Here's a useful resource for censorship issues of all kinds in Australia: libertus.net. At the time of writing, their What's new page is linking to some fairly hefty-looking documentation about continuing steps to implement a mandatory ISP filtering scheme in Australia.
There's no RSS feed for when new links are added, which is a pity because it looks like a page worth checking frequently.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Freedom of speech and the cartoon controversy
In my Media, Information and Law tutorial at uni I managed to get some fairly intense heat directed at me from people on both sides of the Mohammed Danish cartoon controversy. I don't know whether that indicates my independence of thought from all entrenched interests or if it just means I'm an irritating and argumentative bastard who annoys people of any political persuasion.
I did feel extremely defensive at one point when a guy in favour of publication was complaining about what I suggested was an inconsistency in his believing that publishing the cartoons was okay but publishing a phrase like "jews are the new nazis" should be illegal. His response was that talking about Nazis was an order of magnitude worse than mere publishing of caricature.
My response to that was incredibly poor: I thought not rationally, but combatively. My remark in retrospect was incredibly lame as I said something stupid about that being a subjective judgement. It's not. Or I don't think it is. Yet my response was motivated more by a desire not to let the other guy "get one over me" rather than any reasonable attempt to get at the truth.
I'm tempted to let myself believe that I did nothing wrong and that it was the other guy's combative approach that's to blame for me refusing to concede a point. But I don't think I should. And I think that the question of who's to blame for not adopting a reasonable attitude is extremely relevant to the question of the Danish caricature, and it's a question that's completely neglected by most commentators.
I wrote one of my essays last year on freedom of speech in an attempt to challenge my own extremely favourable attitude to free speech and see if there was something wrong with it. I came away from it still being extremely pro-freedom of speech, but I've gained a few insights along the way.
The first one is that in order for freedom of speech to have any meaning at all, there must be an audience for the speech. If a tyrant claims his subjects have freedom of speech because they can say whatever they like in the privacy of their own homes, is that really giving people the benefit of the freedom? Speech that no-one can hear is not really free speech at all.
Accepting that freedom of speech requires an audience immediately shows another way of looking at the cartoon issue: stop looking so much at the opinions and actions of the publishers and start looking at the opinions and actions of the audience.
This is where the dispute really lies when it comes to whether or not to publish the Danish cartoons: on the extreme pro-publication side, it is axiomatic that the members of the audience who feel offended by the cartoons are themselves responsible for "taking it too personally", with no real responsibility for the publisher. On the extreme anti-publication side, it is just as axiomatic that the audience members who feels offended and hurt can justly place the responsibility for that hurt, and for subsequent reactions to that hurt, on the publishers for "deliberately attacking Muslims".
I suspect that most people wouldn't be found on either extreme, and would only lean one way or the other. But I think that's a better starting point for the discussion of the issue: who is responsible for the feeling of harm and/or offense caused by the publication of the cartoons, and why? The answer may not be as straightforward as people think. My own experience above, where I was tempted to think it reasonable to blame my own poor actions on somebody else's speech, makes it harder for me to come down on the pro-publication position of believing the Muslim audience is "taking it too personally" than it otherwise would. I still strongly lean in favour of publication, though.
I did feel extremely defensive at one point when a guy in favour of publication was complaining about what I suggested was an inconsistency in his believing that publishing the cartoons was okay but publishing a phrase like "jews are the new nazis" should be illegal. His response was that talking about Nazis was an order of magnitude worse than mere publishing of caricature.
My response to that was incredibly poor: I thought not rationally, but combatively. My remark in retrospect was incredibly lame as I said something stupid about that being a subjective judgement. It's not. Or I don't think it is. Yet my response was motivated more by a desire not to let the other guy "get one over me" rather than any reasonable attempt to get at the truth.
I'm tempted to let myself believe that I did nothing wrong and that it was the other guy's combative approach that's to blame for me refusing to concede a point. But I don't think I should. And I think that the question of who's to blame for not adopting a reasonable attitude is extremely relevant to the question of the Danish caricature, and it's a question that's completely neglected by most commentators.
I wrote one of my essays last year on freedom of speech in an attempt to challenge my own extremely favourable attitude to free speech and see if there was something wrong with it. I came away from it still being extremely pro-freedom of speech, but I've gained a few insights along the way.
The first one is that in order for freedom of speech to have any meaning at all, there must be an audience for the speech. If a tyrant claims his subjects have freedom of speech because they can say whatever they like in the privacy of their own homes, is that really giving people the benefit of the freedom? Speech that no-one can hear is not really free speech at all.
Accepting that freedom of speech requires an audience immediately shows another way of looking at the cartoon issue: stop looking so much at the opinions and actions of the publishers and start looking at the opinions and actions of the audience.
This is where the dispute really lies when it comes to whether or not to publish the Danish cartoons: on the extreme pro-publication side, it is axiomatic that the members of the audience who feel offended by the cartoons are themselves responsible for "taking it too personally", with no real responsibility for the publisher. On the extreme anti-publication side, it is just as axiomatic that the audience members who feels offended and hurt can justly place the responsibility for that hurt, and for subsequent reactions to that hurt, on the publishers for "deliberately attacking Muslims".
I suspect that most people wouldn't be found on either extreme, and would only lean one way or the other. But I think that's a better starting point for the discussion of the issue: who is responsible for the feeling of harm and/or offense caused by the publication of the cartoons, and why? The answer may not be as straightforward as people think. My own experience above, where I was tempted to think it reasonable to blame my own poor actions on somebody else's speech, makes it harder for me to come down on the pro-publication position of believing the Muslim audience is "taking it too personally" than it otherwise would. I still strongly lean in favour of publication, though.
Monday, February 25, 2008
From uni: thoughts on online activism
At my university tutorial today we managed to get onto the subject of social activism, particularly online activism. I was curious to hear an opinion that online activism was a reason for a reduction in physical, more visible, one might even say "real", activism. I can understand the reasoning: the ability to pop up a "Causes I support" application on Facebook or put an e-mail address onto an online petition is much easier and, in theory, has much less impact than a person actually showing up to a protest or putting their verifiable name and address onto an offline petition. The argument seems to be that such actions aren't an indication of real commitment, but a shallow, insufficient one which gets mistaken as sufficient commitment because, hey, at least we're doing something. Consequently no actual sufficient commitment is made.
I'm not sure I agree. Online activism, as opposed to what one might (inaccurately) call "real" activism, has a much lower barrier to entry in terms of participation. What that means is that while the effect might not be as great per person, there is a much greater chance of getting more people onside. Any offset in people's willingness to actually get away from the computer to do some sort of offline activism has to be weighed against the people who wouldn't otherwise be particularly engaged in any kind of activism but can be persuaded to display your little "Cause" app, sign your petitions, join your mailing list, and from there perhaps even become an offline activist as well as on online one. You might actually gain a body at a physical protest rather than lose one.
There were other reasons put forward for what seems to be a decline in offline activism as well, such as the increased competitiveness of everyday economic life leaving people less time and effort away from the rat-race that they can put towards a non-economic agenda. An opportunity for a less time-consuming form of activism is helpful under such circumstances, if admittedly not as appealing to the especially dedicated.
But overall, I think that the decline in offline activism has mostly been from a perception that it isn't working anymore. The signature example is the Iraq war. The mobilisations against that invasion were some of the most impressive protests that I can remember, but the invasion wasn't stopped. In the wake of the US government's intransigence on the issue, people I think have been forced to working at the most basic level of person to person to try and keep people engaged on the issue. The less imposing, lighter form of activism that is online activism is I think a response to the inability of offline activism to readily effect the social change desired.
It remains to be seen whether this form of activism is definitely abetter or worse at that goal than more traditional forms. But I think that in the context of the current Western social milieu, it is necessarily a better choice.
I'm not sure I agree. Online activism, as opposed to what one might (inaccurately) call "real" activism, has a much lower barrier to entry in terms of participation. What that means is that while the effect might not be as great per person, there is a much greater chance of getting more people onside. Any offset in people's willingness to actually get away from the computer to do some sort of offline activism has to be weighed against the people who wouldn't otherwise be particularly engaged in any kind of activism but can be persuaded to display your little "Cause" app, sign your petitions, join your mailing list, and from there perhaps even become an offline activist as well as on online one. You might actually gain a body at a physical protest rather than lose one.
