Banning BMW

This is so stupid. Aparently BMW encourages Victorians to hoon, so much so that their new ad campaign has been banned from TV.

“Australia's advertising watchdog outlawed the ad for a BMW convertible because driving stunts shown in the clip would break Australian road rule laws.”

And again, demonstrating the futility of said ban, the article describing the ban actively links to the ad.

However if our benign overlords in the government who want to control everything Australians are allowed to see on the internet, had their way, would we be now prevented from accessing www.bmw.com? And anyway, if you are going to take away “speed” and “dangerous driving” from a car ad... exactly what would you be left with?

Probably not this…

"Burnout Paradise" - a computer game with truly awesome photorealistic car crashes.

What about movies with car chases? Does the advertising watchdog really believe Australians are so stupid that watching a BMW with painted tires skid around a warehouse is going to encourage hoons to skid around on real roads? Clearly the timing of such a ban is linked to recent tragedies and seems like a knee-jerk reaction which really won’t attack the underlying causes of these tragedies.

Or could it be that the advertising watchdog is too tied up not dealing with AMI ads that they needed to show Australians they’re actually doing something?

Naughty Computer Games

The Australian government is attempting to introduce an internet censorship ostensible to “protect the children” from the bogeyman of child pornography. As I previously wrote here :

• The scheme will use a blacklist of web sites that every internet company will be forced to use.
• This blacklist will be decided by the government.
• This blacklist has been 'protected' by Freedom of Information laws (FoI) so that ordinary Australians will not know which websites have been banned, and therefore will have no recourse to protest the banning of certain websites

One thing I had not emphasized is that that there will be no oversight of this scheme. Whatever the government decides should be censored from Australians will be banned. No recourse, no protest, no take backs, do not pass Go. Do Not collect $200. Given the exemption from FoI laws, Australians will not even know “what” sites have been banned.

As with pretty much every government scheme with no oversight and a faulty mandate, mission creep is inevitable. So from The Age (June 25), we now have an example of how this scheme will evolve:

“The Federal Government has now set its sights on gamers, promising to use its internet censorship regime to block websites hosting and selling video games that are not suitable for 15 year olds.”

From the article, because Australia’s current censorship scheme does not have an R18+ rating for computer games, any games with ‘unacceptable’ content are simply banned and you can’t buy them. Blanket banning game downloads or online games seems to be overstepping the bounds of stopping child pornography, and kind of smacks of ‘ideological convenience’ or a quick fix to something that really wasn’t a problem to begin with.

Box graphics from a computer game Hilary Clinton had an issue with

I’m not arguing that there are not games that do not have content that is offensive or disgusting (as a recent title from Japan demonstrates) however I don’t believe this falls under the mandate of this scheme. From the Australian Government’s own website:

“The Government's election commitment was that filtering would block content using a blacklist of prohibited sites maintained by the This link sends you off DBCDE's websiteAustralian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in accordance with legislation. The ACMA blacklist is a list of internet web sites, predominantly comprising images of the sexual abuse of children, which are defined as 'prohibited' under Australian legislation which has been in place since 2000.”

I’m not sure why computer games that do not have violent, degrading or illegual sexual imagery are banned, such as "Marc Eckō's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure", which if Wikipedia is to be believed was “Banned [in Australia] because of high impact violence and the glorification of graffiti”

I totally understand how the “glorification of graffiti” can, in its’ own way destroy society, however there is a fairly strong argument that this could be overstepping the bounds of what is deemed unacceptable and censorship-worthy. Also, from this 2006 article, it is clear that ACMA, has wanted expanded powers to ban and censor online content for all Australians for a little while:

If prohibited material is hosted in Australia, ACMA can issue take-down notices or inform relevant law enforcement agencies to take action but its powers dramatically wane when faced with overseas hosting, as is the case with Postal.

"With overseas hosting, ACMA can refer the content from the downloadable source to manufacturers of content filters so ISPs can block the offending URLs," Barnard said."

In 2006, ACMA did not have those powers. If the Australian government successfully implements their internet content filtering scheme, they will have them.

