[OT] Australian internet blackout

[Richmond Mathewson]

On 28/01/2010 18:41, J. Landman Gay wrote:
> Sarah Reichelt wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I would like to apologise for any inconvenience, but anyone visiting
>> my web site over the next week will see a blackout message in protest
>> against the Australian government's planned compulsory internet
>> filtering.
>
> I was reading about this elsewhere and I'm dumbfounded by it. As 
> proposed, it is apparently to protect children. But isn't that the 
> parent's job? 

Oh, you "awful" right-winger, you . . .  :)

We now live in an age where nobody accepts responsibility for anything 
any more.
In Britain there is an increasing raft of draconian laws going in the 
same direction:

My father, a retired school teacher of many years, had to be vetted by 
the police
because he is in charge of a church bell-ringing team and one of the 
bell-ringers
is 17 years old (a boy) in case he had a past of child-molestation!!!

Presumably the 17 year old is perfectly capable of looking after himself 
without
my father having to go through some invasive, nosey, degrading police
investigation?

The buzz phrase is "They should do something about it."

and "They" means the increasingly nanny, intrusive state that ALWAYS 
knows best.

I live in Bulgaria, and as such my children ahev only my wife and myself 
to protect
them against the evils lurking out there - and, oddly enough, they are 
perfectly OK!

> And we all know how many false positives you get from so-called 
> "filtering" software. I'm angry about this and I don't even live there.

Frankly, all those censoring laws would just make me want to look at 
"filthy pictures" just to
see what all the fuss was about. Speaking as a man who between the ages 
of 16 and 20 had my
fair share of magazines containing photos of women in various stages of 
undress and in
'artistic' poses and really being none the worse for it (although, to be 
fair, I did grow out of that
sort thing rather than becoming obsessed and 'pervy') I cannot see what 
the fuss is all about.
Occasionally I ran up against what perhaps should be termed "the 
zoological department", and
shied away extremely quickly - because I, like 99% of people, have 
inbuilt filters - and I don't
need so nasty little man in London/Canberra/wherever doing the job for me.

>
> The last time I checked, the ruling was still under consideration. Has 
> it passed now? Is it definite?
>