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 …

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 …

ISP Filtering: Australians Don’t Want It

The Australian government seems determined to go ahead with plans to filter the internet at ISP level, making people “opt in” if they want to see adult sites. While the story itself is distinctly biased, the 51 comments listed after it cheered me up immensely. About 95% of them are against ISP filtering, and all make the point that parents shouldn’t expect the government to do their job for them. Read More …

I Need An Anti-Christian Filter For Google

This month’s feature at For The Girls is about cybersex. It’s a fairly general article that looks at the appeal of one handed typing and discusses some of the negative issues like whether it constitutes cheating. The article proved difficult to research thanks to the bazillion Christian-based sites out there raving about the terrible dangers of cybersex and how it’s always “addictive” and ruins relationships. I spent over an hour Read More …

Hey Hey! Teen Outwits Porn Filter

Three cheers for 16 year old Tom Wood who, in half an hour, proved that the new Australian government-approved porn filter isn’t worth the smear on an IT expert’s underpants. He’s shown that spending $84 million on compulsory net filtering software is a complete waste of money because teenagers know how to get around that kind of thing. If they want to look at porn, they will. But what I’m Read More …

Sex Panics and “Protecting The Children”

I’ve spent a bit of time mulling over this interview between Susie Bright and author Debbie Nathan (thanks to Violet Blue for the link). They discuss sex panics and censorship and Debbie bravely puts the question out there about whether there’s as much child pornography as popular belief (and the government) suggests. It’s a question worth asking given that child abuse is being used to justify attacks on civil rights Read More …