There were other reasons put forward for what seems to be a decline in offline activism as well, such as the increased competitiveness of everyday economic life leaving people less time and effort away from the rat-race that they can put towards a non-economic agenda. An opportunity for a less time-consuming form of activism is helpful under such circumstances, if admittedly not as appealing to the especially dedicated.
But overall, I think that the decline in offline activism has mostly been from a perception that it isn't working anymore. The signature example is the Iraq war. The mobilisations against that invasion were some of the most impressive protests that I can remember, but the invasion wasn't stopped. In the wake of the US government's intransigence on the issue, people I think have been forced to working at the most basic level of person to person to try and keep people engaged on the issue. The less imposing, lighter form of activism that is online activism is I think a response to the inability of offline activism to readily effect the social change desired.
It remains to be seen whether this form of activism is definitely abetter or worse at that goal than more traditional forms. But I think that in the context of the current Western social milieu, it is necessarily a better choice.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Gay marriage:The Australian Christian Lobby on Lateline
Lateline last night had some reporting on same sex marriage and civil unions last night as the ACT government once again presses ahead with its plan to introduce civil unions in that Territory. Jim Wallace from the Australian Christian Lobby was on, arguing that gay people did not deserve to be married because their relationships did not compare to heterosexual relationships in the slightest.
As so frequently happens from people opposing homosexuality, he spouted a lot of incredibly precise-sounding statistics, not a single one of which can be readily verified by anyone ("Various studies show that..." was the phrasing he used to avoid anyone noting his dearth of real evidence,if I recall correctly). I have from time to time managed to track down some of these wayward statistics to find that they are distorted, misunderstood, and one occasion outright made up (and yes, I can provide sources for that accusation if asked). Other people have also tried to expose this deceptive practice, but it's hard going. For one, most people are statistically illiterate. For too many people, numbers that sound exact, references that appear voluminous and charts that look professionally created count for far more than statistics that are actually accurate. For another, even when the actual reality is presented, it's all too easy for people to ignore the evidence by discrediting the person presenting the evidence on the basis that they're a homosexual who "has an agenda".
I've tried to track down the sources for Wallace's scientific-seeming numbers, with very little success. I've only found one. It's a statistic that occurs relatively frequently in anti-gay propaganda. Anti-gay activist frequently claim that a study in Holland showed that homosexual relationships only last an average of 18 months. The usual tactic when quoting the study is to then compare this to a study which grotesquely overinflates the average duration of heterosexual marriages (note: not heterosexual relationships, heterosexual marriages. I leave it to the reader to figure out why any such comparison between homosexual relationships and only those heterosexual relationships that are heterosexual marriages is inherently dishonest). Jim Wallace in this case spouted the unsourced statistic that Australian marriages last an average of 33 years. I can't find that one at all, unfortunately.
The "Dutch study" in question, though, is called "The contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam", and is available online. Jim Wallace of Box Turtle Bulletin has already done a fairly good job of demolishing the idea that this is a representative sample of homosexual couples:
Perversely, Wallace went even further than most anti-gay activists in his denunciation. He didn't just say homosexual relationships only last an average of eighteen months, he said homosexual marriages only last an average of eighteen months. From the Lateline transcript last night
The study he's misrepresenting had absolutely nothing to say about homosexual marriages in the Netherlands whatsoever. Why does he think he can get away with such dishonesty? It appears to me that the depressing answer is: because he can. Anti-gay activists spout too many lies, and it takes too long to explain why they're lies, to ever be able to effectively catch them all.
There are reasonable questions to go into here about not just gay marriage but marriage itself - whether longevity is necessarily the best measure of a relationship's quality, whether marriage has any effect on the longevity of a relationship, whether this kind of collectivist reasoning about "average duration of a relationship" for a part of the population is a valid reason to deny relationship recognition to all members of that part of the population, including those who fall outside the average - but it is impossible to reach those points of argument when the debate is forever being poisoned by so-called Christians who see nothing wrong with basing their entire worldview about homosexual people and homosexual relationships on a foundation of lies.
As so frequently happens from people opposing homosexuality, he spouted a lot of incredibly precise-sounding statistics, not a single one of which can be readily verified by anyone ("Various studies show that..." was the phrasing he used to avoid anyone noting his dearth of real evidence,if I recall correctly). I have from time to time managed to track down some of these wayward statistics to find that they are distorted, misunderstood, and one occasion outright made up (and yes, I can provide sources for that accusation if asked). Other people have also tried to expose this deceptive practice, but it's hard going. For one, most people are statistically illiterate. For too many people, numbers that sound exact, references that appear voluminous and charts that look professionally created count for far more than statistics that are actually accurate. For another, even when the actual reality is presented, it's all too easy for people to ignore the evidence by discrediting the person presenting the evidence on the basis that they're a homosexual who "has an agenda".
I've tried to track down the sources for Wallace's scientific-seeming numbers, with very little success. I've only found one. It's a statistic that occurs relatively frequently in anti-gay propaganda. Anti-gay activist frequently claim that a study in Holland showed that homosexual relationships only last an average of 18 months. The usual tactic when quoting the study is to then compare this to a study which grotesquely overinflates the average duration of heterosexual marriages (note: not heterosexual relationships, heterosexual marriages. I leave it to the reader to figure out why any such comparison between homosexual relationships and only those heterosexual relationships that are heterosexual marriages is inherently dishonest). Jim Wallace in this case spouted the unsourced statistic that Australian marriages last an average of 33 years. I can't find that one at all, unfortunately.
The "Dutch study" in question, though, is called "The contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam", and is available online. Jim Wallace of Box Turtle Bulletin has already done a fairly good job of demolishing the idea that this is a representative sample of homosexual couples:
We have a study population that was heavily weighted with HIV/AIDS patients, excluded monogamous participants, was predominantly urban, and under the age of thirty. While this population was good for the purposes of the study, it was in no way representative of Amsterdam’s gay men, let alone gay men anywhere else.
Perversely, Wallace went even further than most anti-gay activists in his denunciation. He didn't just say homosexual relationships only last an average of eighteen months, he said homosexual marriages only last an average of eighteen months. From the Lateline transcript last night
JIM WALLACE: And our experience is, that where homosexuals are given marriage, for instance as in Holland, that the average length or duration of those relationships has been eighteen months between two gay men. Now that's not marriage.
The study he's misrepresenting had absolutely nothing to say about homosexual marriages in the Netherlands whatsoever. Why does he think he can get away with such dishonesty? It appears to me that the depressing answer is: because he can. Anti-gay activists spout too many lies, and it takes too long to explain why they're lies, to ever be able to effectively catch them all.
There are reasonable questions to go into here about not just gay marriage but marriage itself - whether longevity is necessarily the best measure of a relationship's quality, whether marriage has any effect on the longevity of a relationship, whether this kind of collectivist reasoning about "average duration of a relationship" for a part of the population is a valid reason to deny relationship recognition to all members of that part of the population, including those who fall outside the average - but it is impossible to reach those points of argument when the debate is forever being poisoned by so-called Christians who see nothing wrong with basing their entire worldview about homosexual people and homosexual relationships on a foundation of lies.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Obama and the "we" generation
I've been struggling to articulate the question of Barack Obama's alleged lack of policy detail and how this actually makes him more favourable to some people, including myself, but found that Henry Jenkins has already explained it, and more besides.
Jenkin's posts tend to be long (academics, huh?), but I think this one is worth reading in its entirety. Here's the section dealing specifically with how I, and assume many others, view Obama's less than fully-detailed policy plans:
Jenkin's posts tend to be long (academics, huh?), but I think this one is worth reading in its entirety. Here's the section dealing specifically with how I, and assume many others, view Obama's less than fully-detailed policy plans:
...the fact that the vision is blurry and not yet well defined is a virtue rather than a limitation: it is a virtue if we set up processes which enable us to collaborate to find further solutions. I look on Obama's more vague statements as something like a stub on wikipedia -- an incitement for us to pool our insights and to work through a range of possible solutions together.
