Group items tagged

A Crikey article on DBCDE's proposal of mandatory filtering and the "Submissions on measures to increase accountability and transparency for Refused Classification material". The Government's courting of mandatory filtering has drawn widespread criticism from such stakeholders as Google, the Internet Industry Association and highly regarded academics such as Professors Catherine Lumby, Lelia Greean and John Hartley. One of the main concerns is that the scope of the filtering is too wide and will have major implications on what content is available online. This article also helpfully provides links to some of the submissions.

Classic case of RC style censorship. Facebook presumably in response to a complaint but ... who knows.. removes all pictures of this woman happily breastfeeding her twins in a completely non sexual context yet allows many overtly sexual 'titty' groups to remain - with pictures. Grassroots campaign of support starting on twitter but as the originator says.. no major media interested! Many women are starting to collect instances of other breastfeeding photos and groups being 'disbanded', 'removed' or in Australian terms 'refused classification'.

According to Stephen Conroy, there is nothing that can be done to stop the passing of the legislation implementing mandatory internet filtering. He stands by all the statements he has previously made, and advises this IS occurring in June.

This article is about Stephen Conroy's push for the Internet filtering regardlessof the scrutiny it has undergone over the past months. The government will force ISPs to block a series of websites that have been secretly identified as refused classification.

Call for consultation regarding Australian government's mandatory internet filtering scheme. 

"Australia's biggest technology companies, communications academics and many lobby groups have delivered a withering critique of the government's plans to censor the internet." (quoting smh, 23/3/10, 4.40pm)

As Facebook is criticised for refusing to allow a child safety button on its network, we look at some of the online dangers kids face and measures being taken to educate kids about those dangers.

Ridiculous to see that the 'control by confiscation' approach is being adopted by some schools. Refusing to allow kids to engage in technology by way of whatever device is a somewhat naive approach by educational facilities. Are these schools thinking that technology will just go away?!

This is a blog that deals with everything to do with games. This post talks about Australian classification laws applying to international games companies when they choose to allow Refused Classification games into Australia. The question of borders comes to mind when reading this somewhat long and unedited post, but it certainly gets us thinking about the scope of Australia's antiquated classification laws...

The topic of domain names as a commodity isn't new, but the prices auctions are fetching for names is. When $2 million is refused for 'jeans.com' it paints a picture of the cost/benefit ratio of domain investment - where the potential financial benefits are clearly outweighing initial costs. The trend developing is for multinational companies to buy domain names with commonly understood verbs (eg dating.com) or nouns (eg books.com). It strengthens their own branded domain name and targets consumers who are undertaking searches on the net for the thing they want - be it a service or good - as opposed to searching for the company that sells that thing. Does it suggest that searching habits are changing? Is brand awareness and brand loyalty losing power?

"The invisible shareholders, who are either money launderers, drug dealers or some people using government money, pick the directors of the banks because of their holdings, but have refused to disclose their identities," he said.

Rudd's internet filtering proposal is legally flawed. William's outlines simply how our existing classification system has its own problems and is unsuitable to classify internet content .

It's great to see that there is a legal argument against the filter, but it isn't something that Government is likely to take into consideration as they can easily get around it by defining the legalities surrounding the internet to be different to what we have currently. It proves their hypocrisy, but I doubt that concerns them...