Well, it seems that the first thing anyone should do if charged with uploading or downloading child abuse material, or indeed child pornography, is apply to the Australian Classification Board for a classification of the content.

Chris Illingworth, who was targeted by QLD's Task Force Argos, could have been spared a lot of discomfort if someone had done so as soon as he was charged, rather than waiting until the classification was made as a result of, ahem, someone submitting the URL of the footage to the ACMA to see what they would make of it.

The fact that the Classification Board gave the footage a classification if MA15+ means that in the board's view, the footage would not cause offence to a reasonable person. This didn’t strictly speaking mean that Chris’s charges had to be dropped, but had the CDPP continued, it would have been asking a jury to make a finding, beyond reasonable doubt, that contradicted that of the government appointed film censor.

The footage, which the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, has effectively said can be lawfully downloaded and watched, can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vgzBe5b-dI

One has to wonder what could make members of a police force so hypersensitive that they regard as offensive, material that teenagers are allowed to watch.

Also somewhat puzzling is why the police thought that “physical abuse” (a term from the Commonwealth Criminal Code) includes something that might cause harm, even where no harm is demonstrated. This would even apply to footage of a child riding in a car without a seat belt on. I understand that they had to ask around before they even found an ‘expert’ who would say that it was child abuse.

It rather seems as if the police wanted a particular outcome, and were not overly concerned about what the law was actually there for.

Task Force Argos needs to get a grip, before they persecute another poor innocent.

The Police aren't Botanists. If they find pot they need to call a Botanist to confirm that the substance found is actually pot in order to charge with possession and/or supply, otherwise the case will be tossed...unless of course a Police officer is a qualified Botanist, as well.

Seems to me this case sounds a similar sort of thing. In order to figure out if something is offensive they need to know the classification of the content. How many cops do you think work for the classification board?.

How would you like your charges laid agianst you, by that method, or by guess work?.

Whether something is offensive or not for the purpose of the Criminal Code is not determined by the Classification Board. They're only making a determination under their own legislation. But in both cases (despite minor differences in wording), the issue is whether it would be offensive to a reasonable person.

That is something that the police should be able to judge, unless they are not themselves reasonable people. They certainly don't have to approach the Classification Board.

The underlying problem is that the word "offensive" is an absurdly vague term to be used in the definition of an offence carrying a ten year prison sentence, and case law isn't particularly helpful. The best I can divine is that to be offensive, something has to be more than something that people don't like, but be inclined to cause a significant emotional reaction. A significant emotional reaction will not be fleeting.

I think this is not understood (perhaps wilfully) by police generally, because using a lesser definition gives them more scope for charging people, not just on matters of child abuse material and pornography, but in relation to their everyday public conduct. Witness the police charge against Chas Licciardello.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chas_Licciardello#Offensive_conduct_charges

Sylvia,

Thanks for posting this. I have been waiting to see for the outcome of the case.

The major disappointment for me in all this was the DPP displaying any interest in the case at all. They are lawyers. Surely they could figure out for themselves a jury is unlikely to think the video would cause "offence to a reasonable person". The MA15+ rating means it was a long, long way from meeting that standard, so I'd say the DPP's not being able to see it for themselves is borderline incompetence. Incompetence that put Chris through a lot of personal hardship. Lets hope there are no repeats.

Do you know who sent the URL to the ACMA?

Rstuart,

Yes, the fact that the Commonwealth DPP pursued the case for as long as it did is worrying. A degree of incompetence seems to be indicated. However, like any part of our bureaucracy, the CDPP presumably has senior officials and junior officials. Maybe this case was in the hands of a junior official who was unwilling to make the call to drop the case. Only when Fairfax (SMH and The Age) started asking questions about the MA15+ rating did anything happen, even though I'd already informed the CDPP a couple of weeks earlier.