After eight years which have sought to revitalize the once discredited notion of an Imperial President, it is refreshing to imagine a more open, participatory, and bottom up process. In such a model, the experience of the leader is less important than the ability to channel all of those voices and the commitment to make sure that everyone is heard. This is like the difference between older notions of expertise (based on monopoly and control of information) and newer notions of collective intelligence (based on creating a self-correcting and inclusive process by which we collect, evaluate, and distribute knowledge.) This may be what commentators are groping towards when they talk about a generational shift or discuss Obama as the candidate of the future.
Friday, February 08, 2008
In which gay marriage opponents appear confused on the issue
I can't be the only person who's noticed this...
In California, the State Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing on whether the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. One of the arguments in favour of the ban is that
That gets argued a lot, that a domestic partnership, civil union or something similar which gives the same legal rights and responsibilities as marriage should be good enough, even if it isn't specifically called marriage. Many supporters of gay rights find it persuasive, even. Who thinks that a "domestic partnership" is different from a "marriage" in anything except name?
Well, as it turns out, gay marriage opponents do - but only if it's heterosexual relationships at issue. In Maryland, US legislators introduced a Bill that
"Marriage" would be a label applied by religious institutions only. In secular law
The opposition's response? Derision.
So, an arrangement that for gay people is supposedly so similar to marriage that it makes gay marriage itself unnecessary is for straight people a departure from marriage so "radical" that it's demeaning for straight people to be limited to it.
Conclusion? "Separate but equal" never is.
In California, the State Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing on whether the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. One of the arguments in favour of the ban is that
the domestic-partner laws [of California] satisfy California's constitutional requirement of equal treatment for gays and lesbians.
That gets argued a lot, that a domestic partnership, civil union or something similar which gives the same legal rights and responsibilities as marriage should be good enough, even if it isn't specifically called marriage. Many supporters of gay rights find it persuasive, even. Who thinks that a "domestic partnership" is different from a "marriage" in anything except name?
Well, as it turns out, gay marriage opponents do - but only if it's heterosexual relationships at issue. In Maryland, US legislators introduced a Bill that
would abolish civil marriage ceremonies now confined to heterosexual unions in the state and replace them with domestic partnerships for all couples.
"Marriage" would be a label applied by religious institutions only. In secular law
The word "marriage" would be replaced with "valid domestic partnership" in the state's family law code.
The opposition's response? Derision.
"What they're talking about is an even more radical departure from traditional marriage than even advocates for gay marriage are talking about," said Del. Christopher B. Shank (R-Washington), the minority whip. "They're creating a situation for one special interest group that basically diminishes the value of marriage for everyone else."
So, an arrangement that for gay people is supposedly so similar to marriage that it makes gay marriage itself unnecessary is for straight people a departure from marriage so "radical" that it's demeaning for straight people to be limited to it.
Conclusion? "Separate but equal" never is.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
The weirdness of US politics: Obama and abortion
One of the charges that came out early in the US Democratic Primaries was that Barack Obama was insufficiently pro-choice. The issue just resurfaced on the eve of Super Tuesday. It's based on votes made in the Illinois Senate where Obama took advantage of a voting rule which allows a person to vote "present" rather than "yes" or "no" on something, and voting "present" rather than "no" on several bills put forward in the Senate that were pro-life rather than pro-choice.
As explained in the article linked above, other people have defended this voting record on the basis that it was part of a specific strategy requested by pro-choice advocates in the state. Nevertheless it seems that this still gets brought up as a way of trying to show that Obama is more pro-choice than pro-life.
So it was a bit weird to see people on the other side of US politics trying to tell me that Obama is gung ho in favour of baby killing. And they're doing it based on his voting record in the Illinois senate, too.
Here is the location of one of several almost identical screeds online saying that his opposition to something called the "Induced Infant Liability Act" means "his radical stance on abortion puts him even further left on that issue than even NARAL Pro-Choice America" (what NARAL stands for I have no idea, but I'm guessing that they're like the Gold Standard of pro-choice activism).
I've been entertaining myself chasing down the Senate Bill they're talking about (it was actually called the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act and far be it from me to suggest that someone's making it harder to Google the full text of the Bill) and checking for other factual inaccuracies besides the name. The most obvious one is that the author is conflating this Bill with a federal Bill called (supposedly) the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, and trying to pass off support for one as automatic support for the other. But that's just garden-variety hyperpartisanism.
What really amazes me is that it's possible for one person to find himself attacked by partisans on both sides of the same issue for supposedly being too far in the other side's camp. How does that work?
As explained in the article linked above, other people have defended this voting record on the basis that it was part of a specific strategy requested by pro-choice advocates in the state. Nevertheless it seems that this still gets brought up as a way of trying to show that Obama is more pro-choice than pro-life.
So it was a bit weird to see people on the other side of US politics trying to tell me that Obama is gung ho in favour of baby killing. And they're doing it based on his voting record in the Illinois senate, too.
Here is the location of one of several almost identical screeds online saying that his opposition to something called the "Induced Infant Liability Act" means "his radical stance on abortion puts him even further left on that issue than even NARAL Pro-Choice America" (what NARAL stands for I have no idea, but I'm guessing that they're like the Gold Standard of pro-choice activism).
I've been entertaining myself chasing down the Senate Bill they're talking about (it was actually called the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act and far be it from me to suggest that someone's making it harder to Google the full text of the Bill) and checking for other factual inaccuracies besides the name. The most obvious one is that the author is conflating this Bill with a federal Bill called (supposedly) the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, and trying to pass off support for one as automatic support for the other. But that's just garden-variety hyperpartisanism.
What really amazes me is that it's possible for one person to find himself attacked by partisans on both sides of the same issue for supposedly being too far in the other side's camp. How does that work?
Monday, February 04, 2008
The promise and problems of OpenID
Playing around with an OpenID provider and something bothers me.
The idea behind OpenID of course is to try and get past the problem of having lots of different accounts on lots of different websites. The existence of a site like Useless Account is testimony to the problem.
OpenID, as I understand it, gets you to sign on to a single OpenID provider site, like My Open ID, which you can then use to sign into other sites rather than having to explicitly create a new user/password combination for each and every site you want to use.
The main obstacle at the moment seems to be a lack of major sites that will authenticate using OpenID. There does appear to be some recent momentum, with web2.0 site aggregator Plaxo and the Blogger.com comment system now being accessible through OpenID authentication. But that's not what's bothering me.
What's bothering me is that I already have a lot of accounts on a lot of sites which aren't tied to my OpenID account, and I don't see any way to tie those accounts to my OpenID account. Worse, plenty of existing sites like LiveJournal also act as OpenID providers: you can sign onto an OpenID-compatible site using your LiveJournal details. As a result I now not only have multiple accounts around the place, but two of those multiple accounts are both OpenID accounts. This doesn't bode well for a system aimed at reducing the number of superfluous user/password combinations I have to keep in mind.
Maybe there's something I missed in the protocol, but to my knowledge there's no way to associate my previously existing accounts with my OpenID accounts. Nor do I know any way to make my existing accounts on disparate OpenID providers aware of each other so that I could easily alternate between them, or even subordinate one to the other.
Perhaps someone could point out whether this is currently possible? If it isn't, then I fear OpenID will go down the road of things like the DVORAK keyboard: a technological improvement that is superior, useful and fails because it desn't take entrenched social realities into account. To succeed, OpenID needs to be able to assimilate existing accounts somehow.
The idea behind OpenID of course is to try and get past the problem of having lots of different accounts on lots of different websites. The existence of a site like Useless Account is testimony to the problem.
OpenID, as I understand it, gets you to sign on to a single OpenID provider site, like My Open ID, which you can then use to sign into other sites rather than having to explicitly create a new user/password combination for each and every site you want to use.
The main obstacle at the moment seems to be a lack of major sites that will authenticate using OpenID. There does appear to be some recent momentum, with web2.0 site aggregator Plaxo and the Blogger.com comment system now being accessible through OpenID authentication. But that's not what's bothering me.
