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  From: Mark Newton <newton@atdot.dotat.org>
  To  : Daniel Callan <dcallan@dataline.net.au>
  Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 16:39:24 +0930 (CST)

Re: Opinions on New Internet Bill (While I am still allowed to

Daniel Callan wrote:

 > However, I was more refering to an actual international organisation,
 > kinda like the UN (bad example I know ;-) which then co-ordinates
 > And not just porn, I'm talking about setting up an organisation with
 > technically-minded, well-informed specialists who act like
 > Internet "Marshalls".

Very few things in life would make me feel more nervous than this
proposal.

Why have we spent the last 30 years working out how to decentralize
and distribute activities on the net only to arrive at the situation
where people are seriously proposing a centralized controlling
organization for net content?  The whole idea gives me the willies.

Remember why it's being proposed too:  The only reason we're going 
through any of this stuff is because some conservative elements don't
like photos of naked women.  That's it.  The end.  The debate isn't
about children (since the new law restricts adults), it isn't about
illegal content (because the new law restricts material which is
legal in other media), it isn't about terrorism (because there has
never been a single case of any terrorist activity traced back to the
Internet), it's purely and simply about pictures of naked women.

Is that so overwhelmingly important that we should have a well-organized
international police force to act as arbiters of taste and community
standards?

 > Not because I love the idea of regulation or
 > censorship; but purely to pre-empt stupid 'stop-gap' legislation
 > getting forced into effect by the moral majority 

We all know it wouldn't work that way in real life.  If politicans
the world over thought it was a good enough idea to do it, they
wouldn't be doing it to pre-empt the concerns of individuals, they'd
only ever do it to quash free expression.

 > So, I wasn't saying they hadn't done it at all, just not enough,
 > and not as ONE mighty organisation/body.

We should never go down that path.

I'm not sure why there is any necessity for it to be handled by one
body anyway.  Trafficking in child pornography is so pitifully rare
that there is no call for a world-wide bureaucracy to handle it, it's
far more efficient to treat each case on its merits.  Everything
except child pornography is treated differently by different nations;
Would you impose Australia's community standards on Sweeden?  'cos 
you can bet your arse that Australian conservatives wouldn't be happy
if we used Sweeden's standards here.

 > I didn't mean unregulated. I just meant that it can/could be a potential
 > juristrictional nightmare, IF there ARE any countries that don't want
 > to play ball with each of the other countries involved. 

That's fine - That's why we have international courts.  Governments
across the world have been dealing with this kind of thing for thousands
of years, and the processes of dealing with foreign jurisdictions, while
not always convenient, are well-established.

 > Anyway, I said it sounded utopian ;-P (albeit slightly inacurate too),
 > just anything is better than insisting that the net regress to a senario
 > that suits our paper-based censorship system (ie: list it, ban it).
 > Many man-hours chewed in just making/maintaining the list too.

Far better to do what every other country in the world except China has
done, which is to choose not to censor otherwise legal material at all.

   - mark

--------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried an internal modem,                    newton@atdot.dotat.org
     but it hurt when I walked.                          Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777 -----

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