You ask whether I know who submitted the URL. Well, yes, I do. It was me. But I can't claim any foresight as the outcome. After the case survived the committal hearing, I was quite incensed, and I starting sending URLs of various videos, including of the baby swinging video, that might be construed as child abuse material, to see whether I could cause the ACMA to start designating them as being prohibited material. My purpose was to demonstrate the kind of material that the proposed internet filter would ban. Amongst others, I sent stuff involving fights between teenage girls, and the Indian baby-dropping ritual that had been reported on the news. Both fit the definition of child abuse material at least as well as the baby swinging video does.

In fact, the ACMA took no exception to any of the URLs I sent, so in that sense I didn't achieve much, but when the MA15+ classification came back for the baby swinging video, I blinked, and thought "what does that do to the case - how can it continue?"

When I informed the CDPP, I just got a stock response along the lines of "We review all cases before trial." So even then, it seems the message hadn't got to a level where someone would act on it. The CDPP probably wish not that it had, because they could have avoided the appearance (and indeed actuality) of only acting when pushed by the media.

Sylvia Else: "You ask whether I know who submitted the URL. Well, yes, I do. It was me."

Awesome Sylvia, just awesome. Well done.

Yeh well, it should be labelled "What Not To Do With Your Child, A Training Film". I do not believe for an instant it is real.

It is a complete gee up and anyone with an ounce of intelligence would know that. Whether we should be allowed to watch, well we watch worse reality on the news almost nightly.

RB“…and anyone with an ounce of intelligence would know that.”

I think it was real and anyone that disagrees with me is a moron.

G'Day All,
Swinging babies what about the amount of parents that place babies & minors on swing sets should all that stop also.
We talk of child abuse, Well what about a child being dragged across a fence by the grandfather after dragging that child from the mothers arms in such a way to have the child scream to such an extent that a Rotwieller breaks three links of chain trying to get to the grandfather because the Rotwieller considers what is happening to the child is abuse.
Deliberate alienation of a child from his father, the child making himself physically sick crying for his parents. the child while in care the carer charged with an affray & the list goes on.
ICAC finds inappropriate association & maladministration but nothing is done.
The child entering grade 7 doing reading & spelling from grade 2 & maths from grade 3.
I thank you for your time have a good life from Dave

Dave that’s awful, why was he dragging the kid over the fence? Is anyone addressing the issues with education?

Hanging in my playroom I have a swing, some ropes with knots in them and loops for little feet, I have this weird bar type thing with handles at each end. Kids love it and they have very strong grips after their first few weeks here. I’ll send ya photo Dave.

You wouldn’t catch me swinging a baby in some of the ways on that video or for such an extended time, the way he flipped it around by the hands didn’t thrill me. The dude was using his kid to show off and for that I probably would have backhanded him if I could.

But bubbies, toddlers and most children just love being swung around, love it. Giggle their little heads off.

TPP,
As you say most children like to be swung around. Years ago when I was young they had what was called "Monkey Rings" in the parks where you could hold on to these ring & swing around & as kids we would go round until we got giddy & let go.
I don't agree to the extent of swinging a child around like in the video but children do like to be swung.
Adults just don't seem to want to remember what they were like as children
The photos are great & you have a good assortment of toys & games that can keep the children amused.
Don't worry about the old hen(not you) she will keep fleas,termites & other little pests away & I would say the kids would like her also.
No, nobody gives a damn in the depts about my Sons education the magistrate even said he wasn't concerned about his education.
The ex's father did this as DoCS have refused to intervene & admit their mistakes & while they have been carrying on my Son has suffered like in the paper work I sent you the Director-General has a serious literacy problem as he & all before him can't seem to read the difference between Custody & Guardianship.
Thanks have a great life from Dave.

Just a reminder that this thread is not about the merits of swinging babies around. The central issue is whether the police were justified in prosecuting someone for downloading and uploading a video of a child being swung around.

Whether the adult shown in the video is acting rashly, or even unlawfully, is an entirely separate question.

