(a)”Do you oppose in principle the filtering of “criminal content,” such as child sex abuse and sexual violence?”

That’s one of those “when did you stop beating your wife” questions, isn’t it But yes, I oppose filtering of content – whether that content is “criminal” is a different notion.

(b) “Were it possible to filter these out without impacting upon more benign materials, would you support it?”

Once again, this begs the question. I don’t believe there is any technology currently available that could do this as an internet file is little more than a bundle of zeros and ones that become “criminal” only when translated into a readable form.

(c) Or do you believe that the internet should make all materials, including, say, real child porn and snuff films available?

I believe the internet already allows anything, which would include real child porn and alleged snuff films. The execution of Saddam Hussain and journalist Daniel Pearl were televised “live” over the internet. Making things “available” on the internet is NOT like making things “available” in a library.

But I’m up for a “thought experiment” here: So what if there were some super-duper “Colossus Computer” that could scan every single collection of bits transmitted to the internet in real time AND could analyze the data to determine if it coded an image that was “criminal” – would I still be OK with that? Mmh, I still think not because I would also have to assume that Colossus was benign and able to make black and white judgments, which is probably an intractable problem. For example, not many years ago, I could pick up a copy of the “Sun” newspaper back in the UK with a picture of a topless 16-year-old on page three. Technically, if I popped that in my briefcase and it was found by the customs person in the US, I could have been arrested for child porn. Note that this not about whether topless 16-year-olds is “good or bad” but the legal difference between two countries. Which law would Colossus use?

I am an immigrant to the US and find that the First Amendment is something that (a) US folks tend to forget the value of, and (b) is the single most powerful aspect of the constitution. Protecting freedom of speech is so important because once you lose it, it is so very hard to get it back. And it doesn’t get taken away from you all at once but slice by slice.

Sorry for the long post. Next time I’ll send an e-mail

Here we go again.

Even if certain given ‘criminal content’ could be blocked without censoring anything but the targeted content, who makes the rules on what is regarded criminal content? And who guarantees that *only* criminal content will be blocked, and not also content that a given government or censoring institution finds unsuitable for ‘their’ people?

Censorship is a very slippery slope, the step from blocking for instance snuff to blocking political discussion sites is a very small one. It can be a tool used for right reasons, but it can too easily be abused for wrong reasons.

I would hate living in Australia, China or other opressive countries. I’m glad that in my own country of residence, the internet is still a free and open technology without any restrictions in content or data transfer. No matter what kind of data it is.

For the record, I dislike the Australian government’s legislation. I think there are lots of reasons to oppose the proposed filtering, mostly because it seems likely to cast far too wide a net, and will probably be in any case unworkable, but I am rather curious about the particular terms of reference of your post.

Do you oppose in principle the filtering of “criminal content,” such as child sex abuse and sexual violence? Were it possible to filter these out without impacting upon more benign materials, would you support it? Or do you believe that the internet should make all materials, including, say, real child porn and snuff films available?

Can you fill me in a little on the exact nature of your opposition to this?

“The Federal Government will introduce compulsory internet filtering to block overseas sites which contain criminal content, including child sex abuse and sexual violence.”

This is NOT China or Iran or some third-world dictatorship but Australia!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/15/2772467.htm

This is what happens when you (or we, the people) let governments “take care of us.” Oh, and the reason for such filtering? Why, “to protect the children” of course!

but as they say…..ONLY IN AMERICA

Well we all do in the rest of the bloody World.

Pornography. Is All Over. The Internet.

Anything that slows a teenager down from going from zero to jizzty – such as emoting and typing complete sentences in a borky, glitched out virtual world where textures never load and attachments never attach – is a waste of their time. They do what we all do, set the web video to forty seconds before the spunk shot and press PLAY.

The only ones wasting their time in this pointless virtual pornoventure are thirty and fortysomethings who have enjoyed far too much cake in their lives.

If dead guys like M. Hatta and Elvis Prestley can get into SL, its suprising that you cant.

and being 18+, says eactly zilch of course. GTA is 18+ as well, and you dont want to know how many parents dont even concider the possibility that its not suitable for their 12 year olds. I have 2 colleagues with kids under ten who let them play GTA.

Age ratings are good for publishers, for the rest they mean jack sh*t. (IMHO the rating system is a big bag of wind anyway, after seeing the MPAA works and who owns the board)

That SL is adults only, merely means that LL can say “Hey, not our fault!” when lil timmy does get caught by daddy in a sex sim. It doesnt mean that the little timmies of the world WONT get onto SL. Just look at the number of square guys wearing more bling then a christmas tree, there are PLENTY of minors on the grid.