R18+ Games – I told you so

R18+ Games – I told you so

A little over eighteen months ago I predicted that an R18+ rating for video games would be introduced.  Well, now it’s happened, at least in principle.  For the reasons I covered in my prediction, an R18+ scheme is a necessary prerequisite to having a (comparatively) broad based Internet censorship regime.

 

AU Blacklist Leaked

AU Blacklist Leaked

Apparently, now the AU blacklist has also made it onto Wikileaks… and wikileaks is timing out in my browser,  and does not respond to ping requests.   The Age is reporting that a number of innocent people have had their websites blocked, including a dentist in Queensland, a tuck shop and a website designer in Sydney.  Clearly the Howard Government, when it set up this scheme, was comfortable with the ethical position of causing actual harm to innocents in order to prevent the possibility of harm to other innocents.

If the reason Wikileaks is not responding is because it has been blocked you have the same problem of whether the blocking is actually sanctioned by the BSA. Update: someone from the US has said they can’t reach Wikileaks either, so maybe it’s not blocked.  I’m sure we’ll find out soon.

Update 2: As of the morning of 20 March, wikileaks has been available, so it looks like it was a transient problem with the Wikileaks server rather than government blocking.  I have not seen any explanation for its unavailablity.

Will ISPs in Filtering Trials be in Breach of Contract?

Apparently the Federal Government is calling for expressions of interest to participate in a trial to filter internet feeds.  This appears to raise a question of whether the ISPs will be in breach of their agreements to their subscribers.  If an ISP suddenly dropped your traffic (say to a false positive filter) would you have a right to sue?

I wonder whether anyone has reviewed their contracts in anticipation of the trial.  Are there any legislated liability outs for ISPs who participate?