Sylvia.

Yes, the question us about downloading what is deemed to be unseemly by the politicos.

To the person who called me a moron; if you had any medical insight into the effects of the sort of treatment of a child that age for such a long duration you would know that it would be in intensive care being treated for brain damage and rotator cuff and limb damage.

That's the problem with the web, incredible BS such as this is put out there and people such as PP believe it is real. Get real.

So perhaps we should have big brother watching if you believe this crap. And there are morons out there who will try it you fool

I was making fun of what you said more than calling you personally a moron RB but now I have heard more from you, yes your assumption was correct. But then you’re full of assumptions like the baby didn’t go to hospital, the baby wasn’t hurt, the baby wasn’t real… medical knowledge. Pfft.

You should check out the Indian Infant Throwing Ritual in the below link.

Sorry Sylvia. I don’t understand what your purpose was. Why did you do the submission thing?

http://groups.google.com/group/aus.legal/msg/6da6511aab603f0d?pli=1

Dave, hang in there. Haha – get it?

Pied Piper,

After the magistrate failed to throw out the charges, it seemed to me that we must be heading down a path in which we regard anything hazardous to children as being child abuse material if filmed. As such, one could expect links to such material to be banned by the ACMA, and, if the proposed Internet filter were introduced, such links would be blocked.

My purpose was to demonstrate how absurd this situation was by getting the ACMA to add various links to the register of prohibited sites, and possibly issue some take down notices in respect of content hosted in Australia. Some of the stuff that would have been taken down would have been footage used in news articles.

I didn't anticipate the actual outcome, so it's not strictly true that I'd achieved what I'd set out to achieve. But after I got a classification for the baby swinging video, it was clear which way the ACMA was going to go on videos of this sort. I had got a result I was happy with; one that was perhaps surprising. So if I construe my original goal as being to find out whether such material would be prohibited, then I think I can say that I achieved that.

But the consequences for Chris Illingworth were purely fortuitous. I hadn't originally planned to sent the baby swinging URL, and certainly did not anticipate that what I was doing would lead to the charges being dropped.

BTW, anyone see some irony in the fact that the Government censor is acting as a protector of liberty?

Hey Sylvia, I have never thought about the problem before. You found out the video wouldn’t be prohibited. Who decided? Did you get any link prohibited?

Could they classify the video at all without the context - how or why it was filmed?

I’m concerned about intent… a fake baby or fake drugs. The police don’t call in a botanist or a chemist or anyone else when charging someone. If you thought it was real then it appears that is all the information the police require, from what I can gather.

Pied Piper,

Not one of the URLs I submitted (a handful) was prohibited. Intially the ACMA were submitting the content for classification by the Classification Board. Given the rules regarding classification, I imagine they downloaded it onto CD or DVD, and submitted that, alongside a written description of the content. But later on the ACMA stopped bothering. Both they, and now we, know how the Classification Board regards videos that don't show someone deliberately hurting a child for the benefit of the camera. They didn't even submit this one for classification (The Indian Baby Dropping Ritual).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rndVUQZhA3Q

None of those that got classified achieved higher than MA15+. Not even R!.

Legally I think the context in which something was filmed has little relevance. The law talks about "in all the circumstances", which one might feel includes the context of the filming, but I think it has to be construed as meaning the circumstances as perceived by the reasonable person viewing the video.

Yes, whether or not it was real doesn't matter. The law expressly provides that the appearance matters. Thus, a video of child torture that's actually produced using a child actor and special effects (or even entirely CGI) would still be caught by the legislation. I think the rationale is that even though such material doesn't involve harm to a child, it tends to create a demand for material that does. I leave the question of whether that rationale stands up to you.

Morning Sylvia, R is Restricted? None were Prohibited; so if someone was torturing a kid and filming it then it would be okay? If the torturing was being done just so they could film a video it still would remain less than an R? Content (appearance) being the key and not the context?

