Earlier in the year I was asked to take part in the Intelligence Squared debate on internet filtering organised by the St James Ethics Centre. I agreed. I have since changed my mind. In this letter to the producer, I explain why.

Ms Deb Richards

St James Ethics Centre, Sydney

Dear Ms Richards,

After significant consideration, I am writing to advise that I must pull out of the St James Ethics Centre Intelligence Squared Debate scheduled for May 11.

As mentioned in previous correspondence, it is hard enough going into this debate in the first place, given the level of misinformation and misrepresentation of the Government’s proposed mandatory filtering scheme.

But then, for you to include – without any consultation –  a Chinese speaker who defends the Chinese firewall, means that our side is doomed to fail before we’ve even started the debate.  His inclusion makes it a lost cause for us: the audience will have to vote against us because they won’t support political censorship –I don’t either.  I don’t support the Chinese firewall, I don’t support any filtering of political content, I don’t support filtering of the views of dissenters and minority groups. I have been publicly critical of China’s human rights violations, including the lack of freedom of expression.

If the format were something other than a “debate” – for example, the opportunity to express a range of views as individuals - I could view it differently. However, as it is a debate, in which the audience votes to determine the winning team, how can we possibly have a chance of winning (unless the audience is stacked with PRC supporters, even then, this would not be the support I’d be seeking).

I am not wishing to reflect on Kaiser Kuo personally. He may have some good arguments. He may be a nice man. He may have been educated in the West.  We may agree on “one or two points”. But that is hardly recommendation enough to have him on a team which doesn’t agree with his overall position and is therefore divided. Going into a debate like this requires unity of position and our side will not have that. The other side will. They will have opportunity to discuss their approach beforehand, to meet face to face if they wish, to hone their arguments amongst themselves. We, however will have none of these opportunities and would enter the debate at a disadvantage. We would also be essentially one person down.

In your email of March 27, you write, “If it is any consolation, the ABC’s Q&A program have leapt at the chance of having him on their panel”. This is irrelevant. Why wouldn’t they want to have him? He is interesting enough. But it is a completely different format. A panel discussion is not a debate in which the audience votes.

It has been important all through the porn filtering debate to distance the policy, and differentiate the argument, from the Chinese fire-wall. In other words, to make it very clear that the arguments for filtering illegal pornography (among other things) are completely distinct from those for political censorship, and that we are as opposed to political censorship as those who are against porn filtering. The national classification scheme that the Government’s policy is based on does not consider political content at all.

The decision to invite a defender of the Chinese Government’s political censorship – on the spurious grounds of “cultural relativism” – is very damaging for our side of the debate. We will be inescapably bracketed with arguments in favour of wider censorship which can only play strongly into the hands of the internet libertarians.

I cannot join a debating team that will include a member arguing that it is legitimate to censor from the internet material that a government finds objectionable on political grounds.

When the audience comes to vote on the proposition, those inclined to favour porn censorship would have to vote “no” because a “yes” vote means a vote for political censorship as well.

I apologise for any inconvenience my decision might cause.

Yours sincerely,

Melinda Tankard Reist

April 8, 2010

I was looking around for something nice for you for the weekend but couldn’t find anything. So here’s some more pornography instead (sorry Satchel girl).

First up, Julie Gale’s piece on ABC The Drum Unleashed on the porn in the corner store issue which I have also covered. Much of the graphic material in the original piece was cut. While I understand why editors choose to remove explicit references and images from an easily accessible public site, it also serves to underscore Julie’s point about the fact that the same material is in the corner store with the lollies and kids’ mags.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Julie (Kids Free 2B Kids) on the issue of sexualisation of girls for about three years now (she has a chapter, “One woman’s activism” in my book).  We like to get together in her homey kitchen -where Julie’s laughter tinkles like cascading water as she prepares tea cups and plates of biscuits (thanks Claire Halliday) -  and share our favourite comments and feedback. (Getting Real readers may recall some of these gems in my introduction, such as the charming and mysteriously evocative “as ugly as a hatful of arses”). We’ve been accused of everything from wanting to ban all sex, forcing Australian women to don the burka and (just last week actually) hastening armageddon. Anyway, this special post in the Unleashed comments section provides fresh inspiration for Julie’s comedy routines:

I have read some drivel on this site but, really! What else does Ms Gale want to ban – shorts, singlets, short skirts (nothing above the knee) or puberty. Moreover, how about a time machine so that she (and those who support her) can be transported back to the Victorian era!

Julie has confirmed with me today that she does indeed want to ban EVERYTHING. “Everything must go!” she said.
But here’s a good one (thanks anonimouse):

Same old boring conspiracy theories about religious right whenever regulating pseudo child porn is discussed. Same old irrational assumptions that regulating this stuff is oppressing kids. These arguments are at least 40 years old now… and meanwhile the pseudo left have nothing to say about the massive capitalist exploitation of kids that is only too happy to co-opt their libertarian rhetoric. How come defending the status quo (creepy porn culture etc) is confused with being hip. Don’t mess with the sovereign consumer and their right to buy creepy porn from the newsagent! But it is not just creepy, this kind of porn is obviously normalising grooming kids…It is great that you keep speaking out.

Melbourne academic and long-time feminist activist, Sheila Jeffreys, who has written extensively against pornography, prostitution and harmful beauty practices in the West (some of her work appears in my recommended books section)  debated EROS Foundation’s Robbie Swan as part of the ABC Big Ideas series recently. Here’s the debate.