What's bothering me is that I already have a lot of accounts on a lot of sites which aren't tied to my OpenID account, and I don't see any way to tie those accounts to my OpenID account. Worse, plenty of existing sites like LiveJournal also act as OpenID providers: you can sign onto an OpenID-compatible site using your LiveJournal details. As a result I now not only have multiple accounts around the place, but two of those multiple accounts are both OpenID accounts. This doesn't bode well for a system aimed at reducing the number of superfluous user/password combinations I have to keep in mind.
Maybe there's something I missed in the protocol, but to my knowledge there's no way to associate my previously existing accounts with my OpenID accounts. Nor do I know any way to make my existing accounts on disparate OpenID providers aware of each other so that I could easily alternate between them, or even subordinate one to the other.
Perhaps someone could point out whether this is currently possible? If it isn't, then I fear OpenID will go down the road of things like the DVORAK keyboard: a technological improvement that is superior, useful and fails because it desn't take entrenched social realities into account. To succeed, OpenID needs to be able to assimilate existing accounts somehow.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
US politics: the Obamaniacs vs the Clintonistas
For the last few weeks I've been scouting about the blogosphere, reading opinions and comments about the US Presidential Primaries, particularly as regards the two Democratic front-runners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The last day or two things seem to have gotten really ugly between their online supporters. There was much less disagreement over principle and much more name-calling, mud-slinging and disgust at the alleged negative traits of all the followers of the opposing candidate.
I'm trying not to get sucked in, but I have two observations to make based on the existence of this acrimony, and on the candidates involved:
1. it seems Hillary Clinton is living up to her reputation as a polarising and divisive figure.
2. It seems Barack Obama is not living up to his reputation as a unifying and transcendant one.
I'm trying not to get sucked in, but I have two observations to make based on the existence of this acrimony, and on the candidates involved:
1. it seems Hillary Clinton is living up to her reputation as a polarising and divisive figure.
2. It seems Barack Obama is not living up to his reputation as a unifying and transcendant one.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Child Wise CEO distances herself from government filtering scheme
Child Wise CEO calls for government re-think on ISP filtering.
Good for her. And it's pleasing also that Ms Mcmenamin seems willing to engage online critics. I wish I had more time to write out my own response to her right now.
I've been meaning to write out some thoughts on Barack Obama's candidacy as well, particularly in the light of some harsh criticisms from John Cole at Balloon Juice. I was hoping to write a lot here over the uni break, but I never seem to make the time. Oh well. Maybe I'll try harder in future
Good for her. And it's pleasing also that Ms Mcmenamin seems willing to engage online critics. I wish I had more time to write out my own response to her right now.
I've been meaning to write out some thoughts on Barack Obama's candidacy as well, particularly in the light of some harsh criticisms from John Cole at Balloon Juice. I was hoping to write a lot here over the uni break, but I never seem to make the time. Oh well. Maybe I'll try harder in future
Thursday, January 10, 2008
US politics: the Deomcratic candidates and the Press
I think I've come up with a way to figure out how to predict the outcome of the Democratic Primaries: examine what the American press says, and whatever the opposite of what they're saying is, that's what'll happen.
Obaman winning Iowa was a "surprise win". Clinton winning New Hampshire was a "shock comeback". Now the story appears to be that the race will be a tightly-fought contest between the two of them. If the pattern holds, then the Democratic candidate for the Presidency is going to be John Edwards. The media just doesn't seem to think his campaign is worth covering. On that basis, it's probably the one most worth watching.
This isn't just some contrarian tendency on my part. I think there's a significant perception amongst some American voters that the American press is trying to actively determine who should be the next President rather than simply report on the race. At least that's the impression I get from one of Andrew Sullivan's readers who stated:
Are Americans actively trying to go against the media narratives that are being pushed upon them?
Obaman winning Iowa was a "surprise win". Clinton winning New Hampshire was a "shock comeback". Now the story appears to be that the race will be a tightly-fought contest between the two of them. If the pattern holds, then the Democratic candidate for the Presidency is going to be John Edwards. The media just doesn't seem to think his campaign is worth covering. On that basis, it's probably the one most worth watching.
This isn't just some contrarian tendency on my part. I think there's a significant perception amongst some American voters that the American press is trying to actively determine who should be the next President rather than simply report on the race. At least that's the impression I get from one of Andrew Sullivan's readers who stated:
I think Obama won Iowa because voters resented Hillary's coronation.
I think Hillary won New Hampshire because voters resented Obama's coronation.
Are Americans actively trying to go against the media narratives that are being pushed upon them?
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Child Wise statistics - why these ones?
From Child Wise's media releases page, dated 14 August 2006 we have the article "Australians say no to child porn". It cites the same Newspoll study that Bernadine cited in her recent op-ed in The Australian regarding the attitudes of internet users over 18. Newspoll is generally reliable, so I see no particular reason to doubt the statistics presented.
I am curious about two statements from that press release, though. Child Wise is devoted to prevention of child sexual exploitation, so I wonder why the findings "78% believe that ISPs should offer customers the choice of blocking all pornography" and "64% are not confident that home based internet filters are effective" are quoted as if they're somehow relevant to that task. Home-based filters are of course entirely voluntary, and designed to prevent minors from accessing adult content. They are NOT designed for preventing universal access to illegal content such as child porn. So why even mention them?
The curious inclusion of a statistic about what people think about ISPs offering to block (presumably legal) pornography has no relevance to Child Wise's mission either that I can see. There might be a tortured argument in there about how preventing children from accessing adult sexual material might prevent "mental sexual abuse" from the imagery or somesuch, but I don't think that's the reasoning that Child Wise employs. The relevance to Child Wise's mission of the distinction between child pornography and legal pornography seems completely unconsidered here.
The press release here pre-dates Stephen Conroy's "if you don't support our filter plan then you love paedophiles" smear by over a year, so I don't think the conflation is part of any intentional political smear campaign. I suspect that the conflation is unintentional. But I think that only makes it more problematic. It shows a genuine inability to distinguish between filtering illegal content and filtering adult content only. I think that a lot of Australians share this blind spot. And I fear that that's going to make things very hard for people arguing against this censorship proposal.
I am curious about two statements from that press release, though. Child Wise is devoted to prevention of child sexual exploitation, so I wonder why the findings "78% believe that ISPs should offer customers the choice of blocking all pornography" and "64% are not confident that home based internet filters are effective" are quoted as if they're somehow relevant to that task. Home-based filters are of course entirely voluntary, and designed to prevent minors from accessing adult content. They are NOT designed for preventing universal access to illegal content such as child porn. So why even mention them?
The curious inclusion of a statistic about what people think about ISPs offering to block (presumably legal) pornography has no relevance to Child Wise's mission either that I can see. There might be a tortured argument in there about how preventing children from accessing adult sexual material might prevent "mental sexual abuse" from the imagery or somesuch, but I don't think that's the reasoning that Child Wise employs. The relevance to Child Wise's mission of the distinction between child pornography and legal pornography seems completely unconsidered here.
The press release here pre-dates Stephen Conroy's "if you don't support our filter plan then you love paedophiles" smear by over a year, so I don't think the conflation is part of any intentional political smear campaign. I suspect that the conflation is unintentional. But I think that only makes it more problematic. It shows a genuine inability to distinguish between filtering illegal content and filtering adult content only. I think that a lot of Australians share this blind spot. And I fear that that's going to make things very hard for people arguing against this censorship proposal.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Stephen Conroy's hawking his filter to News Ltd now
But first, an op-ed on Stephen Conroy from 2004. He was Deputy Senate Opposition leader at the time. It's not a flattering article.
In contemporary news, from today's Australian we have this: Conroy wades into child porn net flood. Now there's an alarmist headline.
Some interesting quotes in it, such as "Senator Conroy will seek to halt access to child pornography, X-rated and violent material for all home users through mandatory filtering by ISPs so children can be protected from net nasties."
