There's been a bit of a brouhaha recently and Uncle Kevin's new internet censorship laws, and what they will mean to you. Fucked if i know, but i'll comment anyway.
I think the whole situation has been blown out of proportion by the usual suspects in the Australian blogosphere. They're all in a huff arguing our politicians want to ban free speech, which is probably true. Kevvy and Conroy have also played a nice pr move by framing the debate in such a way that anyone concerned about the new laws are really supporting kiddie porn.
Time out.
If you visit the excellent and informative
Department of Internets, you'll see the government just wants to protect you and your children from
all internet porn, not just the kiddie kind. And i, for one, support this.
When i was just hitting puberty, there was no such thing as internet porn to warp my mind. Just the good old fashioned printed kind. Like most guys my age, i found my first porno mag on the side of the road. It was Club International, and I've had a soft spot for Club ever since. It was amazing, incredibly graphic, and despite being dumped by the side of the road, i loved it like it were my own.
A few months later, after exhausting all the hiding places in my house, and terrified my mother would eventually find it, i dumped it back exactly where i found it. 5 minutes later it was gone, hopefully to another young boy in need.
And thats the kind of experience i think todays kids, in our world of high speed boobies, are missing.
A few months after i gave up that issue of club, i realised the mistake i had made. I went to replace it, only to discover newsagents dont sell porn to 14 year olds. And that printed porn is actually quite expensive.
Again, our forward thinking laws helped in my development, they taught me how to steal. The first magazine i stole was a copy of the now defunct Australian Playboy from the Macquarie Fields Ampol Service Station. It was this issue with Drew Barrymore on the cover. I'm going into that much detail because i'm sure the clerk, god rest his soul, actually spotted me stuffing the magazine down my pants but let me steal the magazine anyway. After all, he was 14 once too.
In the next few years i became so good at shoplifting, that once i was able to casually slide another Club International down my jeans while talking to the newsagent. He didnt see a thing. Later, i graduated to stealing walkmans, jeans, silk boxer shorts (they were a status symbol when i was 16..) and even a gameboy, but thats another post.
The point is, i worked hard for the boobies. These days kids just need to be able to break the pointless firewalls and filtering software their parents (or the goverment) installed. And if the software is easy enough for their parents (or the goverment) to install, then the kids can break it.
Maybe, if Conroy and Co want to stop kiddies looking at porn, they should increase broadband speed/accessibility across the country. In fact, i vaguely remember that being an election promise.
Cos as I've said before, atleast in my case, the higher the bandwidth, the less porn you look at. When you have the speeds to comfortably steal movies, tv shows, albums, download podcasts, and watch Youtube vids all day long, then porn is just another distraction. On shitty speeds, just about the only fun thing you can do on the net is look at babelogs.
Either way, these stupid fucking laws wont mean a thing.