I found some last night on youtube that were acts of violence towards unsuspecting people just for “efame” (I found this word mentioned a few times). My son offered to go find me some of people being killed but I passed on that one.

This is proving harder for me to understand than I imagined. So if a child is hurt through stupidity rather than intention on film then the classification board is still okay with that… child protection units would not be so it is in direct conflict with the Care and Protection Act isn’t it?

Sorry Sylvia, I’m probably going to drive you nuts as I try and understand this stuff.

Piper

Please continue your questions, this is a vexing issue and Sylvia is astute and able to enlighten all of us.

Thank you.

The Pied Piper: "Sorry Sylvia, I’m probably going to drive you nuts as I try and understand this stuff."

The reason it seems confusing it because it is. We had a fairly well oiled censorship system here in Australia, in the sense that it kept the prudes happy while not inconveniencing everybody else too much. The Internet has destroyed it. Now a 12 year old boy can happily seek out pictures of a cougar doing dogs, if that is what he is curious about today.

There is a huge push to put things back the way they were. The "obvious" solution is to just extend the system that worked so well before to the internet, and that is what our pollies are trying to do. Blind Freddie could see it won't work as the internet isn't the same as a book store, but our pollies aren't as smart as blind Freddie.

Right now the pollies line is to say "it will work if we only ban the really, really bad stuff". So whereas before the ACMA banned an anti abortion site http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2464 , now they declare this page containing a picture anal homosexual fisting to be PG: http://faculty.unlv.edu/pkane/ART242X/beauty/son.html

The anti censorship mob is reacting to this relaxing of standards by forcing the government to undermine the business models of Big Pond movies and Apple iTunes act by enforcing the current rules. See: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1280335&p=16#r310

The reason the ACMA can get away with their apparent flexibility is they act in secret. This is in contrast to the existing censorship system for other media for books and so on, which functions very like an open court. The ACMA has to act in secret, because if their list of banned web sites became public, the porosity of Internet ensures it would become a major reference work for the school boys of Australia. (This is another way of saying everybody knows the mandatory the filter won't work, even if they won't admit it publically.) Of course this flexibility means the anti censorship mob their current leniency really is merely temporary political convenience.

Pied Piper,

It helps to understand the evil that the law is trying to address. Generally, there's a difference between the acceptability of unlawful conduct, and the acceptability of film of unlawful conduct. Examples of the latter would be seen often enough in news items.

The particular problem with material designed to please those who get pleasure out of child abuse is that if it's real, then a child was harmed for the purpose of making it. Clearly, that's unacceptable, and if the demand for such material is reduced, then so presumably is the extent of harm to children used to make it. That is the legislative goal. But it would generally be difficult to prove after the event that some unidentified child was harmed, so the law takes the view that if the child appears to be harmed, then that's sufficient.

I don't doubt that if presented with material in which it appears that a child is being deliberately harmed for the purpose of making the material, then the Classification Board would apply an RC classification.

But neither the baby swinging video, nor any of the others I submitted involved an apparent deliberate harming of children for the purpose of filming. Either the filming was apparently incidental, or the harm, if it existed, was not intentional. The classification board seems to be taking the reasonable view that in such cases there's no reason to refuse to classify such material RC (prohibited).

But context is important. The baby swinging video might have been refused classification if it had omitted the beginning where the child willing approaches the adult, and the end where the child is shown smiling.

I suggested a video showing a child being tortured. If that's all it showed, I imagine it would be classified RC. But if it showed the preamble, with the child obviously willingly getting into the torture position, and then at the end the child gets up again, smiles, and starts counting their appearance fee, then the circumstances would be different, and such a video might get an MA15+, or perhaps an R rating.

