suggestion that this scheme will be even worse than first thought. The plan is that if you want to look at porn, you give your name to the government to “opt out.” That’s unappealing enough, but what if the “unfiltered” feed only allows access to very small number Australian R-rated sex sites pre-approved by the OFLC?
Cue the revolution, perhaps? Because I think if you do try and take away unfettered internet porn from Australians, they’re not going to be as apathetic as they have been in the past. Either that or I’m moving to Amsterdam. Perhaps both.
So, here’s a couple of examples of sites that don’t have the government’s tick of approval and may be filtered out.
Fancies and Fuckeries blog offers the personal musings of a rather sexy Melbourne guy plus plenty of cock pics. The author starred in Anna Brownfield’s upcoming erotica film The Band and he also does a bit of nude modelling on the side. Nice.
He led me to Aaryon, a truly delightful nude art photography site. There’s not a lot of info about who’s behind it, but the pics are glorious.
Thanks for compiling this info. I have recently defended one of our local Adult boutiques on radio and in the local paper. “The Porn Report” was a handy reference to have i will be sure to pilfer more of the info you have posted here 🙂
If the Federal government does go for a whitelisting approach, one has to wonder what the criteria will be for getting on such a whitelist. For example, would merely linking to a site /not/ on the whitelist mean that the linking site itself could not be whitelisted?
If, on the other hand, they go for a blacklisting approach, would it end up like the Finnish list?
Wow. Cheers for the kind words Ms Naughty.
@Alexis: It will almost certainly be based on a blacklist approach. ISP whitelisting for this sort of thing would be very difficult to manage. Much harder than say a email spam whitelist. Blacklisting filters were trialed and it’s what they’ll try to use.
– Mike
I’ve been a bit too blase about the filtering thing up to now because I thought it was technically impossible and that Labor were just trying to look busy for the Jesus freaks. But they’re actually serious.
I read this page at Electronic Fronteirs Australia: http://www.efa.org.au/censorship/mandatory-isp-blocking/ The major flaw with the plan is the bit that requires the OFLC to classify every single site on the internet. When they realise that doesn’t work they might go for automated content filtering. When we get to that point, the peasants may well revolt. And I’ll be emigrating.
Interestingly, the ABC news had a story tonight on how China is censoring the internet and how it’s pissing off the foreign journalists there. I desperately want someone in the media to point out that it’s exactly what our own government is planning to inflict on us.