Somebody Think Of The Children

If it turns out that Abbywinters is on the ACMA list, rather than having been added by the filter vendors, then the shite is going to hit the fan.

By Sam D on Mar 19, 2009

So Mike, time to worry about the possibility of $11,000 fines. You’ve just linked to Abby Winters in this post. No doubt doing so caused thousands of children to be harmed.

By Ms Naughty on Mar 19, 2009

actually, i think children and adults will be harmed by a website like Abby Winters. Pornography, even ‘legal’ stuff screws up people’s values and warps the way people see themselves and the opposite sex. I don’t think this ACMA filter is the best way to go about filtering the net, but I applaud the government for taking this filth that creaps into our homes seriously.

By Carol on Mar 19, 2009

Have you actually seen that any Abbywinters material? I can tell you now it is some of the most benign softcore stuff on the web.

By Sam D on Mar 19, 2009

Carol, care to quote your scientific evidence that porn causes harm?

You are entitled to your personal opinion, of course, but nobody is forcing you or anybody else to see porn. It doesn’t “creap” into homes. The internet is a pull medium.

If you feel concerned about children and adult content, research the already-existing software-based filters that have been on the market for years.

By Ms Naughty on Mar 19, 2009

Carol how are children and adults going to accidentally stumble across Abbywinters. It’s not like kids are sitting there typing http://thewiggles.com into their address bars and then one in a hundred of them get randomly directed to porn sites.

They’ve got to actively look for it, in the case of kids why the hell aren’t the parents supervising and in the case of adults, who are you or me to tell other adults what they can or can’t look at legally on the internet?

How can you judge what is screwing up people’s values or the way they see other people?

By OzSoapbox on Mar 19, 2009

While I agree with some comments here, thinking of the children in a literal sense would mean closing most of the Internet down from the public. People under the age of 15 is less than 20% of Australia’s population, meaning the rest of us are able to legally look at most pornography and gamble online. Should our government allow us to.

As for pornography screwing up values, there has been stacks of recent research to dispute this, and some even not so recent. Going back fifty years, I’m talking. I no longer believe this to be something of concern and to think pornography is damaging to responsible adults is a seriously backwards concept.

By Nikki J on Mar 19, 2009

abbywinters.com regularly submits their own site to internet filters in an effort to “protect the children”..

By Kate on Mar 19, 2009

Hey Carol, you’re a creap. I bet you’re too frigid to even look at Abby Winters. 80% need be infantalised because of 20% of the population?
People like you need your own planet far away from mine

By Mark G on Mar 19, 2009

Carol’s comments sound suspiciously like half the comments posted on the AustralianIT “superblogs” a few weeks back…”Pornography, even ‘legal’ stuff screws up people’s values and warps the way people see themselves and the opposite sex”? Seriously? Then I must be some kind of sociopath…

Anyway, isn’t STOTC hosted overseas? I wonder if its been added to the ACMA list yet.

By Ilaeria on Mar 19, 2009

Nikki J said “meaning the rest of us are able to legally look at most pornography and gamble online. Should our government allow us to.”

Unfortunately it’s actually illegal in to provide an online gambling service to Australian’s (Interactive Gambling Act 2001)

By Jarrod on Mar 19, 2009

I think this going to go to far and everybody should think about this, can we get the Australian Government Website blocked
1) site has links to terrorism
2) it also makes this country a terrorist target by giving out information on this country
3) it has previously been hacked to the point of offering porn
4) the website breaks the privacy act
This list can go on and on but I thought I would only give a few points

By Mavrick on Mar 20, 2009

Today I sat down and counted the URLs of legitimate adult sites that I’ve heard of before. There are at least 40 domains blacklisted. All feature consenting adults and most of them have warning pages before the content and ICRA tags to assist with filtering.

Why are those sites on the list?

If an ISP put them there because they are not safe for work, the government needs to come and out say those 40 sites are fine. Otherwise it’s a very obvious example of the way sexually explicit content is censored according to ill-defined personal “moral values” – the sort of thing that an enshired freedom of speech law would protect against.

By Ms Naughty on Mar 20, 2009

Well the ‘actual’ list was leaked last night and there’s still a heap of legal adult sites on there.

There’s no legal process for sites to be added to the list, all that is required is some random at the ACMA to think it’s offensive and onto the list it goes.

By OzSoapbox on Mar 21, 2009

“actually, i think children and adults will be harmed by a website like Abby Winters. Pornography, even ‘legal’ stuff screws up people’s values and warps the way people see themselves and the opposite sex. I don’t think this ACMA filter is the best way to go about filtering the net, but I applaud the government for taking this filth that creaps into our homes seriously.”

Hi Carol. Look on some level I actually agree that porno can contribute to an unbalanced view of sex and sexuality (Although as a relationship aid, its great). But I need you to look at a broader picture here.

Its not JUST porno sites being blocked here. Its Christian sites. Its feminist sites. Its youth culture sites. Its minority political opinion sites. Porno is always the flag the censor waves when he goes after your politics, because at the end of the day its always about the politics.

You know Thailand went through the same debate a while back, and the government implemented a blacklist supposedly to keep out the kiddy-fiddler sites. Well it got leaked, and pretty much the entire list was sites critical of the King.

