21 Feb 2012

It is also somewhat disturbing to see that, while the ALRC was being bold and brave about suggesting all these new classifications, when it came to the X classification they went weak at the knees and stated in Section 6: “If the Australian government decided to keep the X classification … ” Why would they not make a recommendation about this category as they have for many others? The fact is, they advised the federal government to introduce a new C for Children and T for Teen category. So why not recommend that X be legal in all jurisdictions as well, so they can achieve the truly uniform and consistent national scheme they say they want?

3 January 2012
Geordie Guy

Geordie Guy's Personal Blog
Published on December 21, 2011.

December 01, 2011
Filmink News

In wake of the Classification Review Board banning ‘The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence’ in Australia, the film’s distributor has offered up a damning response.

Paul Syvret
From: The Courier-Mail, Opinion Piece
November 29, 2011

Yesterday, the Classification Review Board was due to meet to consider an appeal seeking that the film now be banned ...

RC material 1970-2011

The Conversation
21 November 2011
Brian Martin

Thursday, 3 November 2011
by Bernard Keane

After complaining that proposed mandatory pre-commitment pokies reforms were “nanny statism”, the Coalition has called for comment on ways to strengthen internet censorship and restrict advertising in its own gambling reform paper...

107.9 ABC Ballarat
22 August, 2011
The Ballarat International Foto Biennale director says he doesn't find a controversial photograph by Czech Republic artist Jan Saudek offensive, but decided to withdraw the image from the festival after child pornography claims.

Hal Roberts, and others
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
24 August 2011

Among other things, talks about the etxtent to which people use anti-filtering tools to access blocked content, and their efficacy

13 July 2011

There are more tenuous threads in the story. Although it quotes "a spokesman for the federal Attorney-General’s department" as saying Crumb’s work "would almost certainly be refused classification", they offer no further evidence. It is far from certain that the Classification Board would make such a finding. Whether a spokesman for the Attorney General is overstepping his or her authority in making such a comment about an independent statutory authority is a separate issue, as is the strange quote attributed to "a spokeswoman for the Sydney Opera House" that they "would not show anything that is not classified". This will come as news to most people in the arts and legal worlds who know anything about how Australia’s classification system actually works.

18 Aug. 2011
The South Australian government has urged the Commonwealth to urgently reconsider a decision to allow a Serbian horror film to be released on DVD.
The federal government has granted the movie, A Serbian Film, an R18+ classification and it is due to be released on Friday.

Eureka Alert!
University of Michicgan
10 August 2011

Thursday, 4 August 2011
by Stilgherrian

This was Communication Minister Stephen Conroy’s strategy. The ISPs filter out kiddie-nasties voluntarily, at least in the short term. He’s seemingly not fussed that it’s a different list. Meanwhile, the Australian Law Reform Commission is reviewing the entire content classification system. The government will eventually incorporate that review into laws to implement Labor’s still-unchanged policy for more comprehensive internet censorship.

The nod-wink-handshake was politically expedient. It got things in motion without having to squeeze tough internet censorship laws through a constipated Senate. (Blame Greens Senator Scott Ludlam for that mental image.) Existing laws have been re-purposed, perhaps stretched to the point of fissure.

July 31, 2011 12:00AM
2 comments

A SELF-CONFESSED sex pervert whose explicit comic drawings cannot be shown in Australia is to deliver a talk and hold a special exhibition at the Sydney Opera House.

Asher Moses
July 20, 2011
As Australia's biggest internet providers begin blocking an Interpol list of child abuse websites, the communications regulator is quietly compiling its own similar blacklist.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) confirmed it was building a list of URLs that “potentially contains child abuse material” and having them formally reviewed by the Classification Board. Sites on the blacklist have been categorised by the Board as “ACMA – ISP FILTERING”.

4 July 2011
Anti-violence and women's rights campaigners have hit out at the sexual depiction of women as victims of violence on T-shirts sold at youth stores across WA.

One shirt sold through the popular City Beach chain and online shows a naked woman with a black eye and the words: "It's only illegal if you get caught."
... She has the support of 60 of the nation's leading children's advocates, academics and women's rights groups who have signed a petition opposing the production, distribution and sale of clothing displaying adult images.

June 23rd, 2011
Jillian York
Electronic Frontier Foundation

MOST Australian internet users will have their web access censored next month after the country's two largest internet providers agreed to voluntarily block more than 500 websites from view.

Telstra and Optus confirmed they would block access to a list of child abuse websites provided by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and more compiled by unnamed international organisations from mid-year.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/internet-filter/telstra-optus-to-begin-censoring-web-next-month/story-fn5j66db-1226079954138#ixzz1PymtiPXc

Mark Pesce on Internet encryption

Michaela Boland, June 10 2011

The rapid evolution of new media has brought manifold opportunities for artists and filmmakers but it also has rendered obsolete Australia's censorship laws.

