Mandatory filter will block RC
June 2, 2009 – 9:16 pmAfter being as indecisive as a teenage girl choosing what to wear on prom night, Senator Conroy has settled on what classification category will be banned by under the mandatory filter (the one you can’t opt out of). According to IT News, Conroy’s office stated that ‘mandatory ISP-level filtering will only apply to RC content drawn from complaints made to the ACMA‘.
There’s two main problems with that:
- Refused Classification (or RC) is an extremely broad classification category which includes movies like Ken Park, adult pornography containing fetishes like spanking and euthanasia instruction material like The Peaceful Pill Handbook. It’s also legal to possess and view in Australia (with the exception of Western Australia and some indigenous communities in the Northern Territory and where not illegal under other criminal codes).
- If the Government intends for the filter to protect children online, relying on complaints to block RC content means the vast majority of it will remain unblocked and easily accessible.
Colin Jacobs from EFA agrees. He told IT News:
‘Filtering out a handful of RC-only sites won’t make the Internet any safer for kids, nor will it slow down the traffic in illegal material. Yet it still comes at a high cost, both financially and to our freedom of speech. It seems more about fulfilling an election promise than achieving any particular policy aim.’
10 Responses to “Mandatory filter will block RC”
It also seems to include strip poker games, if my understanding is correct (see )
By Andrew Garrett on Jun 2, 2009
That it does
By Mike on Jun 2, 2009
Mike, I thought that the classifiaction board rated the anti-abortion site as R18+. At least that’s what was said on Whirlpool. Think they had a link the classification in the OFLC database.
Also with fetishes, I think the problem here is that can’t you buy R18+ Catagory 2 magazines with most fetishes in them? If that’s so how the hell would that be treated on the web? You can have photos as well as movies of course, so it’d be OK for spanking in a still image, but no movies of it? This is really not well thought out at all.
By Matthew on Jun 3, 2009
Hi Matt, you’re right. Post updated. Apologies.
By Mike on Jun 3, 2009
An election promise that, if my understanding is correct, was never actually made. This goes from stupid to stupider.
By Simon on Jun 3, 2009
Simon, the election promise was to the Australian Christian Lobby – silly us for a) missing church that day and not knowing about it b) voting this mob in!
By Fiona on Jun 3, 2009
im sorry,
but,
SPANKING IS RC?
O.o
Granted I don’t know much about the fine details of that fetish, but I can’t realy think how spanking fetish related materials without any other type of material (multiple fetishes in a single image seem to be seen by the government as X times as bad as an image with a single fetish).
By alphamone on Jun 4, 2009
I know there were election promises around internet filtering, but to my knowledge there was never a mention of the word ‘mandatory’ before the election. If I’m wrong (a strong possibility) I’d love for someone to point me to where this promise was made.
By Simon on Jun 4, 2009
So I guess people who were born either with one of the 126+ biological and or congenital intersex conditions, and or people who are transgender, will be barred from gaining access to websites with medical and other help and resource information, under these bazaar censorship regimes, do to the fact that some psychiatric literature still classifies their conditions as being of a fetish nature.
For that matter, I’m guessing that any kind of information relating to gay, lesbian and bisexual issues will also fall under that RC listing?
By Disentangler on Jun 10, 2009