"Wikileaks has released the secret Internet censorship list for Denmark. The list contains 3863 sites blocked by Danish ISPs participating in Denmark's censorship scheme as of February 2008. Danish ISPs "volunteer" to censor their users rather than face legislation and the top three ISPs are participants. " http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Denmark:_3863_sites_on_censorship_list%2C_Feb_2008
I'm just a random anon who has stumbled here and thought id throw my meaningless opinion your way.
the concern felt by almost everyone who believes that censorship in ANY FORM is wrong is the fear that once law is put in place to ban or "filter" information is that those same laws brought about to "protect our country" can and may be used to benefit the interests of a few mindless and uncaring people.
Censorship in ANY FORM is bad. Would you condone the government to go into your libraries and remove "offensive books"??? Would you approve if the government decided that a show on TV or radio was a threat to Australia and banned it without your approval?
We have institutions in place to control the media that arrives into our lounge rooms - it is mediated by the public interest - those who are offended by the media shown on tv can contact the relevant government body (for example).
The issue that I have - that I hope you can agree with is that we should not remove censorship from our hands - the hands of the community. Once control is placed in the hands of misguided people it will be used for political gain - for monetary gain - and that is never ok.
This filter is coming about according to the PR folks at the government because they want to protect Australia from child porn - a noble cause - but the problem is we already have solutions to stop this.
The solution to the problem here is not BANNING INFORMATION (and lets not mince words here, that is exactly what is meant by the word 'filter') instead we need to provide MORE information - educate the population as to how to protect their children from the dangerous things that occur on the internet.
Banning information never works - it divides an already hostile public and breeds hatred and tension. We should be embracing the digital age and becoming smarter people - people who know that the world is a dangerous place, but know how to navigate through life only experiencing what they want to experience.
The governments role is not one to control the actions and freedoms of its public - it is that of a servant to the public needs and requests. All information should be free - all media should be publicly mediated.
the problem is that the government can't respond to complaints made about websites created overseas. there is very little the government can actually do to regulate the internet.
i like what you're saying about becoming better at dealing with the internet, but i disagree on your view of censorship. porn or other material that is exploitative of both children and adults, or real-life violence like those cunts from werribee, should be censored. i think it is in the public interest to understand what it is out there, and how low people can go, but i also think that removing an avenue for showing this kind of material will aid in preventing further violence, abuse and exploitation.
since australia is struggling so hard with creating internet policy relevant to the rest of the world, it seems wholly unlikely that they would indulge in censorship of contentious political material, when it could be accessed easily elsewhere. the labor government don't have that much scope for what they can actually get away with censoring. if it turns out that an unreasonable and unfair approach is taken, i'll be 100% against this, but i can't see myself changing my support of the censorship of material that has actively harmed people in its creation.
Censorship, in and of itself, is not "bad". Your entire dialectic is entrenched in a technological mode of thought.
You frame things, through an already reductive terminology, such that they appear negative (e.g. let's not mince words). By viewing everything as information, we have already stripped it of its value, of its being. We could view everything as quarks, or shapes or etc. but we would have again stripped them of their essence. However I could, in such an enframing, phrase things to sound negative. "You're just against certain brain states!" (Murder is of course just a brain state through the lense of neuroscience). Etc. There's a ton of boring examples, but we aren't mincing words, you are mincing words when you attempt to reduce everything on the internet to just information. Child porn is not just 0's and 1's.
Further, can't you see that your notions of viewing things reductively, particularly as information, is tied into the mechanics of profitability?
Further, as already stated, censorship itself is not a problem, but it's difficult to implement particularly in our era, where the masses are so liberal that common thoughts are "people should be able to decide for themselves what is best" and "liberty" and "rights" are shouted at every corner, with each new decay of culture being seen as a new "liberty" (just look at the porn industry and how it is perceived by the mainstream over the last thirty years).
The danger with the web is how quickly new information is produced, and, just as censorship itself is not bad, information itself is not good.
