Har. Censorship fan Deborah Robinson has taken a swipe at me for criticising the government’s doomed, technically impossible “clean feed” scheme. After her stoush with Duncan Riley, she is now dismayed – dismayed! – that a FEMINIST writer could POSSIBLY oppose such a measure, on account of it is guaranteed to protect our chiiiiiiiildren from porn and all, and thus magically disappear the sexual exploitation of women.
But in what I can only describe as a staggering revelation, one feminist writer on the web has come out against the introduction of a clean feed. Whatever happened to the argument against the sexual exploitation of women? The ISP filtering rules are not just a victory for families, but a victory for women as well. I thought feminists would be jumping with glee. But apparently, some feminists would prefer to protect what they call freedom of speech. Hello people? We are not talking about freedom of speech here, the issue is blocking porn and violent content.
Because we feminists are supposed to have a completely nuance-free cookie-cutter take on everything, right? We’re not supposed to worry our ditzy heads with the technical details, just Denounce(tm)! And there is no way, no possible way, that any feminist or feminist-approved free speech could ever be confused with the “porn, violence, and inappropriate content” under threat by the Minister, right? Right?
The post goes on to make it clear that she seems to think parents will, after this scheme is implemented, be able to wander off to bed happily letting their young children noodle about the internet, safe in the knowledge that the government will protect them from whatever parents might find offensive. Blimey. I guess their PR people really were spot-on assuming that most of the population has Absolutely. No. Clue.
My response (which is in moderation):
Feel free to actually read my post again, follow the links therein, and respond to the actual arguments.
Nannyware has in the past blocked human rights websites, sexual health information sites, youth suicide prevention programmes, child molestation survivor sites, and yes, feminist websites. My own feminist blog contains images, language, and ideas that the religious right finds offensive.
This scheme WILL slow down internet schemes, WILL cost us significant amounts of money, and WILL NOT stop children or anyone else from accessing material the government finds inappropriate. There is no way the censors can find all the porn sites on the internet, there is no way to separate porn from non-porn (do you really want your kids blocked from Livejournal, Myspace, Youtube, Flickr, and Facebook?), and even if we did have an imaginary army of infallible censormonkeys and perfectly fast, low-profile filtering software: there is no way to implement this in a way that it can’t be circumvented in twenty minutes by someone with the barest smattering of technical expertise or google-fu.
If you think you can happily wander off to sleep knowing that your children to be “protected” by a government-issue “clean” feed, you are very very badly misinformed. If your kids are objecting to porn ads, why aren’t they filtering them already? Very effective ad blocking is trivial to achieve with Firefox and a couple of extensions.
Today’s reactions to the plan can be found here in the Australian IT section: “Rudd porn filter fails: experts” and the full EFA press release can be found here and is reproduced below the cut.
EFA Attacks Clean-Feed Proposal
Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today attacked a government plan, championed by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, that would mandate “clean feed” filtered Internet connections to all homes and schools. This scheme, which will supposedly censor the Internet of pornography and other “inappropriate material”, goes further than the Coalition’s previous policies, by requiring individuals to opt-out of the scheme rather than request filtering from their service provider.
“Waving the ‘save the children’ flag may be good politics, but it ignores serious technological problems which will likely cause the proposed scheme to fail,” said EFA Chair Dale Clapperton. “Furthermore, Australia is supposed to be a liberal democracy where adults have the freedom to say and read what they want, not just what the Government decides is ‘appropriate’ for them.”
“These announcements smack of the condescending paternalism which contributed to the downfall of the Howard government,” Clapperton continued. “The proposals threaten the free speech rights of every Australian, and our concerns will not be silenced by Government sound bites equating free speech with access to child pornography.”
EFA has previously raised concerns about Australia joining North Korea, China and Burma in the club of nations who censor their citizens’ access to the internet. While the Minister makes no apologies for this alarming development, he has given us little reason to put our faith in his bureaucrats to administer such a system competently, transparently and fairly.
“Who decides what is ‘appropriate’ for adult Australians to read on the Internet, and according to what standards?”, asked Clapperton. “What will happen if the Government decides that information about abortion or gay marriage is ‘inappropriate’ at the behest of Family First Senator Steve Fielding?”
In an attempt to dismiss the policy’s critics, Senator Conroy said “If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree.” EFA notes, however, that child pornography is already illegal, and very unlikely to come to the attention of either the casual web user or the censors themselves. “senator Conroy’s attempt to equate freedom of speech with access to child pornography is a transparent attempt to deter criticism of this fundamentally flawed proposal,” said Mr Clapperton.
