I mean this seriously, since I live about 10,000 miles away; what's the story behind this burst of censorship lately? (A link is fine, but I don't have a clue what to even look for to get an answer.)
Nothing. There hasn't been a burst of censorship recently. As far as I'm aware, censorship laws have remain unchanged for quite some time. What's happened within the last year or two though is that through social media, Americans have become aware of the strict censorship laws that exist within Australia. Many of these people have mistakenly come to the conclusion that such censorship in Australia must be a recent development.
The truth is that if anything, censorship has become less severe. The video games that pass through the Classification Board today without a problem are far, far more violent than what used to require modification a decade ago.
In regards to Internet censorship, it seems consistent with the current legislation. If a government believes that it is the will of the people that extreme porn and violent video games be banned, then the legislation is ineffective if such material is easily accessible via the Internet.
The censorship is not a new thing. I was watching of all things an old interview with Frank Zappa circa 1983 (Rage, ABCTV) ~ http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/netw/200705/programs/LE0630V0... and he was talking about his albums. Album after album was censored. Australia has always had this background level of censorship only now it's more visible.
The current censorship trouble is being driven by the Minister for Communications ~ http://www.google.com/search?q=senator+stephen+conroy you can read more here ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Conroy Another in a long line of political religious zealots keen on pushing through legislation of dubious merit. [0]
[0] I say dubious merit in this case because tracking the kinds of offenders should attacked as a Network science problem not a censorship one.
When Amazon first launched some friends of mine were thrilled at how easy it was to order books that were on the banned books list. Four or so of them ordered PIHKAL.
They all got delivered, except for one. The last guy had a knock on his door and the rest of his order hand delivered by a customs/federal police officer/similar who advised that it probably wasn't smart to be ordering banned books from overseas. He wasn't prosecuted - it was a "we know where you live, bucko" kinda visit.
Also, there is a single Australian senator (Steven Fielding) from a religious right party called Family First who holds the balance of power. His support is often required for the passage of government legislation, and the strong suspicion is that deals on things like internet censorship have been done behind the scenes.
Finally and most critically in my view, we have no enshrined right to freedom of speech or expression in our constitution and most Australians are too apathetic to demands these rights, and protest the government's actions.
This seems to be a serious design flaw in democracy. One person (or one small party), with the ability to swing the majority vote one way or another, ends up with a disproportionate amount of power.
We see this with the Quebec separatists in Canada, and in the US, with their "independent" senators.
Translation: "no True Social Democrat would ever be in favor of censorship."
This is a classic example of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
In the US, campus speech codes against "hate speech" are often worse than this, and campuses overwhelmingly conform to left-leaning views. http://www.thefire.org/index.php
You can read all about it here: http://nocleanfeed.com/learn.html
In regards to euthanasia, it is perfectly fine to discuss the philosophical and political arguments on each side. However, it is currently illegal to provide explicit how-to instructions on performing euthanasia. This has led to the disappointing decision to ban The Peaceful Pill Book, written by Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peaceful_Pill_Handbook
The proposed Internet filter will limit access to extreme porn, excessively violent material and instructions on how to commit crimes. It's regrettable that the government is even proposing such legislation, but it doesn't help anyone to make inaccurate comparisons to countries like China and Iran. A more sensible comparison would be to Denmark, which already has an operational internet filter.
Before, no one could enforce restrictions on speech in Australia. It's not a question of laws or policies, it was physically impossible. You could send police to shut down a TV station, but not a website.
Now it is a matter of laws or policies.
No, you're presupposing the answer. Specifically, you have already decided where the line is between political debate and illegal action.
But I claim that this isn't an inherent line. For example, it's impossible to fully debate euthanasia without understanding how it's done. Yet your assumption implicitly bars introduction of that material. And China makes the claim that pr0n is inherently destabilizing to the country -- the very same argument you're making against how-to on euthanasia.
There's no absolute freedom of political communication in Australia. Instead, there's a test of whether the law is appropriate and adapted to a legitimate purpose. It's not at all clear how internet censorship laws will fare under this test.
When your communication minister is making reference to Chinese internet policy in a favorable context you know something's gone badly wrong somewhere.
A lot of talking, but so far everything looks business as usual in China, AFAIK.
Yes, "Google baulks at Conroy's call to censor YouTube" (Asher Moses, The Age) ~ http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-b...
http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/stephen-conroy-extende...
Conroy wasn't talking about YouTube specifically, but about Google and high-volume websites in general that currently aren't possible to filter through software. I'd be surprised if YouTube did contain material that the OFLC would consider Refused Classification.
I know it will never happen - but would be so awesome if it did.
GDP of China: $4.33 Trillion
Population of Australia: 21,374,000
GDP of Australia: $1.02 Trillion
As unfair as China's censorship is, they can have it because they have a large enough market. Is Australia really large enough for Google to be that concerned about?
It's not fair. But then again, business isn't fair either.
I've noticed some intelligent and balanced commentary from the US State dept recently regarding Internet censorship, democracy and human rights.
The general public here is still of the naive opinion that the internet is dangerous.