Rstuart,

The ACMA's decisions have to be seen in the context of schedule 7 to tbe Broadcasting Service Act. The ACMA have no discretion. If content meets certain tests and is hosted in Australia, then the ACMA must issue a take-down notice.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/bsa1992214/sch7.html

The gifting service could be analysed under clause 20(1)(c) thus:

(i) The content is classified MA15+.

(ii) The access (in the hands of the person receiving the gift) is not subject to a restricted access system. Whatever their age they can download the gift.

(iii) The content does not consist of still images.

(iv) Access is provided by a content service.

(v) The content service is provided on payment of a fee (by the person doing the gifting).

(vi) The content service is not an ancillary television subscription content service.

Thus the content that is gifted meets the definition of prohibited content.

So now the ACMA has no choice in the matter. It has to get that content removed.

Whether Parliament would have approved of this outcome had the scenario been posited is unclear, but until Parliament changes the law, the ACMA are stuck with implementing it.

Note in passing that this definition of prohibited content is *probably* not the one envisaged by Conroy in his Internet filter, though it seems difficult to get a straight answer on this.

Sylvia Else: "So now the ACMA has no choice in the matter. It has to get that content removed."

I wasn't trying to say had a choice in the matter. I was just trying to show how the politics is playing out. This particular issue has had more unexpected twists and turns than a good spy thriller. This thread is just one of the better ones. It came about because of your political manoeuvring on the filtering issue, of all things. I find this sort of thing fun to watch, and I thought others might enjoy the show too, which is why I gave some background.

By the by if there was choice, I am sure the ACMA's political masters would have told them to leave Big Pond and Apple alone. If they are to have any chance of getting mandatory filtering up, they must make it appear as harmless as possible. But on this point there were out flanked by the EFA. The EFA knew the old R rating is set in stone, so it would force the governments hand, as you say. The law is clear on that point.

It is not so clear on how homosexual anal fisting should be rated. I never thought of myself as a prude, but somehow giving it a PG rating seems out of step with community attitudes. My guess is the ACMA is being rather flexible here, because they can be and because currently it suites their political masters to appear lenient. And I'd guess you are rather surprised at their flexibility too, given they declined to rate your URL's. Maybe we are both prudes.

Hey Fractelle, I feel I am out of my depth completely. I went and looked up the ACMA. Yeah that was fun.
Thank you for the explanation Sylvia about the way they view whether a child was harmed for the purpose of making a video or not. They probably forgot “grooming” with this particular method of classifying?

Is this for the purpose of filtering/blocking? if something is offensive and then Australia can give it a rating and block people from watching it online or downloading it from this country?

I have to agree with you level of prudishness rstuart, that wasn’t nice.

Do the ACMA go looking for things to rate or rely on submissions?

Can I ask why bother?

Should there be censorship of the internet at all?

Having read the posts here and the replying comments it is obvious some of you have downloaded or uploaded some nasty stuff to say the least. Obviously you look at that and what do you see? Your right to watch depravity? Or just funny stuff?

Has this become a society where you can watch anything and you all seem to think that's okay? Well by most decent society standards, it is not okay and children should certainly not have access to it. Therefore if you are not willing to protect young people from watching this sort of garbage, then perhaps we should have censorship.

I was on the side of most people to begin with, willing to protect the rights of adults to watch what they may, provided of course, children are protected from access, but most of you have changed my mind because most of you have watched, from what I can tell, the most terribly depravity and seem to think it is alright. You even put the sites up there to access.... Just in the name of research I suppose? Or do you get a kick out of it?

Where are you at, what is wrong with you? Why do you think that everyone should have access to watch every depravity there is known to man? It seems most of you do. This really saddens me.

What really pisses me off is that I am asked to "remove the profanity". Yeh right.

Piper

I can only respond at an emotional level on this topic. The images disturb me a great deal. As do the types of porn where adults are being tortured or humiliated.

There have been extensive arguments on OLO regarding censorship, there are those who will claim that the viewing of porn reduces sexual assault on women. Frankly I find this counter-intuitive. But if true, what does the viewing of child abuse reduce, if anything?

