UK Goes Mad With New Opt-In To Porn Policy

The conservative government in the UK has announced that all households in the UK will have to officially opt-in to allowing porn by notifying their ISPs of their intention. The Guardian reports: In the most dramatic step by the government to crack down on the “corroding” influence of pornography on childhood, the prime minister will say that all internet users will be contacted by their service providers and given an Read More …

Australia Is Now Well Hung

Over the weekend, Australia had an election. Now the people have spoken and their overwhelming response is: Meh. We have a hung parliament. Neither Labor or the Liberal/National coalition won enough seats to form government. This means the fate of the country lies with three country independents and a freshly minted Greens MP. Meanwhile, the Greens have gained control of the senate. This is all fantastic news. If you’ve been Read More …

The Big Red Shiny Button

History Eraser Buttonemski* [AVS/MFL] | MySpace Video Fresh from saving us all from “spams and scams coming through the portal“, Minister for Communications Senator Conroy has come up with another brilliant idea to save the kiddies from all the horrors of the internet. A nice shiny red browser button. Based on the Adobe Air platform, the security device, notionally referred to as a “big red button” will either occupy the Read More …

Blacked Out

You may notice that I’ve changed the colour of my header image. My usual cheerful purple has been replaced by black and grey. This is because I’m taking part in the Great Australian Internet Blackout this week (24th-29th). The blackout is part of the ongoing protests against the plan to impose a mandatory internet filter on all Australians. It’s mainly to raise awareness about the issue. I also spent a Read More …

Female Ejaculation Films To Be Banned In Australia

I’ve received a circular from the Eros Association, the advocacy group for the Australian adult industry. Thanks to shit stirring by a fundamentalist Christian group, the rules have been tightened as to what adult films can be imported into Australia. The Classification Board has explicitly stated that films featuring female ejaculation will now be seized and considered RC – refused classification. Effectively banned. This also means that female ejaculation sites Read More …

Mandatory Net Filter Gets The Green Light

The mandatory internet filter has been on the cards for nearly two years now but I must admit I honestly didn’t think it would get off the ground. The whole idea is manifestly flawed and technically unfeasable and I foolishly thought that Senator Conroy would have to bow to common sense in the end. Alas, no. Religious zealotry tends to flush away all common sense and thus it is that Read More …

At Least 40 Legitimate Adult Sites Blacklisted

Following on from yesterday’s blacklist post… Wikileaks went down yesterday but it’s back up again today. I’ve just spent a bit of time going through the list again and making a note of all the adult websites that I’ve heard of before, ones that feature consenting adults or are run by adult companies that I know. The list contains 40 domains. The majority of them are hardcore sites, a lot Read More …

Adventures With A Blacklist

Two days ago I was complaining that the internet filter plan is sucking up my time. Damn, if that hasn’t been true today. At 11am the SMH revealed that the ACMA blacklist of “illegal” sites had been leaked on Wikileaks. Naturally I went straight there to check out what the government authority considers to be “prohibited content.” As is to be expected, the list is a fairly abhorrent catalogue of Read More …

Besieged

You may have noticed that the blog has been scarce with posts recently. That’s because I took another week off, relaxing and trying to recover from a bad RSI attack. The house I stayed in only had dialup, which decreased my computer use substantially – and a lovely thing it was too. Now I’m home again and over the last couple of days have been sucked into the usual round Read More …

Teens And Porn: Facts Rather Than Hysteria

So this week has seen Clive Hamilton come out hyperventilating in support of the ill-considered mandatory internet filter – originally his idea, by the way. His arguments are flawed in a lot of ways and I recommend the excellent Somebody Think Of The Children blog for further analysis. To be honest I’ve been trying to stop thinking about it because it, and the comments section, inundated with nonsense as a Read More …

A New Joy Of Sex, Censorship And Other Linky Stuff

Once again I’ve got a bunch of things to write about and I’m just going to be lazy and bung them all into one post with a nice sexy pic to make it a bit more fun. First – they’re about to release the rejiggered Joy Of Sex. The New York Times has a great article about how the book has aged and it goes into some interesting detail about Read More …

Opposition To The Clean Feed Grows

Today I’m feeling optimistic about the future of the internet in Australia. Grassroots group GetUp has finally launched a campaign against the clean feed. They’ve already collected 32,000 signatures in a little over 24 hours and the comments are running hot on their site. Apparently they’ve had more emails requesting a campaign on this issue than anything else. There are now protests planned on December 14 in a number of Read More …

Australian Porn, Censorship And Statistics Roundup

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 Read More …