Webdiarist Martin English brought my attention to a bill before the NSW parliament to censor the web and which could affect Webdiary content.

 

Here’s his email and a short response by Herald lawyer Mark Polden, who stresses that the views are his, and do not represent Fairfax’s formal position. The Herald is taking the issue seriously, and further work will be done on it.

 

Martin English

 

Legislation is before the New South Wales state parliament that would make it a criminal offence to publish “matter unsuitable for minors” on-line. Other states will be passing similar laws, as this is part of a uniform national approach.

 

Details are at efa The following paragraph has been extracted from there.

 

“Matter unsuitable for minors” is content that is, or would be, classified R by a majority (not unanimous) decision of the members of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) under guidelines designed for classifying cinema films and videos. According to the OFLC Annual Reports, the vast majority of R films are so classified because they deal with social and political issues, referred to in the Classification Guidelines as “adult themes”. According to the OFLC classification guidelines “adult themes” include: “verbal references to and depictions associated with issues such as suicide, crime, corruption, marital problems, emotional trauma, drug and alcohol dependency, death and serious illness, racism, religious issues”.

 

Under these rules most of the content of the Webdiary will be illegal. There’s some basic inconsistencies here; for example, content that is legal in printed form will be illegal on-line. Apart from that, it seems that this definition covers some of the outstanding social issues of our nation. For example, if suicide is an adult theme, then it would have to be illegal to talk about suicide prevention. So a site like http://www.reachout.asn.au/home.jsp will be illegal in NSW

 

Even assuming it were technically possible (which it isn’t), assuming that it was enforceable (which it isn’t), and granting that it were important enough to justify giving up so much freedom (which I don’t) – what kind of priorities does this indicate? Given what goes on in the real world, why do law makers choose to focus so much attention on the internet?

 

And excuse me for getting all conservative and moral-minded about this, but where the hell are the parents? (before I get into full rant, I have three children, so I feel as though I have a right to bitch about the fascist who want to restrict the freedom of my family).

 

There is an easy way to help protect our children on-line – it’s called watching your kids. Things like supervision, discipline, acting like a responsible parent. It’s obviously asking a huge effort (for some people anyway), but kids are a responsibility, they aren’t easy.

 

Everyone preaches about protecting children, keeping the internet “safe” for children, blah blah blah. I hate seeing this happening, I hate the way they are gutting the internet and any other form of entertainment. I hate the fact that neither me nor my children are going to have the option.

 

If they want to cut down on porn and all of that on-line, what about the stuff that’s laying around the house or in the local newsagent or servo? (Hey all you kids reading this, check your Dad’s closet, usually the highest shelf you can get.) All I am saying is that the best fight for the whole protecting our children thing is EDUCATION.

 

EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN!!! Tell them what’s what. It’ll work a lot better than stealing their rights.

 

Mark Polden

 

The free speech implications of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Enforcement Amendment Bill are worrying.

 

The analysis of it by EFA Australia efaanalysis makes some large and alarming claims, concluding as it does that the Bill will ban adult discourse on social and political issues on Australian Web Sites. While I am not at all convinced that this would be the case in practice, the Bill does warrant close scrutiny and informed public debate both of which have been conspicuously absent to date.

 

Answering a Dorothy Dixer in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly on 25 October, the Attorney-General, Bob Debus referred to “sexually explicit and excessively violent material”, “unregulated online pornography” and the “predatory paedophile who creates a porn site” as the intended targets of the Bill. If that is the intent, the drafting does not reflect it. The Bill does not single out on-line material which is violent or sexually explicit.

 

More worrying still, in the absence of an approved restricted access system, the Bill effectively bans all internet content consisting of “film” unless is suitable for minors. But does “film” extend to text on a computer screen, as is the case under the Commonwealth Classification Act? Even if the answer to that is no, the Bill deserves vigorous debate. If the answer is yes, content providers like Fairfax, News and others, as well as contributors to a forum like Webdiary, look like having a serious problem on their hands. The point is we just don’t know.

 

But it is easily fixed. All the NSW Parliament has to do is amend the Bill, to make clear that “film” means cinematograph film or (streaming) video and does not mean text. There would still be plenty of room for vigorous debate on whether, even cut down in that way, the Bill is still too restrictive, but its worst risks would have been eliminated. It is not hard to do. Over to you, Mr Debus.