I heard of the Stalinist Soviet era officials instructing their workers to pave the main roads and any streets coming off it only as far as you could see it from the main road. The idea was visiting dignitaries would matter of fact-ly accept that there were in fact roads throughout all of the Soviet Union. This was of course an illusion, one bearing no resemblance to the truth and in fact used to cover up the stark and barren reality.
This representation of reality in the particular context of a mandatory filter is particularly relevant to the discourse about the filter some how helping the issue of child pornography. My assertion is that this does nothing to stop child pornography, and in fact is spending a large sum of money better used to help the victims of sexual exploitation.
These are issues that need to be addressed through long tail initiatives that lead to real outcomes for those involved. In the current climate of global crisis, which highlights how interconnected culturally, economically and logistically the world is, these issues need to be addressed in their legitimate context.
The legitimate context is two-fold. Firstly it is one of victims, second is perception. Victims are who we should be thinking of. The inherently innocent who are exploited for profit and sex. All and any efforts to reducing the production of child pornography is extremely welcome, including long tail activities such as poverty eradication.
Perception is relating to individuals mediated communication experience. Simply, if the child pornography issue is solved with the filter what possible actions can possibly be put on the agenda that could actually help or eradicate child pornography production itself.
The Government is going down a dangerous path. Mediated technologies are already a platform for extending simulacrums, lets not mix reality with the hyperreal - the issue of child pornography is a human one grounded in the material world. It requires real responses, not ones that gloss over relevant issues; further leading the way to other "reality sculpting".
Monday, June 1, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The importance of being honest
I've been inspired to try to learn to code after coming across Ruby on Rails. The first thing that stuck out was the creators description "it lets you write beautiful code by favoring convention over configuration." sounds great.
I found the documentation is concise and well written and produced by an engaged community, which can be typical in developer communities generally.
Interesting thought, of transparency and its affect on engagement. People really need to know what they're signing up to.
I recently read an article that Senator Conroy suggested ISPs may join the mandatory filter voluntarily. “One option is potentially legislation. One other option is that it could be (on a) voluntary basis that they (ISPs) could voluntarily agree to introduce it.” he was quoted as saying. I'm not really sure if this is a media sound bite being over amplified or if it's a sign of a full back-down (or somewhere in between).
The optimistic cynic in me wonders if the government is being actively pragmatic? Thinking back to the Rails community, they're able to govern themselves and set norms because everyone is already engaged. They are able to make this choice because the documentation provided by the Rails creators is transparent and consistent.
I tend to think the cleanfeed should have similar components - allowing individual users to make the choice and providing a clear and concise articulation of what they are in for.
This way those who have a stake are motivated to be engaged for the end results. Importantly conventions are set within the group and there is a reduction of ambiguity of meaning created by media politics.
Perhaps pragmatism is is too high hopes, more likely the Government is going back to their election position "fact-sheet" Of course, it would be best if there was no expansion of the current scheme. I'd even say it'd be nice to get rid of that, since as I understand it some of the mandatory blocked content isn't even illegal in a non-Internet context... oops!
I found the documentation is concise and well written and produced by an engaged community, which can be typical in developer communities generally.
Interesting thought, of transparency and its affect on engagement. People really need to know what they're signing up to.
I recently read an article that Senator Conroy suggested ISPs may join the mandatory filter voluntarily. “One option is potentially legislation. One other option is that it could be (on a) voluntary basis that they (ISPs) could voluntarily agree to introduce it.” he was quoted as saying. I'm not really sure if this is a media sound bite being over amplified or if it's a sign of a full back-down (or somewhere in between).
The optimistic cynic in me wonders if the government is being actively pragmatic? Thinking back to the Rails community, they're able to govern themselves and set norms because everyone is already engaged. They are able to make this choice because the documentation provided by the Rails creators is transparent and consistent.
I tend to think the cleanfeed should have similar components - allowing individual users to make the choice and providing a clear and concise articulation of what they are in for.