Implementation of the proposal, insofar as it is technically possible, would cause significant technical and administrative headaches for Australia’s Internet Service Providers. “This can only have the effect of making Australians’ access to the internet slower and more expensive,” said Clapperton. “Given the Prime Minister’s election promise to focus on improving the nation’s access to broadband, the fact that the first measures put in place should do the exact opposite is as disappointing as it is bewildering.”
With billions of web pages available on the internet and changing every day, the crucial technical and administrative details of how the clean feed will be created have not yet been made available. Although the Minister has asserted that the Internet will not “grind to a halt”, he has yet to explain to Internet engineers how he plans to accomplish a feat that experts acknowledge would be very difficult. “Anyone with a better understanding of the Internet than the Minister will tell you this system simply will not work,” said Clapperton. “But a lot of taxpayers’ money will be wasted if we try.”
EFA supports measures to provide filtering software to homes where it is requested, and to educate parents on monitoring their children’s online activities. “Unfortunately, ISP based filtering will not make the Internet safe for children, and may even cause harm in and of itself. If parents are deceived into believing that a ‘filtered’ Internet service is safe for children, they will be less likely to take sensible precautions such as supervising their children while they use the Internet.”
At a time when all sides of politics acknowledge the importance of developing our information economy, EFA feels that this announcement sends the wrong message to the rest of the world. “The Coalition was rightly ridiculed by the rest of the world when they announced in the late 1990’s that they would censor Australian’s Internet access. The Coalition, at least, sensibly realised that their proposals were technologically infeasible. It seems that the current Minister with responsibility for the Internet has yet to learn that lesson.”
— Ends —
Below is:
– Background information
– Contact details for media
Background:
ABC News article on the announcement:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm
Past media releases by Senator Conroy about internet filtering:
http://www.senatorconroy.com/media95.html
http://www.senatorconroy.com/media70.html
About EFA:
Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (“EFA”) is a non-profit national organisation representing Internet users concerned with on-line rights and freedoms. EFA was established in 1994, is independent of government and commerce, and is funded by membership subscriptions and donations from individuals and organisations with an altruistic interest in promoting online civil liberties.
Media Contacts:
Mr Dale Clapperton Mr Colin Jacobs
EFA Chair EFA Board Member
Phone: 0416 007 100 Phone: 0402 631 955
Email: dclapperton at efa.org.au Email: cjacobs at efa.org.au
—————————————————————-
Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc — http://www.efa.org.au/
URL of this release: http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/PR080102.html
—————————————————————-
Categories: gender & feminism, Politics
QOTD for IWD: Aung San Suu Kyi 
Grabbing somebody is Assault, and sexual touch makes it Sexual Assault. Stop minimising this. #rapeculture101 
BFTP Friday Hoyden: Emma Goldman 
96th Down Under Feminists Carnival 
Hoyden About Town 
Everyone should read this EFA article – “Labor’s Mandatory ISP Internet Blocking Plan”
[Mod note: Darrin, you’re welcome to have your say here on this issue so long as you follow our comment guidelines, but I choose not to host links to your site. …lauredhel]
The EFA article is particularly useful for those following this debate. I made a point of linking to it in my first post on this issue.
One question is who decides what we can look at on the web. Well people already decide what we can look at or listen too. They do it for TV/Radio/Papers/Mags/etc/etc. This is the same beast and any argument that it is different is just scare mongering in the same vain as the Howard government used over the war on Terror.
Could the government under this schema block a pro abortion website? Yes. Could a terrorist blow me up at the Footy next year? Yes. Are either likely? No!!!!
JMTC
Molly
Phillip Molly Malone’s last blog post..What would happen if the 12 days of Christmas really happened?
“Phillip Molly Malone”, One of the great thing about this internet thing is that you get your information unfiltered and ultimately it’s up to you on how you deal with it. All the sources you have mentioned are limited by commercial interests – this dictates the scope of their news coverage for example. For example, I’m not expecting to see this story on Australian MSM anytime soon.
But Darrin, this isn’t an arguement against that Government putting age restrictions on websites that if they were on free to air would have a rating. This is an argument of why the Web is the greatest mass communication tool we have ever had.
The story you list isn’t going to be blocked by the government.
As I say, its valid to argue the Clean Filter won’t work. Its valid to say that we shouldn’t have censorship (Web or TV or Radio, etc). But the arguments people are making against the Clean Filter are mainly based on Scare Mongering.
JMTC
Molly
Phillip Molly Malone’s last blog post..What would happen if the 12 days of Christmas really happened?
