Summary: Mark Newton Vs Jim Wallace on ABC Radio National net censorship debate
January 29, 2009 – 8:30 amIn brief: Despite Mark Newton’s clear explanation of what prohibited content contains, Director of the Australian Christian Lobby Jim Wallace told ABC Radio National listeners that Newton is telling ‘absolute nonsense’ when he says the Government wants to block legal material (yes I spat out my Weet-Bix).
Wallace says the only content the Government aims to block with the mandatory filter is child pornography.
Unfortunately, Mr Wallace either doesn’t understand what ‘prohibited content‘ consists of or he has outright lied on air as the ACL’s pro filter website states ‘Despite fear-mongering about censorship, adults will be able to opt in to view some forms of legal porn.’ Just some forms of legal porn Jim?
Wallace also says that all the Government is doing is applying the same laws we have offline off to online and that a 2003 Newspoll survey is still authoritative today.
He says this plan is about making the net safer for children and keeping vigilant against child pornographers.
Wallace’s comment that GetUp! was a proponent of the pornography industry and ISPs was promptly shot down by the host.
Update: Podcast available to download and listen to here and informal transcript here thanks to Ash K.
Update 11:02AM EST: Bob Bain directs us to listener comments on the ABC website.
Update 12:15PM EST: If you’ve listened to the podcast and read Jim’s article in SMH, you’ll know he likes comparing filtering to fridges. No Character Comic knows why:
24 Responses to “Summary: Mark Newton Vs Jim Wallace on ABC Radio National net censorship debate”
I only came in at the end but Queensland listeners can tune it at 9:05 our time to hear it again.
I think.
By Websinthe on Jan 29, 2009
Couldn’t get the stream to work. Have any of you had the chance to view jim wallace interviews on youtube. It might be worth promoting them, to bring into the light some of the offbeat christian right ideas the man espouses
By Sean the Blogonaut on Jan 29, 2009
I think Wallace was put back in his place by Newton and the host. Most of his flawed arguements were rebutted. it just annoys that clowns like wallace can commentate on the issue without doing proper research.
By Jarrod on Jan 29, 2009
I have with some degree of difficulty recorded the program and have a copy in .mp3 format. Towards the end of the program listeners are referred to the ABC website
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/
( where it may in due course – perhaps tomorrow – be able to listen to, download and comment on the discussion)
At the moment it doesn’t have entries for today 29th. January 2009 but I anticipate the discussion will be there tomorrow.
Bob
By Bob Bain on Jan 29, 2009
Jim Wallace is a straight out liar and needs to be called on it and brought into the light. No one should be able to lie straight out about FACTS that are freely available to read yourself THEN call the guy that actually has the real facts a liar. THIS IS A ABSOLUTE JOKE.
By Steve kran on Jan 29, 2009
Feedback from the broadcast is coming in at this moment:
http://www2b.abc.net.au/guestbookcentral/list.asp?guestbookID=359
Fiona Patten writes at 9:47
The content in adult magazines and films that is legal to sell from newsagencies and adult shops is listed as prohibited content under the proposed filtering scheme. You will not be able to opt out of the filter blocking this material. Mr Wallace was very misleading when he stated that adults will not be restricted from accessing legal material. There are literally millions of adult sites on the net now that have “prohibited content” that is legal in all other formats that will be filtered and blacklisted. The government has budgeted $40 million dollars over three years for the filter that will block legal adult content and has reduced the budget for the Australian Federal Police’s Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team by $2.8 million. (Their current budget is approximately $10 million over 3 years). Surely this already overstretched but successful organisation should be the recipient of increased funding to stop on line child sexual assault and the distribution of child pornography rather than the draconian filtering scheme.
===============
By Bob Bain on Jan 29, 2009
A broken fridge is -completely- unacceptable.
By Joyce on Jan 29, 2009
Wasn’t really much of a debate, Mark didn’t really get enough time discredit all the crap Jim Wallace was spewing.
By Kyle on Jan 29, 2009
I thought Mark did wa good job – he presents very well, IMO. But no question, Wallace is an articulate opponent. It’s true he comes up with furfies, but does so pursuasively.
I think there’s a real problem focussing only on the sex issue – and thereby accepting the terms under which this debate has been framed by censorship proponents.
I notice a fair number of the commentators on the ABC blog raised the issue of ’scope creep’. I think this is a very potent concern for many.
I personally know a number of people who support a reduction in porn on the web but become concerned when the issue of political censorship is raised.
That’s what sends shivers up their spine. Me too. I’ll admit, if the Government was able to make a 100% cast iron, verifiable, believable guarantee that political censorship would never be undertaken under the rubric of its current plans, I’d still not support it, but I’d not be bothered to fight it either. There’s only so many hours in the day.
