Is it goodbye to Aussies?

Well if you can hit it with the first shot, you can always buttwhip the spider.

Update:
The Australian government is planning to block MMO games like SL:

Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/web-filters-to-censor-video-games-20090625-cxrx.html

Digital Frontiers Australia.
http://www.efa.org.au/the-mandatory-blacklist-and-computer-games/

If this upsets people please write to the Australian embassy in your country to complain about this. I will be trying to organise protests in world in the coming weeks and months.
IM me if you want to help join in etc.
Cheers.
(apologies coudnt get html to work for some reason)

I have seen a few people reference burning the American flag in this thread.

Just to clear it up, not only is it legal. but it is the ONLY legal way to dispose of a flag. Throwing it in the trash would be illegal, and is considered disrespectful.

According to sources across the street, it is only a minority party of the coalition government there that wants this and the parties that form the majority of the government are against it. Therefore it is unlikely it will get enacted unless they can convince the ISPs to do it voluntarily - which basically will not happen. I doubt we will see the Aussies disappearing just yet

You're wrong. What's being proposed is a MANDATORY cleanfeed. No option to opt out is proposed, at least at the standard level. It will apply to everyone using the internet in Australia, unless they're net-cluey enough to figure out (probably illegal) workarounds. Repeating the link to Electronic Frontiers Australia that was mentioned upthread: http://www.efa.org.au/the-mandatory-blacklist-and-computer-games/

Here's a quote from EFA's fact sheet that explains the proposed system clearly:

"If this plan is implemented, Australian Internet users will find themselves part of a two-tier system. The first tier, which is to be mandatory for all Australians, will involve a government-controlled blacklist of prohibited sites that ISPs must block. The second tier, which Australians may opt-out of, involves a more aggressive filter that is to remove all material “inappropriate” for children. It should be noted that only the second, optional filter was presented to the public before the election. The mandatory filter, along with the new censorship powers behind it, was not an election promise. In the meantime, it has proven a distraction from the bigger priority of delivering faster and more affordable broadband for all Australia."

What you're probably thinking of is the second level of filtering, aimed at producing a feed suitable for children, which is (at present) proposed to be opt-out. That's not the part of the plan that is likely to cause problems for Australian SL residents. It's the no-opt-out level that is being discussed when discussing the effects of the filtering scheme on online games and the like.

Hard to imagine ISP's going along with something that reduces their customers download requirements by possibly 90%

Yeh, I agree, no one will have a bar of it, also the net accounts here in Australia are payed for by the gig, all of them. So the biggest customers net companies have are the gamers, SL is one that sucks the download quota too.

Aside from that, everyone I know knows of it and has signed the various petitions and our PM at the moment, in my opinion, is very prone to populism.


Yeh, on the opt out thing, no it's not something I have heard of either, it's for everyone no choice.

The first tier list was made public a month or so ago. It's going to change as sites come and go of course, but in the state it was in... It's all child porn. Seriously, I clicked one link to see what all the fuss was, and I had a naked preteen girl in a weird position on my screen.

I hope they block it all

LOL well the thread on this I started a few days got into the USA arguing as well lmao

/327/1c/327559/1.html

As a Co-Chair for Relay for Life this year, one of my committees is the International Relations Committee of Relay for Life of Second Life which is Chaired by Poppy Zabelin.

As you can imagine something like this would have an awful effect on Relay in Second life as we have many Australian's who relay. Poppy did some extensive research on this matter and I am posting her results and the URL where SL-Newspaper also published them.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, June 29, 2009
Facts not 'smoke' about Australian 'Ban'
Poppy Zabelin, Chair of the International Relations Committee of Relay for Life of Second Life, writes:

Like many others we’ve been concerned about the rumors out there that Second Life is being banned in Australia.

Relay for Life of Second Life is INTERNATIONAL and we would have grave concerns about Second Lifers in any country being excluded from Relay, not to mention the wider ramifications.

The source of the confusion appears to be a story published in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Basically, selected ISP's are trialling a scheme to block access to adult content games.
An internet critic is quoted as saying 'the move to extend the filtering to computer games would place a cloud over online-only games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life, which aren't classified in Australia due to their online nature.

