And, more Australian small-party politics
Oct. 3rd, 2004 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenThanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hasimir for doing more research, which I'm regurgitating here :-)
According FF's founder, he was invited to speak at the Adelaide Forum and had no idea what sort of people the organisers & other attendees were; he's denied having any links to those groups. I guess it could be true.
Meanwhile, their anti-pornography policy. They want mandatory porn-filtering imposed on Australian ISPs; in their words, "this may have the result of putting cost pressures on some of the smaller ISPs, but there is [sic] arguably too many of these at the moment and adequate competition could be maintained with 30 ISPs rather than the hundreds in existence now." Because, y'know, there's nothing as awful as having TOO MANY COMPANIES competing to provide a service to us.
They also claim: "93% of parents of teenagers would support automatic filtering of Internet pornography going into homes." Well, that's not quite an accurate representation of the survey they're citing - the actual question was "Would you support a system which automatically filtered out Internet pornography going into homes unless adult users asked otherwise?" Endorsement of opt-out filtering is a very different thing from endorsement of mandatory filtering.
Without a complete list of the questions - this is as close as they get - it's very hard to gauge just leading that survey might have been. IME, when people don't give you enough information to assess their methodology, that's usually because that methodology is shonky.
It comes down to one of the rhetorical tactics I despise the most: the "Do you care about kids?" gambit. Once you've kicked the argument off in those terms, all competing arguments are verboten. Because people have trouble with accepting that there might be valid considerations on both sides of the argument, acknowledging one side's arguments is taken as denial of the other's. So the moment you suggest that censorship is a Very Bad Thing, or that placing a stifling restraint* on legitimate business is not to be done lightly, you're a child-hater.
I have a stepson, I love him dearly, and I want him to grow up in a world where he can make use of his own judgement as an adult - and run a small ISP, if he so chooses, without being driven out of business by requirements based on zero-risk philosophies**. But it's not all about him; I want the same rights for myself, dammit.
*Filtering out porn for $7-10 per user per year? Not unless you filter so broadly and crudely as to block a lot of legitimate stuff too - or so sloppily that you let a lot of porn through the net. Given filtering's track record - and because they seem to be talking about a blacklist-based filter - probably both.
**Zero-risk policies are those which try to *eliminate* a particular sort of risk. I'm not very fond of them, because the way our world works, eliminating a risk entirely is usually only achievable by grossly exacerbating others. The only way to completely protect your child from being eaten by tigers is to exterminate tigers...
hasimir for doing more research, which I'm regurgitating here :-)According FF's founder, he was invited to speak at the Adelaide Forum and had no idea what sort of people the organisers & other attendees were; he's denied having any links to those groups. I guess it could be true.
Meanwhile, their anti-pornography policy. They want mandatory porn-filtering imposed on Australian ISPs; in their words, "this may have the result of putting cost pressures on some of the smaller ISPs, but there is [sic] arguably too many of these at the moment and adequate competition could be maintained with 30 ISPs rather than the hundreds in existence now." Because, y'know, there's nothing as awful as having TOO MANY COMPANIES competing to provide a service to us.
They also claim: "93% of parents of teenagers would support automatic filtering of Internet pornography going into homes." Well, that's not quite an accurate representation of the survey they're citing - the actual question was "Would you support a system which automatically filtered out Internet pornography going into homes unless adult users asked otherwise?" Endorsement of opt-out filtering is a very different thing from endorsement of mandatory filtering.
Without a complete list of the questions - this is as close as they get - it's very hard to gauge just leading that survey might have been. IME, when people don't give you enough information to assess their methodology, that's usually because that methodology is shonky.
It comes down to one of the rhetorical tactics I despise the most: the "Do you care about kids?" gambit. Once you've kicked the argument off in those terms, all competing arguments are verboten. Because people have trouble with accepting that there might be valid considerations on both sides of the argument, acknowledging one side's arguments is taken as denial of the other's. So the moment you suggest that censorship is a Very Bad Thing, or that placing a stifling restraint* on legitimate business is not to be done lightly, you're a child-hater.
I have a stepson, I love him dearly, and I want him to grow up in a world where he can make use of his own judgement as an adult - and run a small ISP, if he so chooses, without being driven out of business by requirements based on zero-risk philosophies**. But it's not all about him; I want the same rights for myself, dammit.
*Filtering out porn for $7-10 per user per year? Not unless you filter so broadly and crudely as to block a lot of legitimate stuff too - or so sloppily that you let a lot of porn through the net. Given filtering's track record - and because they seem to be talking about a blacklist-based filter - probably both.
**Zero-risk policies are those which try to *eliminate* a particular sort of risk. I'm not very fond of them, because the way our world works, eliminating a risk entirely is usually only achievable by grossly exacerbating others. The only way to completely protect your child from being eaten by tigers is to exterminate tigers...
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-02 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-02 09:01 pm (UTC)The first two problems I see are that the terms "pornography" and "children" are vague. Does pornography mean "sexual content?" If so, does that exclude sex in art and literature? Greek mythology is very sexual. Renaissance art also celebrates the naked body. What of all of that? There's a similar problem with "children." Does this mean a particular age group, or does it mean "children" in the sense of a family relation? In other words, I'm someone's 35 year-old child.
Lastly, is it always the case that the given statement is always true, assuming we agree on the use of the two terms? While I'll not argue with the information cited, the author of the given document could be card-stacking.
For example, I've read that part of normal adolecent development is that of exploring one's sexuality. Not being able to do so causes one to be neurotic in one's sexual development. While I'm not saying all sexual material is good, I'd have to wonder if some types are necessary for one's development.
In summary, I think the policy has a basically good idea. I think, however, it is much too broad, and the broadness could be counter-productive.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-02 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-03 12:46 am (UTC)It sounds like you studied a bit about argumentation.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-03 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-03 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-03 05:48 am (UTC)That's how censorship advocates like to phrase it, because it keeps the argument on turf where they're strongest - it's much harder to argue that adults should be protected from themselves. But to justify a censorship policy, you really need to add a second clause: "...and the harm it does exceeds that which would be caused by censoring it". That second part makes it a lot harder to sell.
Greek mythology is very sexual. Renaissance art also celebrates the naked body. What of all of that?
As one wit said, "If I like it, it's erotica. If you like it, it's porn." :-)
Legally - in the US, at least - the criteria is supposed to be something along the lines of "appealing to prurient interest and without artistic merit". In practice, both halves of that definition are very subjective and often ignored. When groups like Family First talk about "pornography", it's likely to cover just about any depiction of sex beyond a dry anatomy lesson - no matter how much artistic merit it might have.
This is why I don't like 'artistic merit' definitions of pornography. There's a certain inherent snobbery in that judgement - "I am an art appreciator, you are a pervert" - and it's not clear to me that they really do anything to protect genuine art.
Here, "children" probably means under-18s - though I'd be surprised if FF didn't think porn was bad for adults, too.
Lastly, is it always the case that the given statement is always true, assuming we agree on the use of the two terms? While I'll not argue with the information cited, the author of the given document could be card-stacking.
Well, that depends very much on what one means by "bad for". Depending on the speaker, "bad" can mean anything from "encourages misogyny" to "encourages open-mindedness towards homosexuality". I think the latter is a good thing; Family First would undoubtedly think differently.
Going by the former definition... well, I've yet to see anybody make a convincing case for why XXXenophile is going to make people mistreat their partners.