Hi Everyone, I love it here at the Mansion. No one knows what the future holds, but it would seem that the Australian Government, in it's infinite stupidity is set to attempt an internet censorship scheme. In Australia, material showing naked bodies having a very good time is given an X censorship rating, which is the highest available. R is reserved for softer sex or nakedness not involving penetration. Since sex is pretty much at the X level of censorship, that doesn't leave any room for anything else.. such as fetishes, which are refused classification. And a Chastity site will be considered fetish, as much as Femdom, Latex or CBT will be. This site includes many of these themes. I've no idea of the scheduled start date on this hair brained scheme, and information isn't easy to come by as the media seems surprisingly uninterested (or perhaps vested-ly interested). Anyway, the long and the short of it is; if I disappear into thin air and never post again it will be because of this scheme blocking the site. As for the future beyond this scheme, it will only be when enough adults who fond of the freedom of ideas which do not hurt others are amassed into rallies, protests and general civil disobedience that we will see a change in attitude in Australia. Bring on the new 1970s.
And who says we live in a free society, I thought Australia was a liberal country. The only advice I could give is to find a portal of some sort. I can't remember the specifics but I back in college a guy found a software portal that you could download onto your PC as permanent gateway to blocked web sites.
Wow - that's amazing! I suspect that a LOT of people over there will be in trouble! I wonder how they are going to monitor this.
I saw this article (link) on a "Small Titties" forum that I love. Apparently, the Australian censorship nutjobs also believe that watching porn with small-breasted women promotes pedophilia! Oi! Boneheads! Good luck burger! mikecb
This is the kind of stuff that really sets Me off!!! Why is it that the government is ALWAYS trying to tell U/us what is best for U/us?? It would seem they feel W/we're just too stupid to figure that out on O/our own!! BAH!
When are "they" (as in ANY government, going to realise that it is not THEIR job to censor what anyone does (apart from criminal actions) or says. When it comes (no pun intended) to sex and "sexual" activities or fetishes or whatever you want to call them..... WE ARE GROWN UP ADULTS, and WE have the right to decide for ourselves what we do behind closed doors. AND, it is the responsibility of PARENTS to control what their kids do or don't see both on the television and on the computer. It's about time parents started taking control of their children's activities rather than leaving it to society in general. Unfortunately there is always a vocal minority who force their prudish ideas on the silent majority. I'll get down off my soap box and go to bed now...haven't even been drinking either!! cheers all michelleCD
You're right Kris, it was Mistress Watchful, It's going to be monitored by a blacklist of URLs which is to be kept secret, so we won't even know which sites are and aren't blacklisted. The black list will probably start with the list complied by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) which is probably best described as: a self-appointed, self-regulated internet watchdog, which views user-submitted content and compiles a list of websites that it deems to contain illegal images. Basically a few guys got together and realised that no one else was regulating the internet, and they could make money pretending to. The IWF is responsible for most of the UK's blacklists too. The Australian list will build on this by adding whatever the government of the day wants to add to the secret list. Thanks all for your concerns. I'm aware of how to circumvent these restrictions, but until I know the penalties I'll keep that in reserve. Such is life eh!
You can be assured that as far as the Internet goes, whatever the authorities try to censor, someone will find a way to defeat it. Especially with "blacklists": it's easy enough to route traffic thru a proxy that hides the URL of the original sender. As draconian as the Australian government is, the Scandinavian countries are equally committed to Internet freedom. Given that the Australian government is so conservative, I find it ironic that the 2010 Global Atheist Convention is being held in Australia.