This way those who have a stake are motivated to be engaged for the end results. Importantly conventions are set within the group and there is a reduction of ambiguity of meaning created by media politics.
Perhaps pragmatism is is too high hopes, more likely the Government is going back to their election position "fact-sheet" Of course, it would be best if there was no expansion of the current scheme. I'd even say it'd be nice to get rid of that, since as I understand it some of the mandatory blocked content isn't even illegal in a non-Internet context... oops!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Watch out what you wish for
I have never understood the disproportionate amount of political capital and media attention expended around the idea of censorship on moral grounds.
As technologically mediated social interactions and modes of existing increasingly depend on online symbols, online mandatory censorship creates a dangerous approach to re-shaping technologically mediated reality.
The recent backflip to change the mandatory filtering scheme to content which is deemed "RC" (Refused Classification) is not a complete back-flip. It re-confirms at the very least there will be some sort of mandatory filter administered by the ACMA (Australian Communication and Media Authority).
I had always thought if you were going to oppose something on morals grounds, you'd exert more effort opposing the event rather than the communication of it yet the Australian Christian Lobby wasn't happy with the current version mandatory filter saying it didn't go far enough.
Personally I'm not happy about having any sort of filter and my opposition is also on moral grounds. There are a number of pragmatic considerations also, ones that respectfully lend themselves to a real-politik between Baudrillard's simulacra and actuality.
For example recently I was reading an article about euthanasia and censorship and the author noted he'd "... been struck by the number of laws that seek to prevent the flow of facts. They haven't been hugely effective to this point, but they're probably going to become more so soon."
The issue with blanket bans on specific content is that academic or research oriented content is likely to be obscured by those efforts too. For example on researching about censorship on wikileaks this author came across an "insiders" open letter about the child pornography "industry", it's hosted at Wikileaks. It's contents may offend some but realistically I believe information like this should be available - if not for any other reason than to inform the public that the actual events take place in the first place.
For those trying to create a sugar coated simulation of reality while ignoring the real causes of social symptoms need to be careful what they wish for... taking this idea to a logical extreme, it's conceivable to have a constituency that are unable to inform themselves. This scatter effect might even get bigger and has the dangerous power of creating a society that is washed against seeing it's own failures and ills, as well as how it deals with "fringe" topics.
As technologically mediated social interactions and modes of existing increasingly depend on online symbols, online mandatory censorship creates a dangerous approach to re-shaping technologically mediated reality.
The recent backflip to change the mandatory filtering scheme to content which is deemed "RC" (Refused Classification) is not a complete back-flip. It re-confirms at the very least there will be some sort of mandatory filter administered by the ACMA (Australian Communication and Media Authority).
I had always thought if you were going to oppose something on morals grounds, you'd exert more effort opposing the event rather than the communication of it yet the Australian Christian Lobby wasn't happy with the current version mandatory filter saying it didn't go far enough.
Personally I'm not happy about having any sort of filter and my opposition is also on moral grounds. There are a number of pragmatic considerations also, ones that respectfully lend themselves to a real-politik between Baudrillard's simulacra and actuality.
For example recently I was reading an article about euthanasia and censorship and the author noted he'd "... been struck by the number of laws that seek to prevent the flow of facts. They haven't been hugely effective to this point, but they're probably going to become more so soon."
The issue with blanket bans on specific content is that academic or research oriented content is likely to be obscured by those efforts too. For example on researching about censorship on wikileaks this author came across an "insiders" open letter about the child pornography "industry", it's hosted at Wikileaks. It's contents may offend some but realistically I believe information like this should be available - if not for any other reason than to inform the public that the actual events take place in the first place.
For those trying to create a sugar coated simulation of reality while ignoring the real causes of social symptoms need to be careful what they wish for... taking this idea to a logical extreme, it's conceivable to have a constituency that are unable to inform themselves. This scatter effect might even get bigger and has the dangerous power of creating a society that is washed against seeing it's own failures and ills, as well as how it deals with "fringe" topics.
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