WA Greens oppose R18+ game rating, so which party supports it?
UPDATE 01/09/08: The WA greens have confirmed this policy. The WA Greens party will oppose the introduction of an R18+ classification for games if elected in the upcoming Western Australian election. According to WAvotes.org.au, a website run by the Australian Christian Lobby where parties respond to questions likely to be raised by Christian voters, the...
Interview with 2channel founder on website responsibility and crime
Here’s an interesting interview with Hiroyuki Nishimura, the Founder of Japan’s largest online discussion forum 2channel. In it, Nishimura talks about his website’s responsibility in the Akihabara stabbing rampage, the distribution of controversial material online, filtering, and online anonymity. Hiroyuki Nishimura: ‘Is there any evidence that the Internet has led to an increase in crimes?...
NSW Government dropped support for Nine’s Scorched
You’ve probably seen the dodgy previews for Scorched running all week on Channel 9 (or the fake websites). What you might not have known is that the NSW State Government dropped their support for the show before filming back in February. Why? News.com.au reckons it’s because the show’s plot got a little too close for...
Another swearing complaint fired off at Ramsay
Not three complaints. Not even two. One single complaint about Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares which aired in March was enough for the ACMA to declare that the language used in the episode exceeded its M Classification. It should have been MA15+. Channel Nine does accept Ramsay’s use of the word ‘cunt’ probably does mean the episode...
Melbourne City Council to pre-approve artwork, keep sex mild
Here I was thinking Queensland was going to be the only State to flex its censorship muscles this month, but now Victoria has entered the ring. Curators and owners of Melbourne City Council funded galleries will need to alert the council to potentially controversial pieces ahead of schedule for approval by a review panel before...
What’s wrong with being offended?
If Want Longer Lasting Sex on a billboard is confronting to you, or you support the ASB’s call to remove the Advanced Medical Institute’s ads, ask yourself what’s wrong with being offended? I was discussing the billboards on Aussie tech forum Overclockers today and was surprised at the number of people who supported the ASB’s...
Longer Lasting Sex billboards sexualise children and are confronting to Australians
After 18 months of dismissing complaints against Advanced Medical Institute’s giant yellow ‘Want Longer Lasting Sex?’ billboards, the Advertising Standards Bureau has backflipped and decided that the ad not only sexualises children, but is also confronting to a large section of the community. I wish I was joking. There’s two major problems here: 1) The...
Seven vetted Olympic ads
Bob was kind enough to update us on the GetUp/Channel 7 controversy and it looks like they weren’t the only organisation shafted by the TV network during their Olympics coverage. A Wilderness Society ad relating to the Western Australian election wouldn’t be run ‘until network bosses had seen it.’ SMH writes: “Channel Seven is so...
Anna Bligh uses Attorney-General, police to censor Wicked Vans
Could there be a bigger and more disgusting waste of Government resources: QLD Premier Anna Bligh has sicked her dogs, the State’s Attorney-General and Police service, onto Wicked rental vans for what’s been described as a ‘highly offensive’ slogan. According to the Cairns Post, a Cairn’s resident complained about one of the companies vans with...
Playing the censor: Would you ban this band’s ‘violent’ photos?
MySpace said this band’s promo shoot (Click to see the photos – Not Safe For Work) was ‘too violent’ and promptly removed the offending photographs from their website. Which isn’t too unreasonable when you take into account that MySpace has strict policies on what can and can’t be published on a user’s profile. But let’s...
Boobs on Bikes and porn fuel violence
Porn fuels violence. Porn fuels rape. If only porn could fuel my CAR! That was the message protesters at Auckland’s 2008 Boobs on Bikes parade were sending out today (well the first two at least). Seriously though. If people object to pornography, that’s their right and I respect it, but c’mon — The porn fuel’s...
Clean feed won’t protect children
Colin from EFA has written an article about the Government’s filtering plan for the MacTalk.com.au community that would be worth showing to any friends you have still unsure of what Stephen Conroy has in store for Australia. It covers many of the problems that exist with the plan, but none more important than the fact...