Curious, but unsurprising, that The Australian has lumped child pornography, regular pornography and violence all into one. I expect the confusion between "adult content" and actual illegal content is stemming from Senator Conroy's office. I hope less net-ignorant old media outlets can do better than this confused mess, but I'm not optimistic.
The article also explicitly states that "Senator Conroy has been prodded into action by Family First senator Steve Fielding, and the Australian Family Association, which scorned the former government's $85 million free filters for families package as wholly inadequate." No idea if that's true or just editorialising upon the writer's part. It jibes with what people have been speculating to date though, given the make-up of the Senate come July.
Anything else? The Childwise organisation mentioned in the article as a source of statistics has nothing on its homepage that suggests they're actually on board with this government proposal: they want to stop child sexual exploitation, not just hide the evidence of it from the eyes of other children. Might be worth looking into them further, see if they've been misquoted.
Edit: Oh dear. I guess Bernadette McMenamin of Childwise wasn't misquoted in the slightest. Interesting that she's describing the filter as a blanket means of "blocking child pornography and other illegal content" rather than the "child-safe feed with adult opt-out option" that's the supposed proposal on the table, though. Who's been told fibs? Ms McMenamin? Or the Australian public?
In contemporary news, from today's Australian we have this: Conroy wades into child porn net flood. Now there's an alarmist headline.
Some interesting quotes in it, such as "Senator Conroy will seek to halt access to child pornography, X-rated and violent material for all home users through mandatory filtering by ISPs so children can be protected from net nasties."
Curious, but unsurprising, that The Australian has lumped child pornography, regular pornography and violence all into one. I expect the confusion between "adult content" and actual illegal content is stemming from Senator Conroy's office. I hope less net-ignorant old media outlets can do better than this confused mess, but I'm not optimistic.
The article also explicitly states that "Senator Conroy has been prodded into action by Family First senator Steve Fielding, and the Australian Family Association, which scorned the former government's $85 million free filters for families package as wholly inadequate." No idea if that's true or just editorialising upon the writer's part. It jibes with what people have been speculating to date though, given the make-up of the Senate come July.
Anything else? The Childwise organisation mentioned in the article as a source of statistics has nothing on its homepage that suggests they're actually on board with this government proposal: they want to stop child sexual exploitation, not just hide the evidence of it from the eyes of other children. Might be worth looking into them further, see if they've been misquoted.
Edit: Oh dear. I guess Bernadette McMenamin of Childwise wasn't misquoted in the slightest. Interesting that she's describing the filter as a blanket means of "blocking child pornography and other illegal content" rather than the "child-safe feed with adult opt-out option" that's the supposed proposal on the table, though. Who's been told fibs? Ms McMenamin? Or the Australian public?
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Internet censorship: some numbers, some publications, some thoughts
A paper from the Australian Institute (homepage here) published in 2003 outlines a proposal for a mandatory filtering system which looks broadly similar to the one Labor wants to go ahead with, although their proposals went further. I don't know if this is the basis of Labor's policy, but there are some interesting (and from an anti-censorship viewpoint, worrying) statistics on support for censorship among parents of teenagers on pages 22-24 of the paper:
On the question of censorship, when these parents were asked "Would you support a system which automatically filtered out Internet pornography going into homes unless adult users asked otherwise?" the result was the following:
Of course, not all Australian citizens are parents, and not all parents are parents of 12-17 year olds (inclusive), but that's still a pretty hefty voting bloc there with an incredibly unified viewpoint, a statistic which I don't think it's possible to disregard just because of the relatively small sample size.
My initial belief that people support mandatory censorship due to unfamiliarity with the Internet may not hold water given the high uptake of Internet use among this censorous segment of the population. It might be the case that the Internet connection at these households is usually purchased for the benefit of the teenagers rather than the adults, who don't use it. I could see how a combination of parental unfamiliarity with something that's right in their homes, where their children are in reach, could contribute to alarmism.
But that would only be a theory. It could just as easily be the case that these parents have plumbed the depths of what's out there, and don't want to think about even the minutest possibility that their children might come across something untoward. It would also explain the even higher rate of support for mandatory filtering among parents aged 25-34, who I would expect to have some Internet experience as a teenager/young adult under their belt, as well. (Parents as young as 25 with children as old as 17? Or even 12? Something about those statistics at the low end of the parental age bracket is skewed).
As to Labor's policy itself, it probably would've been a good idea to pay more attention to it prior to the election. Their pre-election proposal, "Labor's Plan for Cyber-Safety", is still available for download here.
Apropos of nothing in particular, the insistence on prefixing anything net-related with "cyber-" sets my teeth on edge: "cyber-safety", teaching children to be "responsible cyber-citizens", "cyber-bullying", "cyber-stalking" - it might make sense within the whole "net as cyberspace/virtual reality" paradigm of the 80's and 90's, but I don't think it's accurate or productive to continue treating online material as somehow separate from mundane reality. Today's Internet is a part of everyday reality, not separate from it, and cybertalking in cyberlanguage about cyberactions that supposedly only have cybereffects in cyberspace just doesn't help address the new media issues of today in a realistic manner.
Anyway, here's a curious sentence from Labor's fact sheet on page 5: "Labor’s ISP policy will prevent Australian children from accessing any content that has been identified as prohibited by ACMA, including sites such as those containing child pornography and X-rated material". [emphasis added]
Prominent Australian political blogs like The Bartlett Diaries and the Road to Surfdom have picked up on Senator Conroy's "civil libertarians = kiddyfiddlers" comment, and consider it a baseless political smear. If it is just a cynical smear that Conroy doesn't himself believe, I wonder why his pre-election fact sheet includes this conflation of X-rated material with child pornography, and seems to assume that the issue of child porn online has been adequately dealt with when children have been restricted from accessing it? Perhaps the Senator really is so confused about the issue that he can't tell the difference between the two different Internet boogiemen of children accessing pornography, and anyone accessing and/or distributing child pornography?
I think I'm going to buck the conventional wisdom that the Senator is cynical, and favour the assumption that he's stupid: he genuinely believes that "restricting children's access to online child pornography and X-rated material" is a coherent policy goal. Perhaps he assumes, as too many ignorant people do, that vast tracts of illegal and disgusting material are strewn all across the Internet within easy reach of anyone, and all that can be done about it is to reign in those young people who have not yet succumbed to its alleged allure.
The question I guess, then, is "is the rest of the Australian public also that stupid?". If this was a sane discussion, I'd have faith in Australians to come to the right conclusion, but I fear on the issue of the Internet, fearmongering and alarmism could beat out sanity very easily. In fact judging by the statistics of what Australian parents of teenagers want that I listed above, they've already done so.
Newspoll was commissioned to survey the attitudes of parents with children aged 12 to 17 (inclusive). The survey was conducted over the weekends of 13-16 and 20-23 February 2003 and the sample size was 377 randomly selected households with at least one child in the specified age group. The margin of error is five per cent or less.
[...]
Seventy eight per cent of these households report having access to the Internet at home, a much higher proportion than the average, which is closer to one third.
On the question of censorship, when these parents were asked "Would you support a system which automatically filtered out Internet pornography going into homes unless adult users asked otherwise?" the result was the following:
Ninety-three percent of parents of teenagers support this proposal while only five per cent oppose it, with three per cent unsure. One might expect that younger parents would be less in favour of these strategies given more sexually liberal views among younger adults. Instead, our survey finds that younger parents, those in the 25-34 age bracket, are 100 per cent in favour (compared to 92 per cent of those aged 35-49 and 93 per cent of those aged 50 and over).
Of course, not all Australian citizens are parents, and not all parents are parents of 12-17 year olds (inclusive), but that's still a pretty hefty voting bloc there with an incredibly unified viewpoint, a statistic which I don't think it's possible to disregard just because of the relatively small sample size.
My initial belief that people support mandatory censorship due to unfamiliarity with the Internet may not hold water given the high uptake of Internet use among this censorous segment of the population. It might be the case that the Internet connection at these households is usually purchased for the benefit of the teenagers rather than the adults, who don't use it. I could see how a combination of parental unfamiliarity with something that's right in their homes, where their children are in reach, could contribute to alarmism.