It included hundreds of YouTube videos as well as blogs, cartoons and an article in the Economist magazine banned for reasons of "lese majeste", or criticising the King. "
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,,24840535-5017320,00.html
"Wikileaks has released the secret Internet censorship list for Denmark. The list contains 3863 sites blocked by Danish ISPs participating in Denmark's censorship scheme as of February 2008. Danish ISPs "volunteer" to censor their users rather than face legislation and the top three ISPs are participants. "
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Denmark:_3863_sites_on_censorship_list%2C_Feb_2008
I'm just a random anon who has stumbled here and thought id throw my meaningless opinion your way.
the concern felt by almost everyone who believes that censorship in ANY FORM is wrong is the fear that once law is put in place to ban or "filter" information is that those same laws brought about to "protect our country" can and may be used to benefit the interests of a few mindless and uncaring people.
Censorship in ANY FORM is bad. Would you condone the government to go into your libraries and remove "offensive books"??? Would you approve if the government decided that a show on TV or radio was a threat to Australia and banned it without your approval?
We have institutions in place to control the media that arrives into our lounge rooms - it is mediated by the public interest - those who are offended by the media shown on tv can contact the relevant government body (for example).
The issue that I have - that I hope you can agree with is that we should not remove censorship from our hands - the hands of the community. Once control is placed in the hands of misguided people it will be used for political gain - for monetary gain - and that is never ok.
This filter is coming about according to the PR folks at the government because they want to protect Australia from child porn - a noble cause - but the problem is we already have solutions to stop this.
The solution to the problem here is not BANNING INFORMATION (and lets not mince words here, that is exactly what is meant by the word 'filter') instead we need to provide MORE information - educate the population as to how to protect their children from the dangerous things that occur on the internet.
Banning information never works - it divides an already hostile public and breeds hatred and tension. We should be embracing the digital age and becoming smarter people - people who know that the world is a dangerous place, but know how to navigate through life only experiencing what they want to experience.
The governments role is not one to control the actions and freedoms of its public - it is that of a servant to the public needs and requests. All information should be free - all media should be publicly mediated.
Reply
Reply
i like what you're saying about becoming better at dealing with the internet, but i disagree on your view of censorship. porn or other material that is exploitative of both children and adults, or real-life violence like those cunts from werribee, should be censored. i think it is in the public interest to understand what it is out there, and how low people can go, but i also think that removing an avenue for showing this kind of material will aid in preventing further violence, abuse and exploitation.
since australia is struggling so hard with creating internet policy relevant to the rest of the world, it seems wholly unlikely that they would indulge in censorship of contentious political material, when it could be accessed easily elsewhere. the labor government don't have that much scope for what they can actually get away with censoring. if it turns out that an unreasonable and unfair approach is taken, i'll be 100% against this, but i can't see myself changing my support of the censorship of material that has actively harmed people in its creation.
Reply
You frame things, through an already reductive terminology, such that they appear negative (e.g. let's not mince words). By viewing everything as information, we have already stripped it of its value, of its being. We could view everything as quarks, or shapes or etc. but we would have again stripped them of their essence. However I could, in such an enframing, phrase things to sound negative. "You're just against certain brain states!" (Murder is of course just a brain state through the lense of neuroscience). Etc. There's a ton of boring examples, but we aren't mincing words, you are mincing words when you attempt to reduce everything on the internet to just information. Child porn is not just 0's and 1's.
Further, can't you see that your notions of viewing things reductively, particularly as information, is tied into the mechanics of profitability?
Further, as already stated, censorship itself is not a problem, but it's difficult to implement particularly in our era, where the masses are so liberal that common thoughts are "people should be able to decide for themselves what is best" and "liberty" and "rights" are shouted at every corner, with each new decay of culture being seen as a new "liberty" (just look at the porn industry and how it is perceived by the mainstream over the last thirty years).
The danger with the web is how quickly new information is produced, and, just as censorship itself is not bad, information itself is not good.
Reply
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