Australia wants bigger boobs

Not content with banning depictions of female ejaculation as 'abhorrent' and 'a form of urination', Australian government wants to further refine the acceptable portrayal of adult women in adult entertainment. Not only must they not ejaculate, they must have sufficiently large breasts.

According to Australian Sex Party's (ASP) Fiona Patten, Australian censors are beginning to ban depictions of women in their late twenties because they have A-cup breast size, as reported here. This naturally has the consequence of increasing the average breast size in adult entertainment available in Australia, and may force some Australian adult performers to consider implants if they wish to stay in the business. This will hopefully be tax deductible as a work related expense.

According to a spokesperson from Australian Classification Board (ACB) as quoted from here:

"the Board classifies publications on a case by case basis, in accordance with the Guidelines for the Classification of Publications, the Code and the Classification Act and that the Publications Guidelines do not specify breast size."

The guidelines appear to be vague, perhaps deliberately so. Small breasts are not automatically grounds for banning, as also pointed out in the Somebody Think Of The Children article linked to above (which the second article from cricey neglects to mention). They are merely a convenient indicator in judging whether somebody looks too young. In Australia, like in Finland, it doesn't matter whether a woman actually is underage, but whether she looks so in the judgment of a nameless government official. Actual banning is decided case by case based on vague guidelines and the precise reason never specified. Otherwise somebody might be accountable.

Nevertheless, between ejaculating women and women with too youthful breasts Australian officials responsible for their internet blacklist will also remain busy.

The Ukraine bans all pornography

The Register: Ukraine slaps ban on all porn

Porn is now illegal in the Ukraine, unless used for medicinal purposes. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko last week signed off on new legislation joining the Ukraine to an ever-lengthening list of countries that have decided to move the censorship goalposts over the last few years, from publication of porn on to simple possession of it.

(...)

On June 11, the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) made possession of pornography – not extreme porn, but ANY porn – a criminal offence. It will be punishable by a fine of 850 hryvnia - which our currency converter helpfully reveals is approximately 69 British pounds - or up to three years in prison.

Finnish readers may want to read Sofi Oksanen's column on the topic.

Meanwhile, New Zealand is looking to implement an Internet censorship scheme that sounds suspiciously familiar:

The Register: New Zealand set to join internet blocking club

Once blocking goes live, the DIA claim that the block list will focus exclusively on the first of these categories: it is reported that the DIA’s Censorship Compliance Unit has developed a list of over 7000 sites containing child pornography. If true, this is an interestingly large figure, being about five times the size of the block list maintained by the UK’s Internet Watch Foundation, and significantly larger than the lists put in place over the last year or so by other European nations.

(...)

To date, the DIA has refused to publish their list, claiming, via the Official Information Act, that to do so would be "likely to prejudice the maintenance of the law, including the prevention, investigation, and detection of offences, and the right to a fair trial".

Initially, the block list will be voluntary: ISP’s may choose whether or not to take it.

Sound familiar?

Also in the Antipodes, Australia is to begin blocking access to websites that host or sell computer games that are not suitable for children. The block, of course, will affect all Australian internet users, not just children. Other topics to be blocked by the Great Australian Firewall include websites about euthanasia.

I hope you enjoyed the Internet while it was still free.

Cybercrime in the 21st century: linking

As related earlier, Finnish free speech activist Matti Nikki's charges were dropped on a technicality. However, the Finnish state prosecutor basically agreed with the police that posting a link to illegal material can be considered a crime. Now, as in so many other things on this front, Australia is following suit:

Sydney Morning Herald: Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day

The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

The article is worth reading. Here's a tidbit for those of you who don't believe the slippery slope argument:

The site has also published Thailand's internet censorship list and noted that, in both the Thai and Danish cases, the scope of the blacklist had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

In fact, the recently leaked Australian blacklist includes "dentists, bus companies and a tour operator"(computerworld.com), not to mention perfectly legal online gambling site betfair.com.

In the spirit of cybercrime, I'd like to take this opportunity to share a forgotten literary masterpiece with you, courtesy of somethingawful.com: Bruce Gibson's Cracked Copy, a nail-biting account of life on the razor's edge in the apocalypse of a postmodern world.