Abby Winters sticks out here a bit for two reasons. 1) Its a soft-core site, that is it doesnt feature penetrative couple sex. 2) Its an australian site that has gone out of its way to stay well within the law and work with authorities to stay that way. They volentarily rated themselves as not suitable for young people and provide information to parents how to protect their kids from seeing porno on the net.

Thats why people are outraged that Abby Winters is on the blacklist, because the site is about as close as a porno site will get to being a good citizen on the net, proving that anybody (did I mention there are also anti-abortion sites and the like on there too?) is in danger from censorship if the government decides they dont like the message.

By don on Mar 21, 2009

And what is the government going to do about the commercial TV channels propagating unrealistic body goals, spreading greed and consumerism etc.
What does more damage to the children, a potential stumbling across nudity, or the “Bratz” dolls teaching under 5YO girls to use makeup and be sexy for the boys?
The whole issue of “prtecting children” is nothing but a veiled attempt at introducing censorship.

By OtherBlogger on Apr 26, 2009

Really people have to realise that this has nothing to do with saving children from porn. Its their way of removing alternative media sources and freedom fighters from speaking out. People are now finding out the truth through sites like infowars.com and prisonplanet.tv and renegade videos on youtube.com

Funny thing is these videos on youtube.com which provide people with the truth that the banking elite don’t want you to see are being removed systematically. Same as wikipedia. Content about the Bilderberg group is being constantly edited out. Type in Bilderberg Group on youtube.com and get educated.

By the way… think of the little things that make their way on mainstream media. Riot squads being hailed as heroes on 60 minutes, the government expanding the military to the same as WWII, people being enlisted as civilian corps, the bullshit about the swine flu and the stockpiling of “tamiflu” tablets (do you know who use to be the president of the company that makes these tablets….Donald “I swear Iraq has WMD” Rumsfield. Bet you didnt know that or the fact that swine flu was created intentionally and tested on US soldiers on US military bases in the 70s.

So get educated people
infowars.com
prisonplanet.tv
Nufff_Respect channel on youtube.com

By rustypumpkins on May 10, 2009

Actually, all these kinds of bans are going to achieve is to create a boom in people paying for anonymous proxy server access so they can surf freely round the world without government interference.
The problem is that this is exactly the kind of technology that terrorists use and at present it stands out when someone uses it. The more people who start using it, the harder it will be for our security services to track down the real bad guys.
Bin Laden or Abby Winters ? I vote that they spend all their time on Bin Laden !

By Chris Billington on May 29, 2009

“The internet is a pull medium.” lol

Seriously though, someone on here has to “creap” back into the last century… McCarthy ‘11!!

By paladisious on Jun 14, 2009

What do you expect with a Socialist Totalitarian thinking government?…they are adherents to the Communist/Marxist/Soviet mindset…they “know whats right for you”…meanwhile over 20 million were killed in the process…fight Marxists, fight Socialists, fight the filthy left because they are the greatest threat to a free society.

By Kevin on Jun 16, 2009

The ACMA list includes material likely to be rated X18+ (much of the content on the site described) even though that content would be perfectly legal sold on a DVD from the NT or the ACT.

There is some content on the site that would be RC.

Never mind that it’s entirely harmless.

Thus, it’s not a mistake the site is on the blacklist, it’s potentially a mistake with what constitutes a blacklist though. Why should media that is legal to own be illegal to view on the internet? Do they honestly think it’s going to make a difference when it’s legal in the US to make and host it ? We borrow all their copyright laws, why not their content laws?

By Rod Rye on Jun 17, 2009

Don writes:

“Abby Winters sticks out here a bit for two reasons. 1) Its a soft-core site, that is it doesnt feature penetrative couple sex.”

That’s an oddly heteronormative way of looking at the site. AW actually has copious pictures and videos of female/female couples having sex, much of which could be said to be “penetrative” even if it doesn’t involve cock.

But anyway, its not like there’s anything wrong with showing penetrative couple sex of any gender combination.

By Iamcuriousblue on Jul 3, 2009

Lets face it – Garion has turned Abby Winters into a classic example of how to duplicate and spam your content under as many different product names as you can muster.

It’s the oldest trick in the book and although it provides turn over I doubt if it will keep said site at the top of the heap when Web 3.0 really starts to kick it hard.

By Reason A Bubble on Dec 3, 2009

What interesting comments from a variety of views. I agree with most people about the inclusion of Abbey Winters web site being on an Aussie black-list. I’m not surprised, our Prime Minister is a wowzer of the Ninth Degree. Much like the misinformed Carol, who probably has sex in the dark with her nightie on (that’s if she is married of course). Or a nun from the last century.

Why is it that we can show people getting killed, but not show people having sex? Wouldn’t you prefer love over death.

I notice that one comment had absolutely nothing to do with the censorship debate. Just a diatribe of Right Wing Anarchist nonsense calling himself – Kevin. He’s a person who believes in death over love and should be told to go and fuck himself with a very large cannon. We do not need his ilk around in this world, the rotten Fascist pig dog bastard.

By AUSTRALALIEN on Dec 22, 2009

Most of you people are out of your minds, thinks about this, i have been the adult industry for 17 years, i can tell you right now and i can prove it if need be. When xxx Porn DVD come into this country who do the importors pay custom tax to, who else but the goverment. 99% of people have sex, everyone knows about sex. Sex and porn does not destroy people, drugs, gambling, and goverments destroy lifes. people grow up and look at the people that make the laws what a load of rubbish my god

By Fred D on Jan 6, 2010