But that would only be a theory. It could just as easily be the case that these parents have plumbed the depths of what's out there, and don't want to think about even the minutest possibility that their children might come across something untoward. It would also explain the even higher rate of support for mandatory filtering among parents aged 25-34, who I would expect to have some Internet experience as a teenager/young adult under their belt, as well. (Parents as young as 25 with children as old as 17? Or even 12? Something about those statistics at the low end of the parental age bracket is skewed).
As to Labor's policy itself, it probably would've been a good idea to pay more attention to it prior to the election. Their pre-election proposal, "Labor's Plan for Cyber-Safety", is still available for download here.
Apropos of nothing in particular, the insistence on prefixing anything net-related with "cyber-" sets my teeth on edge: "cyber-safety", teaching children to be "responsible cyber-citizens", "cyber-bullying", "cyber-stalking" - it might make sense within the whole "net as cyberspace/virtual reality" paradigm of the 80's and 90's, but I don't think it's accurate or productive to continue treating online material as somehow separate from mundane reality. Today's Internet is a part of everyday reality, not separate from it, and cybertalking in cyberlanguage about cyberactions that supposedly only have cybereffects in cyberspace just doesn't help address the new media issues of today in a realistic manner.
Anyway, here's a curious sentence from Labor's fact sheet on page 5: "Labor’s ISP policy will prevent Australian children from accessing any content that has been identified as prohibited by ACMA, including sites such as those containing child pornography and X-rated material". [emphasis added]
Prominent Australian political blogs like The Bartlett Diaries and the Road to Surfdom have picked up on Senator Conroy's "civil libertarians = kiddyfiddlers" comment, and consider it a baseless political smear. If it is just a cynical smear that Conroy doesn't himself believe, I wonder why his pre-election fact sheet includes this conflation of X-rated material with child pornography, and seems to assume that the issue of child porn online has been adequately dealt with when children have been restricted from accessing it? Perhaps the Senator really is so confused about the issue that he can't tell the difference between the two different Internet boogiemen of children accessing pornography, and anyone accessing and/or distributing child pornography?
I think I'm going to buck the conventional wisdom that the Senator is cynical, and favour the assumption that he's stupid: he genuinely believes that "restricting children's access to online child pornography and X-rated material" is a coherent policy goal. Perhaps he assumes, as too many ignorant people do, that vast tracts of illegal and disgusting material are strewn all across the Internet within easy reach of anyone, and all that can be done about it is to reign in those young people who have not yet succumbed to its alleged allure.
The question I guess, then, is "is the rest of the Australian public also that stupid?". If this was a sane discussion, I'd have faith in Australians to come to the right conclusion, but I fear on the issue of the Internet, fearmongering and alarmism could beat out sanity very easily. In fact judging by the statistics of what Australian parents of teenagers want that I listed above, they've already done so.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Internet censorship rant
"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree."
So sayeth our new Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy when defending Labor's intention to force ISPs in Australia to filter internet content.
It should be mentioned here that the planned internet filtering is being presented as a means of protecting children from material that is inappropriate for them, with an "unfiltered" option available to adults who want to opt out. In other words, it has NOTHING to do with tackling child pornography - unless of course the Senator is suggesting that anyone who wants an unfiltered feed wants it so they can access child porn. What is Senator Conroy talking about?
(1) The most cynical interpretation is that the good Senator knows damn well that the proposal has nothing to do with child porn and is knowingly trying to confuse the two in the public's mind. If so, it seems to have succeeded in the case of Daily Telegraph writer Galen English. Her column merrily bobbles along saying things like "Besides, what evidence is there that young children using the web are regularly stumbling across child pornography? Sites used by paedophiles are well hidden and frequently relocated to avoid detection", acting for all the world as if child porn is not already illegal to access and possess for both children and adults.
I believe one implication of Senator Conroy deliberately trying to confuse the public by engaging in a smear that he knows to be baseless is this: he has no intention of responding to any protests on this issue, his only intention is to discredit the protesters. Appeals to the government directly will not work. Appeals must be made to the public at large. The effectiveness of that approach will I think depend on how knowledgeable the public is about the Internet these days. I fear that they aren't knowledgeable enough.
(2) Alternatively, Senator Conroy himself might not be knowledgeable enough, and might just be stupid and incredibly ill-informed about his own portfolio. Some research from uni I came across last year suggested that far too many people view the Internet in a way that isn't entirely rational. Rather than a tool or a mere network of computers exchanging data, many people see it as a kind of gateway to the unconscious, a dangerous other place where dark and secret desires that have been stifled by the conscious mind are free to roam. While adults can usually navigate the pathways without too much trouble, children are seen as vulnerable due to their immature judgement, and when porn or violence suddenly leaps out at them they'll end up psychically damaged and end up, say, thinking that suicide and self-harm are wonderful things.
In such a view, much of the content of the Internet seems to exist outside of rational, conscious legal control: all you can do is try to block it out. The confusion between "adult content" and actual illegal content like child pornography would indeed seem blurry if you don't understand that both moral and legal norms do already exist with regard to what is available on the Internet, both in Australia and around the world. They only need to be applied in a sensible way. If Senator Conroy is stupid rather than malicious, it's a failure of both government policy that they're concentrating on blanket censorship rather than working with the Internet community to try and address the existence of morally and legally problematic content. It lacks imagination, ignores the advice of people with actual knowledge of the issue, and shows a terrifying deficiency of technological understanding from a government that's promised us a technologically spurred "education revolution".
****
My uni degree is supposedly teaching me to, among other things, be a more intelligent activist. I don't know how well it's succeeding. But from my less than perfectly worded speculations above, as well as a few other thoughts, I can think of a few suggestions that I would make to anti-censorship activists were I in a position to make some:
First, don't assume that the government is going to listen to your concerns in good faith. Assume that they are out to get you. They may not be, they may be nice, but don't count on it.
Second, reach out to the general public as much as you can. This especially includes off-line activity targeted at people who don't use the Internet. Assume that such people don't understand the Internet. Suggest that the supposed danger of it, particularly to children, has been vastly exaggerated. Seek to explain why. But whatever you do, don't patronise them.
Third, don't take being called child pornography supporters lying down. I would note that some civil libertarians have expressed concerns that anyone who wants to opt out of the ISP censorship regime might get stigmatised in the future. I point out that this is happening right now, and it's coming from the man charged with creating the censorship regime: Stephen Conroy in his comment above has as good as said that anyone who wants uncensored net access wants the freedom to access child porn. Call him on it, if possible. I wish I knew the right question to ask, but "I want to opt out of the ISP regime. Why do you think that means I want access to child pornography?" sets the tone about right I think. It needs to be snappier, though.
Fourth, the Rudd government may be vulnerable to an oblique attack: the promised education revolution, particularly when talking about its promises of making Australia more proficient in IT training, could conceivably become a vector for concerns about internet censorship. This could conceivably overcome attempts by the Rudd government to ignore democratic objection to Conroy's proposal if it's seen as a betrayal of one of Rudd's core election promises, and not just as a side issue. Keywords so far describing the problems with the censorship proposal have been "oppressive" and "expensive". I would like to add another: stupid.
After all, this proposal is stupid. It's been hatched together by people too stupid to understand the Internet, it's attempting to address issues related to the Internet in a stupid way, its defense relies on convincing people that it's alright to be stupid and let the government take care of all their thinking for them, and it's going to destroy the promise of the education revolution that it would make our economy more knowledge-based: nothing discourages intelligence and encourages stupidity like censorship does.
So sayeth our new Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy when defending Labor's intention to force ISPs in Australia to filter internet content.
It should be mentioned here that the planned internet filtering is being presented as a means of protecting children from material that is inappropriate for them, with an "unfiltered" option available to adults who want to opt out. In other words, it has NOTHING to do with tackling child pornography - unless of course the Senator is suggesting that anyone who wants an unfiltered feed wants it so they can access child porn. What is Senator Conroy talking about?
