Re: Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets

Steffen Schulz wrote:
> On 091215 at 23:27, david wrote:
>> The scary thing is that they are going to block URL's (pretty
>> pointless if you are trying to stop pedophiles and terrorists) but
>> nobody is allowed to know what or who is ON their black list.
>> Apparently they are worried that we will be corrupted by the URL
>> itself. Or maybe they are worried we will all rush off to New
>> Zealand armed with a laptop and the naughty list, thus getting
>> corrupted more efficiently.
> 
> But you also can not just make the list public. Any teenager outside
> Australia will go for it, the very first time they get Internet access
> in the life.

Teenagers  aren't the problem. Even if they were, do you really think that having some censor with 
an agenda controlling what you see is an answer to anything? If we are to be censored, it MUST be 
done in the clear light of day or we are no better than the worst fascists or communists.

> If you reduce that list to the real issues, child abuse and sexual
> violence, it would be real easy to find international consensus, so
> that you can track and shut down servers instead of having to set up
> censorship infrastructure.


Actually, you are wrong. It's not at all clear what constitutes sexual violence or child abuse, and 
censoring it is NOT going to solve anything.

Knee jerks are almost invariably dangerous. I have two close relatives doing intense academic work 
in the areas of child abuse and sexual violence and they will  quickly tell you that censorship 
doesn't stop it. In the case of sexual violence, there isn't even consensus as to what it actually 
*is*. Then of course, there is the problem that people who are actually trying to do something 
useful will be barred access to the very material that might help.

Up until recently, there was a lot of child abuse going on in orphanages and convents which the 
blaze of sunlight has done more to eradicate than decades of censorship ever did.

This type of censorship is driven by the religious right or the suburban fearful, the same people 
who gave you pedophile priests. It also leave the door wide open for political censorship. You can't 
beat a good book burning.
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