

Australian Government wants Google to filter YouTube like it does for China - KiwiNige
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-baulks-at-conroys-call-to-censor-youtube-20100211-ntm0.html

======
philk
_Communications Minister Stephen Conroy referred to Google's censorship on
behalf of the Chinese and Thai governments in making his case for the company
to impose censorship locally._

When your communication minister is making reference to Chinese internet
policy in a favorable context you know something's gone badly wrong somewhere.

~~~
lmkg
The Chinese censorship that Google is pulling the plug on?

~~~
freddier
_The Chinese censorship that Google is _supposedly_ pulling the plug on._

A lot of talking, but so far everything looks business as usual in China,
AFAIK.

------
whatusername
You know what would be awesome? If Google just shut down youtube for
australia. Even for a day. (With a site explaining that the government wants
to censor it).

I know it will never happen - but would be so awesome if it did.

~~~
Groxx
I really like this idea, actually. Though even a splash page would probably be
enough. If put in the right terms, I think the majority of people would cry
shenanigans on their gov't, as many probably have no idea it's going on.

------
jerf
What's going on down there? There's been a burst of these sorts of stories
lately.

I mean this seriously, since I live about 10,000 miles away; what's the story
behind this burst of censorship lately? (A link is fine, but I don't have a
clue what to even look for to get an answer.)

~~~
tjmc
It's a few things. Both the communications minister and the PM are, despite
being in the Labor Party, actually quite religious and conservative. There is
a very strong wowser attitude from this government in particular which has
resulted in increasing taxes on alcohol to discourage young drinking and
various other forms of "nanny state" initiatives. We need to be protected from
ourselves it seems.

Also, there is a single Australian senator (Steven Fielding) from a religious
right party called Family First who holds the balance of power. His support is
often required for the passage of government legislation, and the strong
suspicion is that deals on things like internet censorship have been done
behind the scenes.

Finally and most critically in my view, we have no enshrined right to freedom
of speech or expression in our constitution and most Australians are too
apathetic to demands these rights, and protest the government's actions.

~~~
chaosmachine
" _Also, there is a single senator ... who holds the balance of power._ "

This seems to be a serious design flaw in democracy. One person (or one small
party), with the ability to swing the majority vote one way or another, ends
up with a disproportionate amount of power.

We see this with the Quebec separatists in Canada, and in the US, with their
"independent" senators.

~~~
tjmc
It gets worse. Australia has a preferential voting system where you rank the
candidates from first choice to last. It's not too bad a system if there's a
small number of candidates, but the senate has dozens.

So the alternative to numbering every box (and what most people do for the
senate), is to just put a "1" in the party of your choice. They then decide
who the preferences go to. I'm not kidding.

In the case of Steven Fielding, the 2 major parties both gave him their
"preferences" above each other, but neither of the major parties got enough
votes to get the seat, so he got it. How many people actually voted for him as
their _preferred_ candidate? 56,376

------
Concours
so the australian communications Minister Stephen Conroy has just set the
democracy and freedom of speech and internet to chinese standards? this is
sad. could someone just tell these peoples to wake up!

~~~
jstevens85
It obviously isn't to Chinese standards. China censors dissent and political
opposition. The Australian Constitution protects freedom of political
communication. Therefore, any laws that restrict the ability of residents to
discuss and criticise political decisions and issues would be
unconstitutional.

In regards to euthanasia, it is perfectly fine to discuss the philosophical
and political arguments on each side. However, it is currently illegal to
provide explicit how-to instructions on performing euthanasia. This has led to
the disappointing decision to ban The Peaceful Pill Book, written by
Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peaceful_Pill_Handbook>

The proposed Internet filter will limit access to extreme porn, excessively
violent material and instructions on how to commit crimes. It's regrettable
that the government is even proposing such legislation, but it doesn't help
anyone to make inaccurate comparisons to countries like China and Iran. A more
sensible comparison would be to Denmark, which already has an operational
internet filter.

