Speaking against net censorship is journo and author Antony Loewenstein, Google’s Ross LaJeunesse and David Marr. For is Professor and Associate Dean of Law at Flinders University, Elizabeth Handsley, Beijing-based columnist Kaiser Kuo and Alastair MacGibbon, founder of the Internet Safety Institute and Managing Partner of internet consultancy the Surete Group.

When I bought the ticket back in January Senator Conroy was set to speak. Unfortunately, he’s pulled out (for whatever reason). Nevertheless, there’s still a great range of range of high-profile and knowledgeable speakers so I’m sure it’ll be interesting

Event details:

Governments should not censor the internet

May 11, 6:30PM
City Recital Hall Angel Place
2-12 Angel Place
Sydney

Architects of the internet have championed its promise as an instrument of liberty – a free-wheeling republic in which the ordinary person can bypass the gatekeepers of power and influence.

Beneath the shiny towers of liberty electronic sewers run thick with child pornography, terrorist propaganda, racial hatred, crazy conspiracies and other products of the grimy denizens of the internet’s underworld.

Some governments think that they should protect us from what they deem to be harmful to the common weal.

Can we not be trusted to care for ourselves? And if not, then will censorship inevitably shut out the light along with the dark?

It is important that audience members are seated by 6.35pm as the event will be screened live.

You can also buy yourself a ticket here.

The Facebook group for the event lists 74 confirmed guests, so hopefully most will show. More information at Treat Us Like Adults.

- Mike

Time guide:

Ms. Fiona Patton – Convenor of the Australian Sex Party (approx 7mins 30 secs)

Mr. Jim Wallace – Managing. Director The Australian Christian Lobby (approx 19mins 51secs)

Mr. Geordie Guy – Spokesperson Electronic Frontiers Australia (approx 43mins 30secs)

Ms Angela Conway – Director Pro-family Perspectives (approx 56mins 00secs)

Questions from the floor are at the 89mins mark.

About:

For centuries books that challenge the moral, political or religious norms of their times have been ‘banned’ or removed from public circulation. Today, studying these banned books provides a revealing insight into the psyche of particular eras and cultures around the world.

In this special Uncovered event, SLQ Librarians Joan Bruce & Irene Sourgnes, will provide a guided opportunity to view some of these books up-close and learn about their fascinating histories and authors.

With divisive examples such as Norman Lindsay’s “Redheap”, “The Little Red Schoolbook”, and even “Bambi”, Banned Books promises to challenge our thinking on censorship and freedom of speech.

Come join me! It’s free, but you need to reserve tickets through Qtix.

Date/Time
Sun 7 June 2009, 1:30pm

Tickets
FREE EVENT

Duration
1 hour and 30 minutes

Venue
Fox Family White Gloves Room, Level 4
State Library of Queensland
Stanley Place, South Bank Precinct
South Brisbane

Overview:

‘Recent controversy over whether games that are exclusively played online must be classified to be legally sold or exhibited in Australia has added to a growing chorus of criticism over the Australian content regulation regime. Most online-only games such as and including WOW have not been submitted by their publishers for classification by the Classification Board.

James Beniger’s (1986) notion of a ‘crisis of control’ will be used to contextualise the contemporary regulatory environment and its failure to accommodate the rapidly changing medium of computer games.

Suggestions and probable scenarios will be offered and canvassed to evaluate the policy and technical trajectory of ratings and classification in Australia.’

Online games are an interesting area in terms of censorship here in Australia and an area I expect we’ll here more about this year or next. Certainly one I’d like to look more into here on STotC (a dedicated game censorship writer perhaps?).

Event Details:

Wednesday 13 May 2009 @ 06:00 pm – 07:30 pm
Theatre 3, Alan Gilbert Building (bldg 104) Corner of Grattan and Barry Streets, Parkville
University of Melbourne

The lowdown:

The Australian government is currently planning to introduce mandatory Internet content filtering. The move would clearly set Australia aside from all other democratic nations in the world. The initial purpose of this scheme was to protect Australian children from accessing unsuitable material such as child pornography.

Even though there is widespread consensus in society that such material is undesirable and potentially harmful, the issue of filtering is extremely complicated and it is far from evident that the proposed scheme will achieve its goal. In addition, over the past few months evidence has been presented indicating that the side effects of such filtering could have severe negative impact on society.

Associate Professor Bjorn Landfeldt was part of a team that studied the feasibility of implementation of Internet filtering at the ISPs. The report was commissioned by the Howard government and handed to the current minister in charge of this issue, Senator Stephen Conroy.

In this talk, Professor Landfeldt will detail some of the major difficulties associated with ISP level content filtering, some of the possible side effects and discuss why such filtering may not be effective. He will also give examples of the many difficult moral questions such filtering inevitably raises and demonstrate the need for a comprehensive public debate an the issue before legislation and implementation takes place.Time: 4pm

Where and When: April 3 2009, 4PM.
Location: USYD, Farrell Lecture Theatre, Peter Nicol Russell (PNR) Building, Darlington Campus (Campus map & how to get there)
Contact: Josephine Spongberg
Phone: 9351 3424
Email: josie@it.usyd.edu.au

More info: http://www.it.usyd.edu.au/research/news/landfeldt.shtml

Update: You can now replay my coverage of the event using the CoverItLive box below. Apologies for the typos — the hectic nature of live blogging and typing on an EEE PC is not an easy process I’ll tell you that. I’ll write a full wrap up of the event shortly.

NewMatilda

The forums which are also set for Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne in coming weeks explore the ethical, social and political questions raised by government regulation of the Internet.

‘With the growing intersection between technology, politics and media, how do existing and proposed classification regimes measure up? Is filtering inevitable? Or are there better ways to regulate the world wide web?’

Speakers include Senator Scott Ludlam, Irene Graham (libertus.net) and Nic Suzor (Electronic Frontiers Australia), with Peter Black from QUT Faculty of Law to chair.

This is a free event.

WHEN:
Tuesday 24th March, 6pm

WHERE:
Room B122 (Gardens Point campus map PDF)
Queensland University of Technology (Google Maps)
2 George St, Brisbane

RSVP:
enquiries@newmatilda.com

The forum’s aim: ‘To get beyond some of the more heated claims and counter-claims circulating at present and explore the underlying issues and constraints, hopefully giving room for various perspectives and arguments to be considered on their merits.’

Speakers include former Deputy Director of the OFLC, Paul Hunt, child rights advisor for Save The Children, Holly Doel-Mackaway, EFA’s Colin Jacobs, and Group Information Security Manager for Optus, Siva Sivasubramanian.

Update 27/11/08 11PM: Nice meeting everyone today. Too tired tonight for a report so I’ll aim for the weekend. In the meantime, if you have any questions about something said in the live blog, leave a comment and I’ll try and answer. Cheers.