Maybe I'm a prude too, despite having argued in favour of the photographic work of Bill Henson - I thought the reaction to his photographs were more a reflection of our own issues with sexuality rather than child exploitation.

I don't know what the answer is, the guidelines for establishing the 'rating' of a film, as outlined by Sylvia, can clearly be adapted to the personal interpretation of whichever ACMA officer is viewing - entirely subjective.

Rae Bee - no one here is endorsing the images and links, you have completely misunderstood what is being expressed here. However, in order to understand what the issue is, it does help to have knowledge (in this case view) of what we are discussing.

Morning Fractelle, I looked, I went [gasp] and then I went Click/gone, just was not my personal cup of tea although if you want it in an art gallery it is not my business and of course Mr Stuart and Sylvia gave an explanation about what the content was going to be.

Okay so I am thinking the internet needs to be policed at the PC level. Parents control it, filter, block whatever. Do we need the ACMA people to do the classification so that a filter or something will work?

My kids... no problem chatting online at 5 years old (funny watching a little kid in chat with their father), they could work in dos and execute programs. Years later and my son got suspended from high school for bypassing the filters. Obviously he was always going to work in IT. This makes me wonder if filters etc would work anyway. And why is the girl working at Maccas?

Hey (bit of waffle) my boy rang the other day and got me to log in to something which gave him total control over my computer so he could fix something. Watching the little mouse arrow move and open things was about the spookiest thing I have ever seen. Technology wise I really do need to catch up.

I know my foxtel has a code thing for movies. Course I have to keep asking my kids what the code is. The little kids have one channel and no access to change it. One day a sneaky four year old will work it out I’m sure. Foxtel does have special remotes for kids that you can select channels for, so cool. So we just need child PC’s that do the same thing. Please don’t tell me you can already get them.

RaeBee you are a snotty twat aren’t you. Weirdly no one under 40 in my household is a member of OLO. And for that you should be grateful or you would have been called “popcorn head” by now.

Fractelle: "There have been extensive arguments on OLO regarding censorship, there are those who will claim that the viewing of porn reduces sexual assault on women. Frankly I find this counter-intuitive."

Apologies to Fractelle, who has heard this all before.

If there is absolutely solid evidence about this either way, I can't find it. But I can summarise what I have found.

Firstly lets dispense with arguments about "I feel". You find lots of studies (most recently this one from the Australia Institute which is probably a trigger for the current filtering debate: http://www.sif.org.au/youthandporn.pdf ), that do surveys, that convincingly show a lot of people don't like porn and would very much prefer it wasn't around, and that conclude as a consequence we should do something about it reducing its availability. That's fine, but it is not what I am talking about here. I want to know if porn has hard edged effects - does it cause more sex crimes, people to die younger, more hospital visits, less income, less kids, more marriage break ups. Once we have hard evidence, we can settle the like/dislike thing at the ballot box.

There is an indisputably strong correlation between viewing porn and committing crimes similar to what is depicted. So, someone who has an insatiable desire for kiddie porn is highly likely to harm a kid. The problem is "correlation doesn't mean causation". An example: it is very likely a person with blue eyes won't be lactose intolerant. But if you think this means eye colour genes overlap lactose genes, you'd be wrong. People with blue eyes tend to come from Nordic stock, while in asians, who are lactose intolerant, blue eyes are very rare. The common cause, for what its worth, seems to be that Nordic people live at high latitudes. Up there it gets dark, cold and hard to grow things for a good part of the year. So they depend on live stock, which means there is a lot of milk available. The low amount of sunlight also gave them fair skin, and blue eyes.

(cont'd...)

(cont'd...)

Similarly, we don't know there is common underlying "urge" that both that drives some men to have sex with kids in spite of the risk of jailed for life and also drives them to seek out porn depicting the same thing. If so, removing the porn would do won't effect it - it might even make the problem worse if porn was used as an alternative outlet.