Today, it’s the “glorification of graffiti”, tomorrow “climate change denial”?

Links:

GTA "Hot Coffee" link (warning: badly rendered polygons made to look like two people having sex): http://www.spike.com/video/hot-coffee/2673401

More videogame sex scenes: http://www.ugo.com/lifestyle/best-video-game-sex-scenes/

Get your hands off my Feed!

shot of crowd at the Anti Internet Censorship rally in Melbourne, Saturday 13th Dec

So on this rainy Saturday afternoon, the No Clean Feed people organized a protest against the Australian Government's proposed internet censorship scheme. About 200-300 people turned up and they had about half a dozen speakers from ISPs, Amnesty International, Electronic Frontiers Australia, "Internet professionals" (not quite sure what that guy did) and some 'random dude' (more about Mr random later).

some dude from an ISP (Sorry, I didn't catch his name - ed)

A couple of take-away points:

• The scheme will use a blacklist of web sites that every internet company will be forced to use.
• This blacklist will be decided by the government.
• This blacklist has been 'protected' by Freedom of Information laws (FoI) so that ordinary Australians will not know which websites have been banned, and therefore will have no recourse to protest the banning of certain websites
• Telstra and Internode (Australia's largest and 2nd largest ISPs respectively) have point blank refused to take part in the trial.
• The proposed scheme will only prevent people from accessing certain websites. Illicit material swapped via peer-to-peer (P2P... think Napster or Kazaa) or any other mechanism that doesn't involve a web browser will not be stopped. For those not technically minded, I can assure you that the "bad people" on the net rarely use webpages to trade in their stuff.
  
  

The speakers for the most part all made some good points, and the temptation to compare the proposed internet censorship scheme to Hitler's bookburning was there in full effect from some of the more politically aligned speakers.


The crowd composition was mixed; families, IT workers, socialist activists, turtles.

An Anti-Censorship turtle?

I saw one keffiyeh and Mr random, as part of his speech against censorship asked the crowd "Did you know that there has been a genocide going on in Palestine for 40 years?" with some mutterings of assent from the crowd.

Now, for Mr random to say that would rather suggest that his internet at home is already being filtered by his own very misguided views. Also he started his speech saying "My dear old mum had a saying: I might disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it." The more astute of you (or anyone who can use Google) may have noticed that Mr random's dear old mum did not invent this quote, it was the french philosopher Voltaire who said "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

Now I'm all for using quotes, whether they be from Mr random's dear old mum or one of the Enlightenment philosophers, but if you do use a grandstanding quote, I would suggest you attribute it to the right person, otherwise you might look a little 'foolish' however he clearly had the crowd on his side and those that might resent his misappropriation of a quote (ie. me) kept quiet.

St George slaying the dragon of censorship

All in all, not a bad turn out. If the socialist group organising the rallies can realize this issue transcends the usual left/right perspectives, they will have a greater chance of success. If, on the other hand, they use it simply as a springboard to indoctrinate individuals into socialist activism (which, by my conversation with the earnest young lad where I signed the petition, seemed to be going) they will be battling against the usual political apathy of the average Aussie, which is legend.

The crowd about to start some chants on the steps of the State Library

Censoring the Internet

The Australian Federal Government is attempting to mandate internet filtering at the ISP level. Ie. they want to force ISPs to implementing filtering technologies to restrict access to certain websites based what the government decides Australian citizens shouldn't see.

This is being advanced primarily on the platform of "saving the children", specifically from child pornorgraphy. However the legislation as it's worded does not explain exactly how the Government will decide certain web sites are unacceptable for ALL Australian citizens (not just those involving child pornography). Of course, Australians won't be able to know which sites are blocked, because as in all censorship schemes, this kind of transparency is unlikely for obvious reasons. If the government succeeds, Australia will be joining such esteemed champions of free speech such as China, Saudia Arabia and Iran.

There are simultaneous protests being held around the country on Saturday 13th December. Details available from http://www.nocleanfeedforum.com/. The Melbourne protest details are available from here and here. Facebook event here.