Asher Moses
May 31, 2011
A video game that Nintendo has pulled from sale in Sweden, Denmark and Norway after child pornography concerns will remain on sale in Australia with a PG rating.

ONE of Australia's most prominent child protection advocate, Bravehearts, has weighed into the art censorship debate, calling for the Classification Board to be overhauled and for matters of ''artistic merit'' and expert evidence to be scrapped when deciding if art is pornography.

We are facing a critical moment in Australia's media history. Our approach to managing 21st century media trails far behind that of many other Western nations. We have a content regulation system built for the mid-20th century. Our laws still treat media content as if it were produced by professionals who work for individual media silos: radio, TV, film and print.

Our system remains blind to the enormous role media users now play in consuming, sharing and producing media content.

Asher Moses
May 5, 2011
SMH

Professor Terry Flew, commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) and chair of the censorship review, said a self-regulatory approach had already been working online, with YouTube, for instance, being largely effective at removing inappropriate material among the thousands of videos that are uploaded every day.

Kelsey Munro
April 19, 2011

Arts insiders said yesterday that classifying artworks containing violence or nudity and removing the defence of 'artistic merit' for 'offensive' material would be impractical and pointless. These are recommendations to the Senate inquiry into the Australian film and literature classification system being run by the Tasmanian Liberal senator Guy Barnett.

The Register UK
24 March 2011
The review has been sparked by outdated classification issues in the gaming sector and will also be core to plans for a proposed national internet filter.
...f the Australian government succeeds in introducing its Internet censorship scheme, still not a certainty given its lack of a majority in Parliament, the classification system will be importance, since the purpose of the Great Firewall of Oz would be to block RC (refused classification) content over the Web

Joint Media Release
Thursday, 24 March 2011

By Lisa Gardner | March 11, 2011
The government's plan to introduce the internet filter stalled in July of last year when the Coalition and the Greens both withdrew their support for the legislation, citing viability and cost concerns, as well as concerns for freedom of expression. This led Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to argue that a filter would not be put in place until an independent review could be carried out by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) into what content would be banned. In December an ALRC spokeswoman was quoted as saying that the review wouldn't begin until at least April and could take up to a year.

Meanwhile, the government's legislation languishes on the parliamentary back-burner. Despite this representatives from Stephen Conroy's Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy have said they are continuing to develop the parameters of the internet filter while they await the outcome of the ALRC's report.

David Marr
March 5, 2011
THE never-ending battle against the 1975 film Salo has moved to fresh ground. The Festival of Light (now known as FamilyVoice Australia) has asked the Federal Court to ban Pier Paolo Pasolini's film again, claiming that its release last year on DVD was an improper exercise of power by the Classification Review Board.

Professor Ross Fitzgerald article originally published in the Weekend Australian 12-13 February 2011.

Feb 22, 2011, By Ry Crozie

That’s of course not why the argument around censorship becomes “ferocious”, there’s not a belief that the Internet is mystical and outrage around the proposal is not in defence of that, but that’s the icing on our harmonising cake. Painting himself the victim helps attract sympathy for his cause, and together with insisting that the only other objection was on the grounds that censorship slows down the Internet and insisting that the argument has been shown to be false, the picture is complete/ Conroy doesn’t want an R rating, and don’t expect one soon. It just suits his purposes to pretend that fight that will eventually be lost, and will be lost because of the virtue of another of his crusades.

Organised Adversary, February 12, 2011, by Ben
The Senate Inquiry into the Australian film and literature classification scheme is due to report on the 30th of June and the deadline for submissions is the 4th of March. The Measures to increase accountability and transparency for Refused Classification material review closed its submission date last year. The close of submissions for the Convergence Review was the 28th of January. While dates for the ALRC’s National Classification Review and Senator Conroy’s second Refused Classification review are presently unavailable.
This is all, of course, in addition to the Attorney-General’s inquiries into An R18+ Classification for Computer Games, the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment (Assessments and Advertising) Act 2008, the Classification (Authorised Television Series Assessor Scheme) Determination 2008, the Classification (Advertising of Unclassified Films and Computer Games Scheme) Determination 2009 and other aspects of Classification policy.

Ross Fitzgerald, February 12, 2011

The ALRC will be unable to report to the government until at least mid-2012 and the government most likely won't be able to act on the recommendations until 2013 -- close to another federal election. Hence it could be 2014 before this review bears any fruit.

At the same time, there are four other reviews of the Classification Act, or aspects of it, being undertaken by various agencies.

The Australian Law Reform Commission is conducting a year-long review into the existing classification scheme in light of new developments in technology -- especially in the online realm, and in media convergence.

Katie Blakey, 28 Jan 2011

Bob Ryan, Tuesday, 11 January 2011