The next piece of evidence is a non-correlation between how tight a country's porn censorship is, and sex crimes against women. There are countries with very permissive porn laws that have low rates of crimes against women (the Nordic countries in particular - see porn's wikipedia entry). And there are the reverse - countries with tight porn laws and high rates of crimes against women (eg South Africa). There seems to be no hard relationship.

Occasionally you see studies like this one http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html , in which Japan varied its porn laws over time. In that case, the tighter the laws the more sex crimes there were. Such studies are rare for obvious reasons, and couple of studies don't prove much.

Possible the most convincing piece of evidence for me is the internet itself. The unfiltered has seen a huge up kick in the availability of porn - probably the biggest every see in the history of our species. The net change in sex crimes over the same period - up slightly in some places (here, I think), down in others (eg the US), but on the whole the changes are almost unmeasurable.

If there is a measurable harmful effect from porn, it is probably porn addition. This has definitely increased with the availability of porn on the internet. Porn triggers a dopamine release. Anything that does that - gambling, drugs, computer games, can trigger addiction. Unlike drug and gambling however the problem is rare and almost never as serious in its consequences.

I won't resile from anything I have put forward and PP don't be so presumptuous. I understand what is being said and the points being put forward. There are some reasonable statements but I will not agree that seeing this stuff on the web helps any society, particularly those of the society with a tendency towards cruelty and depravity. Judging by the news these days, there are some very, very sick people out there.

I'm away from home and have only just caught up on this thread.

Many thanks to Sylvia Else for raising this issue, which demonstrates very well the ludicrous grey areas and inconsistencies that are inherent when the State attempts to dictate what we can and cannot see or publish on the Internet.

G'Day All,
Sylvia
Have you stopped to notice all the signs around schools play groups etc where it says strictly no photograghs to be taken apparently the law is that strict if pushed to the fine print you have apparently got to have a darn good reason to have any form of photography dealing with children.
It is just stupid all round if a child is laughing & happy then isn't it better than having them crying & sad?
I suppose we could ask TPP or any other mum or dad which they would prefer to be with?
As long as the children are safe & happy then that should be all we should be worried about in the first instance.
Thanks have a good life from Dave

The Pied Piper: "Okay so I am thinking the internet needs to be policed at the PC level. Parents control it, filter, block whatever. Do we need the ACMA people to do the classification so that a filter or something will work?"

Since you are new to this discussion, a couple of points:

1. The previous government did have a filtering system in place. The paid some $80M (probably wrong - off the top of my head, but it was a lot) for a licence to filtering software which you installed on your computer. This software was available for free to every Australian. It was promoted heavily for a while. There was stuff all uptake, and of those that did install it, 2/3's stopped using it within 2 months. That scheme has since been abandoned by the current government.

2. There are were two reasons for low uptake. I suspect the predominate one is despite the froth and bubble you see here, no one actually cares. My favourite tactic here was to challenge the noisiest here if they had a filter installed. The answer was invariably no. I presume the noise they made was just for public display.

The second reason is in a highly publicised event, a 12 year old by-passed one of the filters in an hour. The government is saying that won't happen to ISP filtering. That is sadly an out and out lie. (I know it happens all the time, but I am always disappointed when our politicians tell transparent lies.) When it was suggested we should check if a 12 year old can learn from his mate how to by-pass the mandatory filter before spending millions on rolling it out, the suggestion was studiously ignored. The mandatory filter will stop accidental viewing of porn, but have you accidentally seen enough porn to make it worth while spending millions on stopping it?

(cont'd...)

(cont'd...)

3. The reason 66% of people switched off the home filter is because it blocks stuff they want to see. As an example, my neighbour installed a filter. It worked wonderfully at stopping bad web pages. Unfortunately it stopped so many useful ones, she ended up giving the kids the password.