(1) The most cynical interpretation is that the good Senator knows damn well that the proposal has nothing to do with child porn and is knowingly trying to confuse the two in the public's mind. If so, it seems to have succeeded in the case of Daily Telegraph writer Galen English. Her column merrily bobbles along saying things like "Besides, what evidence is there that young children using the web are regularly stumbling across child pornography? Sites used by paedophiles are well hidden and frequently relocated to avoid detection", acting for all the world as if child porn is not already illegal to access and possess for both children and adults.
I believe one implication of Senator Conroy deliberately trying to confuse the public by engaging in a smear that he knows to be baseless is this: he has no intention of responding to any protests on this issue, his only intention is to discredit the protesters. Appeals to the government directly will not work. Appeals must be made to the public at large. The effectiveness of that approach will I think depend on how knowledgeable the public is about the Internet these days. I fear that they aren't knowledgeable enough.
(2) Alternatively, Senator Conroy himself might not be knowledgeable enough, and might just be stupid and incredibly ill-informed about his own portfolio. Some research from uni I came across last year suggested that far too many people view the Internet in a way that isn't entirely rational. Rather than a tool or a mere network of computers exchanging data, many people see it as a kind of gateway to the unconscious, a dangerous other place where dark and secret desires that have been stifled by the conscious mind are free to roam. While adults can usually navigate the pathways without too much trouble, children are seen as vulnerable due to their immature judgement, and when porn or violence suddenly leaps out at them they'll end up psychically damaged and end up, say, thinking that suicide and self-harm are wonderful things.
In such a view, much of the content of the Internet seems to exist outside of rational, conscious legal control: all you can do is try to block it out. The confusion between "adult content" and actual illegal content like child pornography would indeed seem blurry if you don't understand that both moral and legal norms do already exist with regard to what is available on the Internet, both in Australia and around the world. They only need to be applied in a sensible way. If Senator Conroy is stupid rather than malicious, it's a failure of both government policy that they're concentrating on blanket censorship rather than working with the Internet community to try and address the existence of morally and legally problematic content. It lacks imagination, ignores the advice of people with actual knowledge of the issue, and shows a terrifying deficiency of technological understanding from a government that's promised us a technologically spurred "education revolution".
****
My uni degree is supposedly teaching me to, among other things, be a more intelligent activist. I don't know how well it's succeeding. But from my less than perfectly worded speculations above, as well as a few other thoughts, I can think of a few suggestions that I would make to anti-censorship activists were I in a position to make some:
First, don't assume that the government is going to listen to your concerns in good faith. Assume that they are out to get you. They may not be, they may be nice, but don't count on it.
Second, reach out to the general public as much as you can. This especially includes off-line activity targeted at people who don't use the Internet. Assume that such people don't understand the Internet. Suggest that the supposed danger of it, particularly to children, has been vastly exaggerated. Seek to explain why. But whatever you do, don't patronise them.
Third, don't take being called child pornography supporters lying down. I would note that some civil libertarians have expressed concerns that anyone who wants to opt out of the ISP censorship regime might get stigmatised in the future. I point out that this is happening right now, and it's coming from the man charged with creating the censorship regime: Stephen Conroy in his comment above has as good as said that anyone who wants uncensored net access wants the freedom to access child porn. Call him on it, if possible. I wish I knew the right question to ask, but "I want to opt out of the ISP regime. Why do you think that means I want access to child pornography?" sets the tone about right I think. It needs to be snappier, though.
Fourth, the Rudd government may be vulnerable to an oblique attack: the promised education revolution, particularly when talking about its promises of making Australia more proficient in IT training, could conceivably become a vector for concerns about internet censorship. This could conceivably overcome attempts by the Rudd government to ignore democratic objection to Conroy's proposal if it's seen as a betrayal of one of Rudd's core election promises, and not just as a side issue. Keywords so far describing the problems with the censorship proposal have been "oppressive" and "expensive". I would like to add another: stupid.
After all, this proposal is stupid. It's been hatched together by people too stupid to understand the Internet, it's attempting to address issues related to the Internet in a stupid way, its defense relies on convincing people that it's alright to be stupid and let the government take care of all their thinking for them, and it's going to destroy the promise of the education revolution that it would make our economy more knowledge-based: nothing discourages intelligence and encourages stupidity like censorship does.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Focus on Australia Foundation/The Exclusive Brethern
John on Vox has expressed interest in finding more information about the Focus on Australia Foundation and its links with the Exclusive Brethren, and possibly the Australian Liberals as well.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Focus on Australia Foundation has a website
From a commentor: http://www.imsure.com.au
The site doesn't show up easily from a Google search because it's all done in Flash. I mean its all done in Flash. Yick.
Whois lists the registrant of the domain name as Allan David Green, same person that owned Focus on Australia Foundation's trustee company Kuduru Pty Ltd before he handed it off to Gayle Le Bon on October 23. All their claymation ads are available from the site: anti-union, pro-Workchoices, anti-green (or possibly anti-dodo, it's kind of hard to tell), pro-mature aged education. That last one seems kind of random.
Their policies are in that Flash awfulness as well, which makes copy-and-paste hard: they aim to "promote and foster" things like "freedom of contract between commercial parties", "fair and equitable workplace relations laws", "public policy which supports and encourages families as a social unit in Australia", access to high quality healthcare and education and..oh hell I'm not going to type all that out, suffice it to say that they're looking to give money to institutions and people that promote their goals and to enter into alliances and what have you with organisations that promote similar goals to their own. Their main schtick seems to be pro-business, which seems intermingled with a pro-family agenda too. That's an odd combination. Well, maybe not for Hillsong, but they're a New South Wales outfit aren't they? These FOAF people are in Queensland.
Anything else? They're wanting FOAF to be "a collective voice that reaches out to our nation promoting Values that sustain our Australia's abundance" (the capital V on Values and the use of the grammatically weird but plausibly accurate phrase "our Australia's abundance" are both in the original website). Their contact address is a PO Box, which is different from their registered place of business in Coomera.
My tentative impression is either astro-turfing body or (far less likely) slush fund. I'm not sure for who.
The site doesn't show up easily from a Google search because it's all done in Flash. I mean its all done in Flash. Yick.
Whois lists the registrant of the domain name as Allan David Green, same person that owned Focus on Australia Foundation's trustee company Kuduru Pty Ltd before he handed it off to Gayle Le Bon on October 23. All their claymation ads are available from the site: anti-union, pro-Workchoices, anti-green (or possibly anti-dodo, it's kind of hard to tell), pro-mature aged education. That last one seems kind of random.
Their policies are in that Flash awfulness as well, which makes copy-and-paste hard: they aim to "promote and foster" things like "freedom of contract between commercial parties", "fair and equitable workplace relations laws", "public policy which supports and encourages families as a social unit in Australia", access to high quality healthcare and education and..oh hell I'm not going to type all that out, suffice it to say that they're looking to give money to institutions and people that promote their goals and to enter into alliances and what have you with organisations that promote similar goals to their own. Their main schtick seems to be pro-business, which seems intermingled with a pro-family agenda too. That's an odd combination. Well, maybe not for Hillsong, but they're a New South Wales outfit aren't they? These FOAF people are in Queensland.
Anything else? They're wanting FOAF to be "a collective voice that reaches out to our nation promoting Values that sustain our Australia's abundance" (the capital V on Values and the use of the grammatically weird but plausibly accurate phrase "our Australia's abundance" are both in the original website). Their contact address is a PO Box, which is different from their registered place of business in Coomera.
My tentative impression is either astro-turfing body or (far less likely) slush fund. I'm not sure for who.
That fake "Islamic Australia Federation" ad
Courtesy of my boyfriend Nick, here is the full text of the leaflet that Federal Liberal MP Jackie Kelly's husband, Gary Clark, and member of the NSW Liberal Party state executive, Jeff Egan were distributing in St Marys (a place where I very briefly went to high school, incidentally). Full details are in many Australian papers, including the Daily Telegraph somewhat suprisingly to me:Libs handed out fake Muslim flyers.
UPDATE: here's a PDF which includes the graphics used and the "Ala Akba[sic]" at the end: click here
Jackie Kelly's response has been that it was all a "Chaser-style" prank. The Chaser's response: "It's a bit of a worry when the best argument you have to defend your ethical practices is that you were doing what The Chaser does".
