Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The US and Censorship

Interesting that I haven't yet seen an Australian reference to the final decision in the US when the courts struck down the Child Online Protection ct for good.

Some of the reasoning was familiar. Most notably that removing net content because kids might see it was infringing adults rights to see what they want. The American Civil Liberties Union also said the act was ineffective because it didn't affect sites not housed in America. That sounds familiar.

Interesting questions are raised by this. What is the implication of the implied freedom of speech found by the High Court in the Theophanous case? Is the existing BSA provision unconstitutional?

Should the battle be over the filtering plan or the higher principle of enacting our own version of the First Amendment?

2 comments:

  1. Sydney Morning Herald January 22nd.

    http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-technology/us-supreme-court-shuts-door-on-child-online-protection-act-20090122-7n3a.html

    US Supreme Court shuts door on Child Online Protection ActJanuary 22, 2009
    The US Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that a law designed to shield children from pornography on the Internet violated the constitutional right to free speech.

    The move by the highest court, which let the ruling stand without comment, would appear to mean the end of the road for the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which was passed by Congress in 1998 but never enforced.

    Rights groups welcomed the Supreme Court decision not to hear the Bush administration's appeal of the ban on COPA, with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) describing it as a "clear victory for free speech."

    ================

    While this may be true the United States has over 50 States and regions that draft their own laws regarding sexual material (whereas Australia has only a handful)

    Perhaps you should watch the video on the Eros Association myspace website regarding the sale of Dildos in Texas :-)

    http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=156632954

    (while your about it you can listen to Eartha Kitt singing "Lets Fall in Love"

    I'm not sure about romantic sponges !

    Bob

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  2. The YouTube regarding the naming of dildo devices on the Eros website was there a few weeks ago but when I clicked on it yestrday to check like many many embedded YouTube videos it responded with "video removed due to Terms of Use" violation. As of January YouTube are clamping down on sexually suggestive videos (not pornography - merely sexually suggestive items).

    Time and time again I click on an embedded icon for a YouTube video only to be told that the video isn't available or has been removed due to a "Terms of Use" violation.

    Some users are moving to other sites such as Daily Motion or LiveLeak (which has been in the news recently due to a video of a Russian circus family training a child in thir particular art - they do this from an early age. It's part of their culture).

    Bob

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