' Now, a ‘cloud’ is NOT the same as an outright ban, although some sources are now saying it IS. The Metaverse Journal responded on June 25 in an open letter to Senator Conroy objecting to the ban, and the Australian Christian Today wrote on Monday June 29 that ‘It was confirmed by Australian Minister for Censorship that online games such as Second Life is banned in the country.

These have been picked up by hundreds of blogs and forums around the world.

There is nothing like checking the facts first.

So Ember Farina, Australian ‘Ambassador’ for RFL of SL and Team Captain of the Friends Fighting Cancer RFL of SL team, who in real life is an Australian firefighter, contacted the office of the Senator in question and spoke with an associate there, and says:
‘It appears to be something related to GAME ratings. SL is not classified as a game at this stage. IF there was a complaint received in the future to the Gaming Commission then it would be addressed but his associate seemed fairly comfortable that it's not an issue in this circumstance.’

Ember went on to say:
‘I asked the Senator's associate if there was anything in writing to support this but there wasn't. As far as the Senator's associate was concerned this only came to light because a newspaper article jumped on it - SL was never mentioned nor targetted by the Senator.’

Linden Labs have yet to comment officially, but the whole thing seems to be a misinterpretation of the Australian government’s ongoing censorship/filtering scheme trying to block extreme violence games and child pornography.

Editors note: Since writing this and sending to us Ms Zabelin has heard from Linden Lab;

Fromete Linden
Hi Poppy,

As far as an official Linden Lab statement on the issue, we can currently confirm that: We have received no indication from the Australian government that it intends to block Second Life.

I hope this is useful.

Best,
Peter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://forums.secondlife.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=2481384

Thanks Bell, that's good solid info, good luck too with RfL.

Apologies in advance, but we're living in the same world so I'm sure you mean Australia isn't an 'undeveloped country' possibly with 'little or no resources making it worthwhile for exploitation by richer nations', which in any case would make it a 'developing country'.

That snotty but nevertheless necessary snippet of pedantry aside, I doubt Australia has much to worry about regarding the proposed legislation: I almost feel sorry for the gapsh!te trying to push it through.


So Berners-Lee was working at Cern. He was still British.

To be fair, the Web wouldn't be much without the Internet so I figure Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn deserve a little credit for the turkey baster of the TCP/IP protocol. And what about the guy who invented packet switching? I'm sure there's a tadpole analogy there but I'm tired.

Is it really possible to say one individual is responsible for the fact we're all hammering our keyboards at one another today?


Never mind Al Gore, where was Gore Vidal?

Latest. Looks like SL Aussies are prob'ly safe.

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/06/confirmed.html

I happened to visit a club that where most people were Australians. They'd heard about the proposals, not surprisingly, and their consensus was that the guy who's proposing the ban is regarded by most Aussies as a complete idiot.

Perhaps he is related to that Kirk fella in the USA

they though john howard was a fool too, but that didnt stop them from electing him as prime minister at every opportunity for 11 years...

I think Howard was pretty popular with the silent majority. it was really just his work place deals in the last term that turned the majority.

Say, "Bye Bye Aussies."

Bye Bye Aussies.

One thing I have learned in my real life over the years is that if anything is enjoyable, someone will try and ban it.

Hey they cant ban sl if there is the pg mature and adult sims in here can they?? Surely that is sort of considered rating itself.

Anyway if they do that im going to go on VPN and bypass these absolutely ridiculously draconian victorian frikking filters. No bloody govt is going to tell me what i can and cant look at

F@@@K YOU KRUDD AND CONDOM

We call him KRud too,

Three of my uncles were at Pearl Harbor in 1941 when it was attacked. I had a conversation with one of them shortly before he died. His comment was "I wasn't over there fighting for a flag. I was fighting for the U.S. and freedom, which includes flag burning." He went on to say "Flag burning is about the dumbest ways to promote your beliefs, but if we jailed people for just being dumb we'd need a lot more prisons."

well, i searched all the posts in this thread and, unless i missed it, i can find no link to a site or story regarding these allegations.

anyone?

conifer, you have a link?