Sexy Poker for Wii banned
I’m playing catch up on bans this week and the first worth noting is Sexy Poker by WiiWare getting hit with an RC by the Australian Classification Board. Why? Nudity is an incentive or reward to game play. Sort of the point, eh. GameSpot reports: “In the Board’s view Sexy Poker offers depictions of nudity...
Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story (ABC1, Sunday 31 May)
Update 2/06/09: Kyle was kind enough to point out in the comments section that this is available for a short time on iView. Watch it here. Update 10:47PM: A little short on the details, but definitely worth your time. Sir Hugh Carleton Greene, in the words of Patrick Bateman, was a laugh riot. Unfortunately, there...
Filter may be voluntary says Conroy
Is Senator Conroy feeling the heat? In response to questions from Senator Minchin during estimates about how the Government would impose mandatory ISP filtering, Senator Conroy said one option is that it could be on a voluntary basis where ISPs could voluntarily agree to introduce it. But wait, isn’t it mandatory? Conroy is a little...
Only 32% of current ACMA blacklist is child abuse material
In response to Senate questions, ACMA admitted this evening that their current blacklist contains only 32% child abuse material. During a Senate Standing Legislation Committee for Environment, Communications & the Arts, they revealed that the list contains 51% refused classification material (which includes child abuse material), meaning the other 49% is rated X18+ or less....
Classification Board’s new website reveals long list of banned titles
The new website for the Australian Classification Board reveals a comprehensive list of content that is Refused Classification (RC) in Australia. Although this information has been available to the public in the past (unlike the contents of the ACMA blacklist of banned websites), to the best of my knowledge the grouping of this data has...
The Chaser’s filter on everything
A screenshot of The Chaser’s War On Everything website:
Cyber-safety and filtering remains well funded in 2009-10 Budget
Funding for the DBCDE’s cyber-safety plan (PDF, page 42) which includes mandatory ISP filtering remains relatively untouched in the latest Federal Budget. Flick to page 22 of the 2009-10 DBCDE PBS 02 Section 1 (PDF, 139.7 kb) and you’ll see filtering remains part of the Government’s plan. Under initiatives continuing from previous years: $125.8 million...
Nando’s ad too spicy, ASB prefers mild
I was going to include a reference to breasts in the headline, but thought it would be a little too obvious (even if on topic). Reference to peri-peri sauce on the other hand! Nando’s has run fowl of the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) again, this time over an ad for their Classic Double Breast Burger....
Melbourne event: ‘Online games, censorship and the crisis of control’
Apologies for the late notice folks, but this one only just crossed my path (or I may have forgot about it – sorry). University of Melbourne is holding a free public lecture of online game classification and censorship on Wednesday the 13th May. Speaking is Dr Jeffrey E. Brand, an Associate Professor and Head of...
ACMA issues EFA with Link Deletion Notice
ACMA has issued EFA’s webhost a Link Deletion Notice because of an article EFA published on their own website containing a link to an anti-abortion webpage declared prohibited content by the media regulator in January this year. EFA writes: ‘To be clear, EFA published only a link to a page that is hosted overseas and is on ACMA’s prohibited...
Optus will participate in Internet filtering trial
Journalists (and other reliable sources) on Twitter are reporting that Senator Conroy’s office has announced Optus will participate in the DBCDE ISP filtering trial. A media release was emailed from Conroy’s office this afternoon, but has not been published on his site yet. Update (3:42PM): Press release published on minister’s site. Here are excerpts from...
R18+ games discussion paper coming soon
Finally! The long awaited discussion paper on introducing an adult classification for video games will soon be released for public input. It won’t be released by state and territory Attorney’s-General though. They couldn’t agree on contents of the paper (no surprise). Instead the office of the Commonwealth Minister of Home Affairs, Bob Debus, has stepped...