It disgusts me that governments might be bothered or any of its citizens watch copulation or other such activity in the privacy of their own screens. IMO, it says more about the censor-annabees than it says about the likely targets of such censorship. Even so, kill-joys have already put their mits over a lot of things I persomally believe are better left to individual choice.
But when I see the potential for POLITICAL censorship in these moves – and various pieces of confirmatory information suggest to me that’s probably what’s really driving it – it becomes nothing less than a battle for a free future.
I’ve posted a comment, shorter but making that basic point, to the ABC site. If it isn’t published there, I’ll publish it on my blog.
Will my grandchildren be amazed I could ever do such a thing, having lived all their lives with the Register of Approved Blogs Act (2012) – which followed mandatory censorship from 2010+? Or will they wonder what all the fuss was about back then in 2009… taking it for granted that the planet’s information channels run free?
It may be a melodramatic way of putting it, but I think that’s the essential choice here. It is an absolutely crucial choice.
It’s therefore about much more than whether we can view unlimited pages of tits and dicks or only a government-approved sample, whether salacious material will be ‘over-sampled’, how much all this will slow down the internet and if there are ways round it for dedicated porn fans.
By Syd Walker on Jan 29, 2009
There are always ways around this filter Syd Walker. I’m sick of hearing about this filter already. Just wish Conroy will drop it, go back to his little church and shut the hell up and leave the rest of society alone.
Even though I wouldn’t be effected by this filter it still annoys the crap out of me that some nut with an extreme attitude wants to force his filtered view of the world on everyone.
I have my doubts that this will come in, but if it does, I will let as many people know as possible how to bypass this regime.
By James on Jan 29, 2009
I don’t know if there’s an official one in the works or not, so here’s a transcript of the audio for anyone who can’t or doesn’t want to listen.
By Ash on Jan 29, 2009
Thanks Ash! I’ve spread the word.
By Mike on Jan 29, 2009
I think this is being pushed by family first Walace intimates aas much in some of his youtube videos. The christian right have a wedge. Consequently Australia is still pushing the Filter plan and still denying funding to overseas aid groups who make mention of abortion in their literature.
We simply have to push this issue and fight it till it’s dead and burried.
By Sean the Blogonaut on Jan 29, 2009
Hang on, Jim – is it about child pornography (adults abusing children for sexual pleasure – which is what the minister keeps talking about) or children having access to adult pornography (which is what you were talking about on the radio, despite the only way of being able to stop that being to prevent all adults from accessing anything inappropriate for a child)? Make up your mind. And stop conflating the two.
Also – say you honestly believed that the government won’t block material that adults can access legally in Australia. Will you then state for the record that if this WAS the result of the filter, you would oppose it? Or is it the case that you don’t care if legal material is blocked or not? One or the other, Jim – yes or no.
And didn’t you hear the IT guy point out that no filter technology presented thus far let all legal content through? Funny, you didn’t seem to have a response to that. Quick, let’s pretend you didn’t hear it.
Finally, your fridge analogy works better as a description of the filter – because of one bad fridge (the small percentage of child pornography on the internet) you want governments to cripple all fridges (the internet).
By Jeremy on Jan 30, 2009
Jim Wallace has long been a twat, though.
By Jeremy on Jan 30, 2009
Jim Wallace says he supports mandatory filtering in order to protect the children. It’s always the children.
But Wallace is a hypocrite. He was a passionate supporter of the war in Iraq. Many Iraqi children were killed, along with many young American and British troops. So he doesn’t REALLY care about the children–he just uses it as a shield to hide his disgusting bigotry.
By mark on Jan 30, 2009
*lol* The comic was great.
By Glenn Petrie on Jan 30, 2009
Mark, maybe Jim only cares about protecting Christian children.
By Matthew on Jan 30, 2009
@ Matthew
There were Christian children in Iraq. Fewer now, after the violent break-up of Iraq’s secular State (Tariq Aziz, Foreign Minister under Saddam was a Christian). Wallace didn’t just support the illegal invasion of Iraq undertaken under false pretences – he berated authentic Christian leaders in Australia for not backing it too. There are conservative reports that two thirds of the nation’s Christian’s have now fled the coutnry thanks to Wallace & co.
If that man is a Christian my dog’s a Mormon.
By Syd Walker on Jan 30, 2009
@matthew: In his speil he said it was to protect _parents_.
Seriously. He actually said it.
The guy’s a loon. The bigger the megaphone he has, the more people he’ll turn off. He’s never going to gain any more supporters than he already has because his views are so extreme, every time he’s given a soapbox he just drives more people to our side.
Keep talking, Jimbo, you’re doing a fabulous job
By Mark Newton on Feb 1, 2009