In any case, it should be possible for people to judge for themselves whether or not they agree with Mrs Kelly's claim of the text printed here that "If you read it you would be laughing".
UPDATE: here's a PDF which includes the graphics used and the "Ala Akba[sic]" at the end: click here
The role of the Islamic Australia Federation is to support Islamic Australians by providing a strong network within Islamic Australia.
Muslims supporting Muslims within the community and assisting and showing christian Australians the glorious path to Islam.
In the upcoming federal election we strongly support the ALP as our preferred party to govern this country and urge all other Muslims to do the same.
The leading role of the ALP in supporting our faith at both state and local government levels has been exceptional and we look further to further support when Kevin Rudd leads this country.
We gratefully acknowledge Labor's support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings.
Labor supports our new Mosque construction and we hope, with the support or funding of local and state governments, to open our new Mosque in St Marys soon.
Labor was the only political party to support the entry to this country of our Grand Mufti reverend Sheik al-Hilaly (sic) and we thank Hon Paul Keating for over-turning the objections of ASIO to allow our Grand Mufti to enter this country.
Jackie Kelly's response has been that it was all a "Chaser-style" prank. The Chaser's response: "It's a bit of a worry when the best argument you have to defend your ethical practices is that you were doing what The Chaser does".
In any case, it should be possible for people to judge for themselves whether or not they agree with Mrs Kelly's claim of the text printed here that "If you read it you would be laughing".
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Article on Focus on Australia Foundation: "Small business funds trust behind television ads"
Full text of the Australian Financial Review article found in the Deep Web (gotta love that database access). This probably isn't that big a deal given the extremely primitive nature of the ads, but I think it should always be possible to have at least some idea of who's responsible for political advertising.
***
Small business funds trust behind television ads
Fleur Anderson
159 words
20 November 2007
Australian Financial Review (Abstracts)
11
English
Copyright 2007 Media Monitors Australia Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved
A number of small businesses have funded an anti-union advertising campaign that has been running on commercial television networks and on SBS in recent weeks. The Gold Coast-based Focus on Australia Foundation's ads urge voters: 'Don't give your vote to unions' and 'Thinking clears the vision, WorkChoices is a bright idea.' The campaign was authorised by Gayle Le Bon, the sole director, secretary, and shareholder of Focus' trustee company, Kuduru Pty Ltd. Australian Securities and Investments Commission records show the company was previously set up, owned and run since 1997 by Allan David Green, who resigned as director and secretary and transferred his three shares to Ms Le Bon on October 23. No suggestions of improper conduct were made against Mr Green.
***
Small business funds trust behind television ads
Fleur Anderson
159 words
20 November 2007
Australian Financial Review (Abstracts)
11
English
Copyright 2007 Media Monitors Australia Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved
A number of small businesses have funded an anti-union advertising campaign that has been running on commercial television networks and on SBS in recent weeks. The Gold Coast-based Focus on Australia Foundation's ads urge voters: 'Don't give your vote to unions' and 'Thinking clears the vision, WorkChoices is a bright idea.' The campaign was authorised by Gayle Le Bon, the sole director, secretary, and shareholder of Focus' trustee company, Kuduru Pty Ltd. Australian Securities and Investments Commission records show the company was previously set up, owned and run since 1997 by Allan David Green, who resigned as director and secretary and transferred his three shares to Ms Le Bon on October 23. No suggestions of improper conduct were made against Mr Green.
Political ads: who is "Focus on Australia Foundation"?
I was watching the morning news and was a little surprised by the sheer number of ads that the Coalition has apparently bought - I swear there was at least one warning about a Labor government run by "union fanatics" (Gillard), "environmental extremists" (Garrett) and "learners" (Swan and Rudd) every single ad break. But I also saw two odd political ads from an outfit I've never heard of before. I can't find the first ad on youtube, but it featured a short claymation skit of a voter putting his vote into some sort of monster thingy that had "union" written on it, which got activated by the vote getting put into it and then ate the voter. The voice-over message was something like "know what it is you're voting for". Pretty standard anti-union/anti-Labor stuff, except it never mentioned Labor even once.
The second one got put up on Youtube by someone because they thought it was so odd:"it's a green dodo!".
So: anti-union/anti-Labor, and anti-environmentalist/anti-Green I guess, although it is kind of hard to tell what the hell that green dodo's supposed to be about. It's very childish.
Both ads listed the sponsor of the ad as something called the "Focus on Australia Foundation", based in Coomera, Qld. Standard google search turns up, in total, someone asking about them on pollbludger.com in the comments about an AC Nielson poll on Wentworth, and noting that they seem to be very much an "under the radar" sort of set-up.
Google blogsearch comes up with this person also wondering what's up with the green dodo crap. He says he found something in ASIC but I can't find what he's referring to as yet.
I did find this in the ABN register: the ABN of the Trustee of the Focus on Australia Foundation Trust: 19 779 196 982. Postcode for this is 4209, same as Coomera. The ABN has been active only since 24 Oct 2007. It's a "discretionary investment trust" per the ABR. A discretionary trust is apparently a "A trust that is neither a fixed trust nor a hybrid trust and under which a person or persons benefit from income or capital of the trust upon the exercise of a discretion by a person or persons, usually the trustee." As a discretionary investment trust "the main source of income of the discretionary trust is from investment activities" (thank you ABR help glossary).
I'm really not sure what this is about, but I don't like it. Independent organisations putting up political attack ads isn't bad per se, but I generally like to know who's doing it and why (case in point: Getup). For this FOAF thing, there's no website, no contact details and the only easy-to-acess business record suggests that money's being funneled to it via a trust. Am I correct in my suspicions that this set-up very effectively conceals the source of its funding and the identity of the person who's running it?
The only other lead is that the actual person who authorised the ads was named "G. Lebon". I don't expect much luck in tracing that. I have my suspicions about who's behind all this naturally: Family First or The Exclusive Brethren would be the people I'd name as willing and able to do these sorts of under the table shenanigans. But as yet there's no proof of anyone's involvement.
I intend to keep looking through other sources of information available to me as time permits.
The second one got put up on Youtube by someone because they thought it was so odd:"it's a green dodo!".
So: anti-union/anti-Labor, and anti-environmentalist/anti-Green I guess, although it is kind of hard to tell what the hell that green dodo's supposed to be about. It's very childish.
Both ads listed the sponsor of the ad as something called the "Focus on Australia Foundation", based in Coomera, Qld. Standard google search turns up, in total, someone asking about them on pollbludger.com in the comments about an AC Nielson poll on Wentworth, and noting that they seem to be very much an "under the radar" sort of set-up.
Google blogsearch comes up with this person also wondering what's up with the green dodo crap. He says he found something in ASIC but I can't find what he's referring to as yet.
I did find this in the ABN register: the ABN of the Trustee of the Focus on Australia Foundation Trust: 19 779 196 982. Postcode for this is 4209, same as Coomera. The ABN has been active only since 24 Oct 2007. It's a "discretionary investment trust" per the ABR. A discretionary trust is apparently a "A trust that is neither a fixed trust nor a hybrid trust and under which a person or persons benefit from income or capital of the trust upon the exercise of a discretion by a person or persons, usually the trustee." As a discretionary investment trust "the main source of income of the discretionary trust is from investment activities" (thank you ABR help glossary).
I'm really not sure what this is about, but I don't like it. Independent organisations putting up political attack ads isn't bad per se, but I generally like to know who's doing it and why (case in point: Getup). For this FOAF thing, there's no website, no contact details and the only easy-to-acess business record suggests that money's being funneled to it via a trust. Am I correct in my suspicions that this set-up very effectively conceals the source of its funding and the identity of the person who's running it?
The only other lead is that the actual person who authorised the ads was named "G. Lebon". I don't expect much luck in tracing that. I have my suspicions about who's behind all this naturally: Family First or The Exclusive Brethren would be the people I'd name as willing and able to do these sorts of under the table shenanigans. But as yet there's no proof of anyone's involvement.
I intend to keep looking through other sources of information available to me as time permits.
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