The Australian Minister for Censorship has today confirmed what I’ve been reporting for nearly two years: online adult games including Second Life will be banned in Australia.
A spokesman for Censorship Minister Stephen “Goebbels” Conroy confirmed to Fairfax newspapers that “under the filtering plan, it will be extended to downloadable games, flash-based web games and sites which sell physical copies of games that do not meet the MA15+ standard.” In Australia, the MA15+ rating means that the content is restricted to those aged 15 and above. Australia does not have a R 18+ or similar rating for computer games, with all adult games automatically being classified as RC (Refused Classification.)
I wish I hadn’t been right here, so I take no delight in being so. However I was derided by more than a few bible bashing ALP voting Conroy lovers (in a platonic sense of course, cock sucking will be banned under the censorship regime) as being extreme and wrong in the past, so here’s two examples of things I’ve written previously about what Conroy was planning to do:
December 2007 To be censored by the Australian Government is “pornography and inappropriate material.” X rated pornography is illegal online in Australia, as are casino style internet gambling, certain forms of “hate” speech and R rated computer games.
January 2009 We know that among other “unwanted” things, the following falls into the censorship regime: porn, R rated games , certain types of political speech (for example discussion of methods of euthanasia) and possibly copyrighted content.
I am though surprised this is news today, as the policy was ALWAYS THERE in the fine print from day one. Conroy has waffled and avoided ever giving a direct answer about until now, but he’s also very good at that.
That at the half way point of 2009 this is even still on the agenda in Australia is a fucking disgrace, and the more the Government confirms the details, the more totalitarian the proposal becomes, and even China starts to look more open and free.