BOMBS, BOOBS & BURGERS

One thing I forgot to mention last week when I posted about the crackdown on online porn in India and Afghanistan was the situation in Australia. Internet activists down under have been battling a very puritanical attempt to block porn and other "undesirable content" for some time now. Last year, the government announced a plan that would make it mandatory for internet service providers to enforce a black list of websites, which of course the government itself would decide on. The plan has been immensely controversial and now looks to be in jeopardy - the government may ask ISPs to use the black list voluntarily, which of course none of them will since doing so would be a one-way ticket to the land of zero customers.

I've been in utter disbelief since this whole schmozz started. While it's understandable that a nation in chaos like Afghanistan or even a highly religious and developing one like India may want to block some content, I simply can't fathom that such a thing could even be suggested in a supposedly free, democratized and prosperous country like Australia. As many countries are starting to believe, and are indeed enshrining in law, access to the internet is becoming an inalienable human right. While few people would disagree that there should be some sort of safeguards in place to prevent kids from accessing pornography, outright blocking of it is the beginning of a very slippery slope. What genre of websites is next? Perhaps sites that criticize the government? This move by the Australian government sure looks like the kind of oppressive human-rights violations we're used to seeing from communist China.

In any event, a good number of Australians agree and they're voicing their opinion through the official Australian Sex Party, a political organization that plans to counter the influence of conservatives and religious types by fielding candidates in the country's next election. Party founder Fiona Patten explained the party's purpose to Adult Video News:

While Australians are a pretty laid back bunch, our politicians are not. I am sure this is the same in most countries. They are concerned about the 8 percent vocal minority so they ignore us... Independent research shows that over 25 percent of Australians regularly watch and buy adult material. We are a small country and with 1,000 adult shops and sites to act as branches for the party we think that we can get to a large number of adult voters who are sick of politicians in their bedrooms and now deciding what they can view online.

AVN has a pretty thorough story on the issue (and that link is mostly safe for work). Interestingly, where do you think the Australians got the idea for an officially registered political sex party? Us Canadians, of course.

By the way, I find this subject particularly interesting since my book will be published in Australia. If the government bans porn online, how long will it be before they ban books that talk about porn?