Phillip Molly Malone said: One question is who decides what we can look at on the web. Well people already decide what we can look at or listen too. They do it for TV/Radio/Papers/Mags/etc/etc. This is the same beast and any argument that it is different is just scare mongering in the same vain as the Howard government used over the war on Terror.
Yes, we have censorship here in Australia. We have censorship on two levels – there’s the governmental level, where they declare that certain images, concepts and levels of violence are going to be improper for all people to view openly, and therefore advise that viewing should be restricted to certain age groups. Then there’s the corporate censorship, where the media owners, editors, and similar decide which concepts are “news”, which ones are “entertainment”, which are “appropriate” and which are “inappropriate” (where appropriate is defined as being very similar to “will sell more product”). Given the already close control of the Australian mediaplex (three family corporations control the majority of Australia’s newspapers, magazines, and television; radio is also similarly constrained to a few nation-wide networks) the internet currently acts as a useful source of alternative points of view, or information about ideas, events and concepts that our governmental and corporate overlords don’t consider to be “interesting enough”.
The next point is one I’ve made before in a number of different fora: the internet is not just the web. The world wide web of pages and services which can be accessed through the hypertext transfer protocol is a large part of the internet, yes. But it isn’t the be-all and end-all of it. There are things like email (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), newsgroups (Networked News Transfer Protocol), file sharing (File Transfer Protocol; please note that not all file sharing is copyright infringement, nor is it illegal), chat networks (internet relay chat, various messaging protocols), as well as things like various multiplayer online games. All of those are part of the internet, and I know I haven’t listed all of the components.
Now, let’s add to the complexity: these proposals aren’t just banning “pornography” – whatever that is (and nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has been able to come up with a workable definition of the difference between porn and erotica). They’re also aimed at things like “violence”. So what counts as “violence”? Does torture where there’s no blood shed count? Does psychological abuse fit under the heading of “violence”? Will things which are wholly virtual (such as the world of “World of Warcraft”) fit into the criteria, or won’t they?
So far my largest objection is not that censorship of the internet has been proposed. My largest objection is it’s a simple, band-aid solution being proposed for a large and complex series of different problems, processes and issues, covering a vast range of technical and social fields. I haven’t heard enough to be able to make an informed decision (thanks to our tightly-controlled media, and its preference for stories that sell – civil liberties stories don’t sell until someone is getting hurt by their absence) on whether this proposal is a workable one or not.
Meg makes some good points but on the “Band aid” solution, it is, and people will workaround it but that is their choice and they have to actively do that and to me, they should be able too (as long as they aren’t breaking some other law. e.g. Kiddy porn, etc).
I also think if this is the main argument, then that would would be something to base an attack on the policy on, but others are using it to pass out their conspiracy theories making the argument a bit of a joke really.
JMTC
Molly
Phillip Molly Malone’s last blog post..What would happen if the 12 days of Christmas really happened?
Heh – Robinson has got all upset that people want to debate her unsupported assertions. Apparently that’s harrassment!
She’s closed the thread now.
Really, scolding all the people expressing reservations about the cleanfeed proposal as scaremongers and pornsupporters, claiming that we’re all just promoting worst case scenarios and conspiracy theories in a hysterical fashion, and then the moment a handful of people respond by questioning her own assertions – that’s Armageddon. What a gutless performance.
The hissy fit continues.
Can we have a special, classy snowflake award?
Lauredhel’s last blog post..Another evpsych logic-wormhole: monkey-whores and the mating market
Oh, great. So I’m the last comment in a thread where the owner of the blog chucks a fit and claims harassment (for no good reason, I was being mildly snarky but not abusive or threatening.) Therefore I go down in history as someone who harasses poor mainstream feminists.
The joke being, if you don’t read my blog, I’m about as radical as Strawberry Quik. (American readers, you assume we can decipher all your popular food references, so google if you’re confused).
I pity the poor woman if she ever actually engages with the US feminist blogosphere!
My beef with the whole thing is: if Robinson can post an entire post saying what she thinks about the whole thing based on information that is currently available before “the details are released”, yet she refuses to engage in any comments because the details aren’t released – and keeps reiterating that as the reason why none of our reservations are valid. So, why did she feel able to write on it in the first place, if that’s such an overriding concern?
Helen’s last blog post..Image for 2007: Activist Angels
And about as harassing as a bagful of duck down and baby toes.
Lauredhel’s last blog post..Who made the seeds?
Lauredhel – Although we do have different views on this issue, I should never have criticised you on my blog and for that I apologise. I would like to call a truce.
