[AusNOG] Why No Form Of Censorship Is A Good Thing

[Mark Newton]

On 20/07/2010, at 1:10 PM, Phillip Grasso wrote:

Skeeve, any chance you can reach out to these folks and educate them on reality, i think the whole IT community wants to help the children,

See, not everyone believes that.

One of the consistent messages Conroy has been sending is that
ISPs have had decades to "help children," but chose not to for reasons
of profit.  He said as much to my face in the Green Room at SBS in March
2009.

To restate the argument in less-subtle words:  Conroy believes that the
ISP industry is prepared to condone child abuse if we're paid enough
money.

Let that sink in for a few minutes.

It's not him alone.  Some of my opinion pieces at ABC The Drum/Unleashed
have had one persistent commenter who has cut-and-pasted the same
argument over and over and over again:

Search for comments by "phillipa" in this article:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2536879.htm
"Pip" in this one:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2848297.htm
"Jessica," "Rhonda," and "Wesley," in this one:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2952316.htm

All follow the same script, quoting the same discredited statistics to
support a line of reasoning that says people like you and me are
perfectly happy to enable child pornography on the internet as long
as we're all making enough money out of it.  Which is the kind of thing
that'd get you punched if you said it to someone's face in a pub.

Of course, the actual people making money from it are the censorware
vendors who are trying to create a new legally-mandated market for
themselves in Australia by lobbying our clueless communications
minister.  Couldn't possibly ask the government to do anything effective,
because continued availability of child abuse material is, for censorware
vendors, the goose that keeps laying the golden egg.  What better
way to make money than to convince a government to make a product
you sell mandatory?

Suppose one day, a future government wants to fully legalize abortion,

Didn't they do that in the 1970's?  Abortion was settled as a controversial
issue in all but the minds of frothing extremists about 40 years ago, and
its legal availability is supported by over 80% of the population, which is
as close to "unanimous" as you get in a pluralistic society.

They even sell pills to do it these days, that's how accepted it is.

But those aforementioned frothing extremists are perfectly entitled to
launch political arguments to make their case if they wish, and I condemn
the actions of our clueless government, who has used classification
guidelines to censor them on multiple occasions.

What you're presenting as a dire future scenario has already happened.
Pages on abortiontv.com<http://abortiontv.com> were censored by ACMA due to their belief
that they were RC, and ACMA testified in Senate Estimates last year to
say that that wasn't the first such site they'd restricted.  Anti-abortion
propaganda was on the ACMA blacklists leaked last March too;  And
the only thing that prevented the South Australian "AbortSA" MLC
Candidate from receiving a takedown notice for his website was the
fact that it was hosted offshore.

So lets not talk about "future governments," eh?  The one we have now
is plenty bad enough.

  - mark

--
Mark Newton                               Email:  newton at internode.com.au<mailto:newton at internode.com.au> (W)
Network Engineer                          Email:  newton at atdot.dotat.org<mailto:newton at atdot.dotat.org>  (H)
Internode Pty Ltd                         Desk:   +61-8-82282999
"Network Man" - Anagram of "Mark Newton"  Mobile: +61-416-202-223





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