Criticising Conroy – and censorship
There’s a lot of discussion lately about the interenet filter/blackist/censorship plan of Senator Stephen Conroy. Here’s the latest I’ve read: Conroy’s response to Crikey (tweeted by @Mactalk). In it, Senator Conroy writes, well, like a politician. He engages in so much double-speak my eyes crossed while trying to read it. The comments provided very clear counter-arguments, and Conroy and the commenters both linked to various sites to back up their positions.
I don’t know the fine detail of Conroy’s plans or how they are likely to affect internet speed – nor how effective in their stated aim they will be (Conroy insists they will be perfect, without slowing ‘net speeds – while his critics predict major slowing with much fail). What I did take from Conroy’s column linked above was that the mandatory part of his plan is a list of urls that must be blocked at an ISP level. These are things that are “Refused Classification”, which appears to mean:
Depict, express or otherwise deals with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified. Depict in a way that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult a minor who is, or who appears to be, under 16 (whether or not engaged in sexual activity). Promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence.
Now I don’t propose to discuss the technical pros and cons of this plan, or alternatives. I don’t propose to talk about whether it will or won’t do what is supposedly intended. I won’t even discuss the fact that it’s a nice distraction away from the fact that to keep children (and the rest of us, come to that) safe, major social change is needed, and that’s hard and slow, and not doesn’t provide nice political soundbites in an election-to-election sort of timeframe …. I won’t discuss that one at all ….
What I will write about is something that occurred to me today. I want to discuss whether the intended target, this RC category is actually something that should be censored. At. All.
So let’s have a look again at what RC includes: I’m not going to argue about the 2nd and 3rd items there: unpleasant stuff involving children, and inciting/instructing crime. It’s not that either is necessarily cut and dried; just that the point I want to make relates to the first item: “…offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted…” Well now. Not to put too fine a point on it, that leaves things wide frakkin’ open. Note that it’s not saying illegal, just that most people would see it as immoral/indecent/lacking propriety. Depending on whence you source your “most people”, that could include an awful lot. I daresay fetishy-bondagey oooerrrrr sex stuff is seen by many people as indecent/lacking propriety. Many things that some people like to do with each other – and like to watch/read about – would be seen by some other people as terribly horribly awfully bad.
Again: these are not illegal acts being talked about. These are things that people are (currently) allowed to do with each other. – But they’re not allowed to buy/sell/rent any material relating to them, and if/when Conroy gets his way they won’t be able to find them online either. So … they can do these things (currently) but they’re not allowed to look at these things. I do not see that there can be any reasonable justification for that position. If something is legal to do, what is the logic or justice behind making it unavailable to view or read about? I submit if something is legal to do, it should be legal and available to view – albeit appropriately restricted in some cases.
The converse of course is not necessarily true: just because something is illegal, it shouldn’t necessarily be unavailable. Just think of all the depictions of various crimes on television any given evening: we allow that, and yet are talking about preventing access to depictions of perfectly legal acts …
Legal for now, anyway. Lest you think I’m being melodramatic, with all my sinister “(currently)”s, I will describe what I found many years ago in medical school when researching an essay. As late as the mid 80s if I recall correctly (which was when the book was written), the only form of sexual activity legal in every state in the USA was between a man and wife, at home, at night, wearing “appropriate night attire”, inside, in an upstairs room (sucks to be those couples with single story houses; they’re screwed … or in fact, they’re not 
), with the light off, missionary position. 
Governments can, and have (even in the democratic West), legislated what sort of consensual naughtiness you’re allowed to engage in. I fear it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from saying people aren’t allowed to view this sort of “non-normative” sexual activity, to saying they’re not allowed to do it either. I wouldn’t have thought it possible that a Western government would try nowadays, but people like Conroy – and Abbott – demonstrate for me quite clearly that the potential does indeed exist – unlikely as I think (and hope) it is.
So dear reader, what do you think? Should there be a difference between the sort of sex you’re allowed to have and the sort of pornography you’re allowed to view? Try to think outside what you yourself might do, and accept that various subgroups of society enjoy doing all sorts of different things; if we’re not going to prevent them doing it (and I would argue there is no ethical justification for doing so), then is it in any way reasonable to prevent them from viewing it?
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