Author John Birmingham posted a great piece last week attacking Internet filtering. Apart from describing Senator Conroy’s “puckered cat’s bum thing with your mouth” when equating freedom of speech with kiddie-porn-watching, he puts what I think is the best argument: “If parents are going to plug their kids into the net it is the parents’ responsibility to look after the little darlings while they’re online. You wouldn’t set a small child loose in the city and expect the government to step in and do your child-minding for you.”
Child Wise’s Bernadette McMenamin on Internet filtering
I’ve just received a response to my post about Internet filtering and child pornography from Child Wise CEO Bernadette McMenamin. She raises some good questions — particularly why people in the Internet industry seem to react so angrily when there doesn’t seem to be any argument about child pornography and other exploitation being A Bad Thing.
Ms McMenamin has given permission for her response to be published. I’ve highlighted what I think are her most interesting questions. Answers appreciated. I’ll be drafting my own reply overnight.
Continue reading “Child Wise’s Bernadette McMenamin on Internet filtering”
Petitions might finally make a difference
Maybe those annoying socialists on King Street will finally achieve something with their endless petition-signing. Chairman Rudd will require parliament to formally consider and report on all petitions.
More than a million Australians signed 900+ petitions during Howard’s final three-year term. A grand total of 2 were responded to in some way. The other 99.8% were tabled and ignored.
My local MP Anthony Albanese, the “manager of government business” in parliament, says petitions won’t need to be sponsored by an MP any more. He reckons citizens have a basic right to petition parliament. And they’ll look into electronic petitions too.
That, and Julia Gillard’s announcement that NGOs receiving government funds would no longer be prevented from making political statements, are clear sings that maybe Kevin Rudd actually means what he says about strengthening the parliamentary system.
Retreating into the walled garden, for safety
Why do people pour their lives into proprietary environments like Facebook when everything they need to communicate with their friends is already on their desktops? Or their phones. The inimitable Stephen Fry has once again written complete sense, theorising that it’s deep human nature.
What an irony! For what is this much-trumpeted social networking but an escape back into that world of the closed online service of 15 or 20 years ago? Is it part of some deep human instinct that we take an organism as open and wild and free as the internet, and wish then to divide it into citadels, into closed-border republics and independent city states? The systole and diastole of history has us opening and closing like a flower: escaping our fortresses and enclosures into the open fields, and then building hedges, villages and cities in which to imprison ourselves again before repeating the process once more. The internet seems to be following this pattern.
How does this help us predict the Next Big Thing? That’s what everyone wants to know, if only because they want to make heaps of money from it. In 1999 Douglas Adams said: “Computer people are the last to guess what’s coming next. I mean, come on, they’re so astonished by the fact that the year 1999 is going to be followed by the year 2000 that it’s costing us billions to prepare for it.â€
But let the rise of social networking alert you to the possibility that, even in the futuristic world of the net, the next big thing might just be a return to a made-over old thing.
Another possibility, I guess, is that most people are overwhelmed by the choices available. Facebook and the rest just give them a few obvious options and they can get on with it. Or are both Mr Fry and I completely missing it?
We have the used knickers!
Despite having written a lengthy serious essay today, I know that regular readers will be thrilled to hear that both pairs of used knickers are now in my possession!
If you’ve only just joined us, I wondered aloud why we’re afraid of wearing someone else’s underwear. And the conversation has continued as a pair of used knickers made its way down the laneway and into a corner.
Well, I have the abandoned women’s knickers, and Quatrefoil has sent me the freshly-washed men’s underpants which she found in her possession. I guess I’ll have to figure out which to wear first now, eh?
Any more Hallucinating Goldfish?
My last post explained my metaphorical Hallucinating Goldfish. I’ve been thinking about it for years, and finally wrote that first essay. However I’m thinking about expanding the idea into a book. So if you have any examples of society’s hallucinations or its goldfish-like (lack of) memory, do let me know. I’ll try to post what I find too, hence the new Hallucinating Goldfish category.