And here’s Communication Minister Steve Conroy’s defence of the Government’s internet filtering plans in The Punch (over which the defend-all-porn-at-all-costs brigade went ballistic, as described here).

When is the Coalition going to develop a backbone on this issue?

Fancy some violence on Valentine’s Day?

Came across this, which is doing the rounds on some Facebook sites:

“I’ve got a Valentines poem that has never yet failed to get me into a girls knickers. . .  Here we go then . . .  Roses are red, Violets are blue, I’ve got a knife now get in the f—ing van !!!!” 

Some illegal porn perhaps? 

Then I received this press statement from “Operation Titstorm”: 

“The Australian Government will learn that one does not mess with our porn. No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason.”

For three days this past week, hackers calling themselves “Anonymous”, disabled the Australian Parliament House computer system. 

They also hacked the PM’s site, plastering it with porn in a protest against the Government’s internet filtering plans. Parliament House staff also received porn spam emails. 

So now we have porn vigilantes demanding their entitlement to every form of pornography – which would include child sexual assault images – by wrecking the computer operating systems of a democratic parliament and declaring cyber war on Australia. So great is their desire for violent porn and child porn, by overwhelming the system with pornography they also force others to view it against their will. This is how the porn lobby views freedom? Unleashing a form of cyber terrorism to get its way?

Speaking of illegal, Senate Estimates hearings of the Legal and Constitution Legislation Committee last week heard that Classification Board Director Donald McDonald had issued called-in notices for 37 unclassified porn magazines between July 1 and December 21, 2009. In the 12 months before ,he called-in 127 magazines. The called-in titles included ‘Live Young Girls’ and others imported by Namda/Windsor Wholesale, whose General Manager is David Watt of the Eros Foundation which launched the Australian Sex Party. 

Many of the recalled titles endorse rape and incest and represent very young girls as desperate for sex with older males. The magazines have been illegally distributed in corner stores, milkbars and petrol stations including McDonald’s Fuelzone for who knows how long. See earlier blog 

In addition, in the six months to December 31, 2009, McDonald had called in 440 pornographic films, including incest titles. From 2008 to July 2009 he had called in 386 titles. Under our laws, distributors who fail to put their publications through the classification system have three days to respond to these notices. So, guess how many distributors have responded? 

None.

While the Classification Board notifies police about illegal publications and films, there is no reporting back on enforcement. It is possible nothing happens. No one seems to know. And bear in mind, these are only the titles that were found. How many more are out there?

Porn distributors have demonstrated that they think they can do what they want and get away with it. It seems they are right. The system is broke. It needs fixing. 

Maybe take up the whole day with it? 

“Viewing porn online becomes a major problem only when people become so preoccupied that they spend 16 to 18 hours a day doing nothing else but watching porn, with serious impacts on relationships, work, studies, and finance,” Dr Sitharthan said. 

So it’s only a problem if every waking moment is taken up with it? What about 10 hours a day?  Or eight? Or three or four?  Is porn use now so normalised that anything under 16 hours of viewing on-line porn is considered unproblematic? 

If you or someone you know is a compulsive porn user, I’d like your thoughts on when you think porn use is a problem. 

Throw in some dead prostituted women perhaps? 

In another example of pimp culture gone mainstream , a Queensland schoolboy set up a Facebook page called “Kill my hooker so you don’t have to pay her”. The site was taken down by Facebook – but not before it attracted 18,000 members. 

The principal of the school where the boy was disciplined said that education was needed about the “dangers of the internet”. 

How about starting with educating boys that violence against women is wrong? 

President of the Australian Sex Workers Association, Elena Jeffreys, took the opportunity to offer to get prostituted women into schools and educate students about the “reality of prostitution”. 

Given that the association thinks prostitution is a good career choice for women and given their moves to loosen up our visa system so that more Asian women can be prostituted here, I’m not sure how much reality the school kids would get.

For some actual reality, see Making Sex Work: A Failed Experiment with Legalised Prostitution in Victoria

Oh and by the way, the Facebook site is up again, just under a different name.

The Government announced this week plans to introduce legislation for mandatory filtering of the internet at Internet Service Provider (ISP level).

This of course brought out all those who want no restrictions to the internet, arguing that the plans will mean we’ll end up living in a place like North Korea and controlled by the Taliban.

The plan is for ISPs to block blacklisted material rated Refused Classification. This is material that is already not allowed in other mediums because it is so graphic. It includes child porn, rape porn and bestiality.

The government will also provide incentives to ISPs to offer optional ISP level filtering of X and R-rated pornography.

The UN Save the Children Fund made the ridiculous claim that it would mean parents would relax about their children’s internet use. Save the Children should be welcoming anything which might lessen the multi-billion dollar trade in children’s bodies.

Any material which depicts sexual violence against women and children or which incites crimes of violence against women and children should not be allowed. Anyone justifying it should not be called a civil libertarian but a sexual assault libertarian.

For some compelling articles in favour of filtering, see:

Clive Hamilton: Web doesn’t belong to net libertarians 

Abigail Bray: Googling S*x

Steven Conroy: The truth about net filtering

Let Stephen Conroy know you support the proposed legislation.

Senator Stephen Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne Vic 3002.

senator.conroy@aph.gov.au.