[AusNOG] More legislative interventions

[greg]

Australian regulation seems to have come a long way since this research 
paper (Can the Internet be regulated? ) funnily enough located in the 
APH archives..
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/RP9596/96rp35

Regards all.
Greg

On 4/04/2019 11:18 pm, Karl Auer wrote:
> On Thu, 2019-04-04 at 09:36 +0000, Bevan Slattery wrote:
>> The road to hell is paved with good intentions...
> Indeed.
>
> Paul Wilkins:
>> There is much on the internet that is simply not fit for human
>> consumption, and the state ought to have the power to remove it.
>> Where the bill specifies abhorrent violent content, I think most sane
>> people realise there is nothing to gain in allowing this content.
> Not fit for human consumption? So only non-humans consume it? Let's get
> in quick and dehumanise the opposition!
>
> What a lot in such a small para! Anyone disagreeing is insane. A
> variant of the "all right-thinking people agree..." argument, well
> known, if completely lacking in intellectual rigour.
>
> "The state ought to have the power to remove it" - except the state
> doesn't have that power, cannot technically have that power and very
> arguably should not have that power. I'll allow that "ought" at least
> indicates opinion rather than a wild stab at fact.
>
> Now to the core of it: "Abhorrent, violent content". Abhorrent to whom?
> Well, all right-thinking people of course! The only problem is that one
> person's abhorrent is another person's nice cup of tea. Who decides,
> and where is the line that distinguishes "abhorrent, violent content"
> from other content?
>
> No handy-wavey stuff, please! Who, specifically, decides, and on what
> specific basis do they decide? Does this plan involve a panel of
> qualified people, with well-defined guidelines, processes for altering
> those guidelines, sunset clauses, public access to decisions and the
> reasons for them, accessible avenues of appeal without undue cost and
> with reasonable timeframes, exemptions for things like public interest
> and documentary value, provision for penalties paid out of the public
> purse if a mistake is made...?
>
> If the new powers have all those properties, then I am right behind
> them. If not, then their supporters can place them where the sun does
> not shine.
>
> It defeats me how anyone of even moderate intelligence[1] can look at
> the last hundred years of Western history and agree so timidly to
> placing of ever more onerous anti-civilian power into the hands of
> agencies that have proven themselves time and again to be unfit to
> wield them.
>
> The link between hateful speech and hateful action is, however it may
> look in the wake of an event like Christchurch, still a very indirect
> and tenuous one. A thousand things and many years led to that hateful
> act. Legally stifling any speech not directly and specifically leading
> to injury[2] is a very dangerous thing to do, and should be approached
> with vastly more caution that our puerile and incompetent government
> has demonstrated.
>
> There are presumably plenty of people that "abhorrent, violent content"
> will not harm. They may not have enjoyed it or supported it, but they
> can't watch it now. It's been taken away from them, too. Are we *sure*
> there was nothing to gain? How will we ever know?
>
> Except that of course it hasn't been taken away really - it is still
> out there and available. Just not easily to ordinary people. It is
> *most* easily available to those who now share it secretly; those who
> do watch it for pleasure and with hate in their hearts. Nice work, hey!
> Mission accomplished?
>
> When asked, most people will say that they, personally, would of course
> not be [harmed, radicalised, traumatised] by viewing [insert current
> bogeyman here], but that there are others - weak, sad, awful or
> vulnerable people - who [would, could, might] be terribly harmed and so
> for the good of those people, said content should be [banned, burned,
> buried].[3]
>
> Go on - try it on yourself. Ask yourself if you honestly feel that you,
> personally, would have been harmed in any way (other than temporary
> discomfort) by viewing this abhorrent, violent content. Try it with a
> few other bogeymen! What about porn? Violent video games? Sexist
> diatribes? Racist rants?
>
> I will *bet* that you too, dear reader, do not feel you would suffer
> lasting harm from any of those. That you feel you are strong enough,
> stable enough, sure enough of yourself, to be safe. This is not to say
> that you would seek such things out, just that if you were to view
> them, you would not be damaged. And if you feel that way, you being (of
> course!) a normal, ordinary, right-thinking person, then is it not
> likely that other normal, ordinary, right-thinking people might also
> feel the same way and correctly adjudge such content as being harmless
> to *them*? Hmmm!
>
> Get hate speech out in the open. That is in no way "normalising" it.
> Use existing anti-discrimination and anti-hate laws against it. Use
> free speech to attack it. Teach others, especially your children, to
> recognise it. Call it out when you hear it. Make those who promote it
> pariahs (censuring that piss-poor excuse for a politician, Fraser
> Anning, was a great start). And if some band of nutjobs wants a
> website, so what? It gathers them all in one nicely monitorable place
> so that law enforcement can act when the next murderous thug says "I'm
> gonna kill them all".
>
> If government really wants to do something about hateful speech it
> should firstly stop using it, and secondly work to support and
> encourage the above activities. Saying "shut up" does nothing except
> breed seething silence. Saying "you're wrong and here's why" at least
> provides a path out of ignorance.
>
> Stifling hateful speech just pushes it into the dark. Light it up.
>
> Regards, K.
>
> [1] I genuinely do not understand how an intelligent person can support
> curtailment of speech (or other civil liberties such as freedom of
> assembly) without extraordinary protections in law. For me, such
> support is very close to prima facie evidence of LACK of intelligence,
> or at very least failure to use it.
>
> [2] Canonical example: Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. Less
> canonical example: Temporarily suppressing information about a current
> court case or police investigation. Very current example: Explicit
> encouragement to kill.
>
> [3] Won't someone think of the children?!?
>