~~~
Concours
Quote: "Communications Minister Stephen Conroy referred to Google's censorship
on behalf of the Chinese and Thai governments in making his case for the
company to impose censorship locally." Well , this sounds like referring to
chinese standards to me, and it seems to just be a first step, they already
imposed censorship on other stuff, not quite sure what it is exactly,a kind of
blacklist:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia)
so if you give these Guys the power to filter everything they don't want you
to see, they will use it, google has a search engine and this search engine
help peoples " find what they are looking for " so I think maybe they should
figure out how to educate people to not look for some kind of content and not
ask google to do that, and maybe some parents to do their homework with their
kids looking for porn and other sensitive content.

~~~
pmccool
I imagine Conroy was making the point that it was technically possible. I
don't think that bringing up Chinese internet censorship was the most
politically astute way to make that point, mind you...

------
mambodog
The really stupid thing about this is that most of the kinds of material that
Conroy makes a big deal about (child porn, fetish porn, etc) is already banned
on Youtube. The kinds of things that they're asking Google to go the effort of
filtering are videos about things like how to do graffiti, and information
about euthanasia. Not really worth it, is it?

------
ra
It would be brilliant if President Obama could bring this up as a discussion
topic when he visits here, next month.

I've noticed some intelligent and balanced commentary from the US State dept
recently regarding Internet censorship, democracy and human rights.

------
j_baker
Population of China: 1,325,639,982

GDP of China: $4.33 Trillion

Population of Australia: 21,374,000

GDP of Australia: $1.02 Trillion

As unfair as China's censorship is, they can have it because they have a large
enough market. Is Australia _really_ large enough for Google to be that
concerned about?

It's not fair. But then again, business isn't fair either.

~~~
jhancock
China has over 60x the population of Australia but only 4x the GDP. Sounds
like Australia is quite a honey pot relatively speaking. Especially when you
consider YouTube ad revenue probably does better in Australia than in China.

------
rms
What kinds of videos do the Australians want Youtube to filter? I think this
might be someone to score political points out of a minister misstatement. I
suspect Youtube already does a good enough job filtering porn to satisfy the
Australian government. It's not like the Australians want to start blocking
words like "freedom" and "nirvana".

~~~
jstevens85
The full interview can be seen here, and is worth watching:

[http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/stephen-conroy-
extende...](http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/stephen-conroy-extended-
interview)

Conroy wasn't talking about YouTube specifically, but about Google and high-
volume websites in general that currently aren't possible to filter through
software. I'd be surprised if YouTube did contain material that the OFLC would
consider Refused Classification.

~~~
whatusername
Possibly. I wonder if a video game playthrough (say fallout 3) is RC? The US
version of the game is, but is a video of said game (esp. as there's an R
rating for video). Also - the crime instruction issue, might be something like
that on youtube

~~~
jstevens85
There is only one worldwide version of Fallout 3; the Australian version is
identical to the US copy. The item Morphine was renamed Med-X to pass through
the Australian Classfication Board. The name change was also applied to all
other international versions of the game.

A better example would be a game like L4D2. However that should be perfectly
fine. Although video games lack an R18+ rating in Australia, such a rating
exists for television and film. Therefore, a video of a RC computer game
should be fine (as long as it is within the constraints of the R18+ rating for
film).

I think it's unlikely that YouTube would a host a video on crime instruction
that would be severe enough to be considered RC. I may be wrong. Perhaps
someone could try uploading a euthanasia how-to video on YouTube describing
explicitly the steps involved in performing euthanasia - the drugs required,
how to obtain and smuggle such drugs through Australian customs, and the
dosage required. I suspect that YouTube would probably take it down.

------
patrickmclaren
Our current affairs programs such as 'Today Tonight' and 'A Current Affair'
feed on stories like these, which only provide more fuel for newspapers, radio
talk shows and even schools for discussion.

The general public here is still of the naive opinion that the internet is
dangerous.

------
clistctrl
So lately I've been thinking, there seems to be a large push globally towards
greater censorship on the web. At the moment it would seem as if the US has
been immune, but it makes me consider the possibility that in the future it
could come to us too. I had this idea of building a backup system for easily
and covertly passing information around on the web using the existing
infrastructure in order to bypass existing filtration systems. It seems really
important that we should be prepared, just in case.