4. Since the proposed mandatory filter will only block sites the ACMA has manually inspected, blocking good pages should not be a huge issue. But there are currently 1,000,000,000,000 unique web pages, with 1,000,000,000 being added every day. I trust you see the problem with the idea of manually inspecting even a small percentage.

5. Finally, you are probably wondering why the filter in point (3) blocked so many good web pages. It is a consequence of point (4). Since it is impossible to manually inspect every web page the filter manufacturers get the computers to rate them. But a computer can't tell the difference between a baby feeding on a boob, and a man (or god help us, a woman) doing other things with it. So they might block say, web pages with a certain percentage of flesh tones, or web pages containing certain words. As a consequence a lot of wheat gets caught with the chaff.

So what does all this mean? It is a long winded version of what I said above. We have an existing scheme for rating books, movies and so on, which relies on manually inspecting every article and jailing publishers who don't toe the line. But we can't inspect the every internet page, and the bulk of we pages come from outside of the country - out of reach of our laws. So imposing the existing scheme on the internet won't work. It is really that simple.

Insisting that "something must be done" doesn't help, because no one has a clue how to bring back the old days. if they did, they would not be pussy footing around with this completely impractical internet filtering idea. It appears the internet has changed the world, and there is no going back.

Dwg,

I don't think the signs about photography have anything much to do with child pornography, but simply privacy.

Generally speaking (I've argued in another forum that there are exceptions in relation to some state property), anyone in control of property can restrict the activities that go on on that property. So if they don't want you to take photographs, and you insist on doing so, they can tell you to leave (but not confiscate nor erase the photographs you've taken!).

It's extremely unlikely that photographs taken of children at a playgroup could constitute child pornography.

There have been reports of people being charged with possession of child pornography as a result of taking photographs of children at the beach or in parks, but I'm not aware of any convictions where people have pleaded not guilty. Most likely, if the person doesn't plead guilty, the charges get dropped. The media are frequently happy to report the laying of charges, but not so interested in their being dropped. For example, as far as I know, despite publishing more than one report about Chris being charged, the Daily Telegraph has yet to mention that the prosecution is not proceeding.

Thank you Mr Stuart I think you just answered every question I was going to ask and some I hadn’t come up with yet. So really we need the ACMA or someone like them to rate something after someone has been arrested? The rest is parental supervision, duty of care etc.

Simple to make use of the internet an over 15 activity unsupervised?

Dave my biggest hassle recently was someone (in a bad mood with me) reporting I had uploaded a photo of a foster child to a site, I hadn’t and suspect the whole issue was used to muddy the waters of another complaint I had put forward.

Since then I have seen video footage of foster children on the web, but it is an NGO still running it and they’re pretty untouchable.

I know parents have been threatened with charges that could lead to two years imprisonment if they put any material that could lead to the identification of a child under custody of DoCS. Leaves the parents unable to access support outside of a lawyers office. Clever aye.

RB... you're kind of annoying. Why don't you go rate everything on the web and get back to us with your results and what you think people should be allowed to see. And it was Fractelle telling you that you may have not understood stuff, I was the one that called you a twat.

G'day all,
Sylvia, You asked were the police justified, I saw no pornography in relation to the swinging movie.
It was just moving photograghs by the extremes that some people want to push their will upon others then these police that made the arrest & laid the charges must have thought they were justified.
With regards to taking photos of kids you, by the full decree of the law,can't even photograph your own child at a school sports carnival.
What does that lead to if caught with these photos guessed right 99.99% would say jack about it it is a pleased parent that is pleased with their child. Then you have .1% that want to read something else into it,never going to get to first base thruogh Court hasn't stopped some journo making a big deal of it, one word RIDICULOUS but then again contact me direct & I will e-mail you the paperwork on my son Then you will truly know the meaning of the word ridiculous.
graysond49@yahoo.com
Thanks All have a great life from Dave.