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Originally Posted by ChronoGrl
I do not thing that your government is that bipartisan, is it?
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I don't think it is to the same extent.
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Originally Posted by ChronoGrl
Sure it's a step, but not necessarily in that direction. I'd imagine that the liberal counter-slippery-slope-argument is, "Well, where do you STOP censorship?" The extremists will always be out there, but it doesn't mean that they necessarily have followers... The Republicans here have been trying to overturn Roe Vs. Wade (women's right to Choose legally) since its birth (so that's over 30 years now). But it's not going to happen. There is no way that abortion is going to be made illegal (especially since they refuse to budge with allowances for rape and incest). I wonder if it will be the same case of Internet censorship in Australia. But then again, I can really only claim from my own frame of reference.
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What concerns me is that many Australians seem happy to be censored to some extent.
Australia bans movies and video games.
The lastest "Soldier of Fortune" game was banned due to its excessive violence - it was only allowed to be sold once it was submitted in a modified form.
Several movies remain banned in Australia. One example is the full version of Caligula. So we are not just talking about the most extreme of films.
Our broadcast TV is probably a bit less censored than the US equivalent, but our ratings system is mandatory. So any movie or video game that is released has to receive a rating before it can be shown/sold etc. If the Board refuses to classify it, it is effectively banned.
We don't have the same system that you have in the USA whereby a film that would have no hope of an MPAA rating (eg August Underground) can be released on DVD without a rating. That would be illegal.
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Originally Posted by ChronoGrl
Do you really think so? That's fairly bleak. Are there a lot of liberals and/or activists over there?
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Here is a thread that I have been following on our "Whirlpool" forum. Note that this forum is a forum for broadband internet, and tends to be frequented by people in the IT industry and who are generally the most tech-savvy. So these are the people who should have the most desire to protect their access to the internet
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum...s.cfm?t=887503
Now, generally the consensus is against the filtering, especially as an "opt-out" system (as would be expected). The things that concern me are:
- The main concern seems to be that the performance of the internet will be crippled, not that liberties will be eroded.
- That many seem happy for some level of filtering.
- That many see an "opt-in" rather than "opt-out" system as acceptable. That is, this would be OK if you had to ask for it to be turned on, rather than asked for it to be turned off.