I wish you and your readers well.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Duncan Riley and I Call a Truce
To clarify, Deborah, I have no problem with other bloggers engaging with my ideas and writings in good faith.
If you’re going to call people out, however, you should expect to be engaged vigorously on the ideas, and not disingenuously accuse all of your interlocutors as “attacking” you. That is what has been the problem (as far as I’m concerned), not the fact that you engaged in the first place.
Note that I’m not talking about Duncan Riley here, who obviously engaged in thoroughly prattish behaviour – but you both escalated things there, so meh. Good to see a truce declared.
Lauredhel – we will have to agree to disagree on our definitions of personal attacks. I never said you attacked me personally. I have no problem with engaging in debate. But when people attack me personally, like any other human being it does upset me.
As a feminist writer you must received the occasional hate mail and personal attack. I know many feminist writers in the USA receive these on a regular basis. So please do not trivialise what I have been through. I did receive personal attacks and as I’ve told you before, I didn’t publicise the worst of these because I wasn’t prepared to give a forum to this lunatic fringe.
I went to Duncan Riley and urged him to cease fire after he had published a further two articles about me. But there were others, just not so high profile as Duncan. I intially called Duncan an “idiot” because his argument was just idiotic. But he went much, much further than that when attacking me. Anyway, I am glad I contacted him to call a truce because the whole episode was taking focus away from the real issues.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Duncan Riley and I Call a Truce
Its good to see that both Lauredhel and Deborah want to debate the points. Some don’t! Duncan seems to want to play the man not the ball. For instance, he attacked Deborah. Also, when someone wants to debate his points of view, he censors their comments (ironic, I know). Have a look at this post by duncan: Will Second Life, Skype, Even Google Be Blocked By The Australian Government? no comments right? Well actually, have a look at this screenshot I grabbed before it was deleted: <a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2128/2173987418_4c6eea639a_o_d.jpghttp://farm3.static.flickr.com/2128/2173987418_4c6eea639a_o_d.jpg</a>
Hmmm….I guess Duncan really isn’t so against Censor ship after all!
Molly
Phillip Molly Malone’s last blog post..What would happen if the 12 days of Christmas really happened?
Molly, I applaud your efforts. But please be careful, I don’t want to see you become the next target.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..All for Women Blog Carnival – 7 January 2008 Edition
Molly: Please don’t drag blogspats here when they have nothing to do with this post or this blog. A blog owner can choose to host or not host whatever they like, and we reserve exactly the same rights here. Please take this particular bugbear to your own space.
Molly, you are being disingenuous in my opinion, in your comments about free speech and censorship with respect to Duncan Riley. (this is not to defend Duncan particularly, but a general point)
The right to free speech means that no person or government agency can stop someone expressing their opinions in the public street or park. If someone stands outside my house screaming obscenities I may be offended but I have no right to stop them, and neither does the State unless they are also issuing threats or inciting an upset to public order.
However, free speech doesn’t mean (and has never meant) that anyone can say anything they like on someone else’s private property. [link] Blogs are publications where comments are submitted for consideration for publication, just like sending a Letter to the Editor of a newspaper. Just like Editors of newspapers, blog owners are under no obligation to publish every submission they receive.
As far as this relates to the matter of curtailing undesirable internet content, this is a matter for individual households in my opinion. Just as you educate your children to put the MP3 player headphones on if obscenities are being screamed out in the street, and to (hopefully) not flick through or buy the “busty beauty” magazines in your local filling station or newsagent, you educate them to use spam filters, to not click on the occasional unsolicited emails that get past the spam filters, and to feel a distaste for exploitative objectified pornography by modelling a healthy, respectful, open model of adult sexuality for them to admire and wish to emulate, instead of modelling embarrassment, shame, disgust and inadvertently enhancing the glamour of forbidden fruit.
I would much rather that my children be inoculated rather than reared in a plastic bubble that leaves them with no natural defences.
Hi Tigtog,
I think you make some good points and won’t reply to them here as Lauredhel has nicely asked me not and I could understand her point of view and the way in which she didn’t just delete my comment but instead let me know that she didn’t want that conversation held on her “private property”. I wouldn’t even mind if she choose to delete or not publish the comment and instead emailed me and with her comment.
So I will take her advice and pull my finger out and put up a post on one of my blogs.
TIA and sorry to Lauredhel.
Molly
Phillip Molly Malone’s last blog post..What would happen if the 12 days of Christmas really happened?
Ha, Lauredhel’s comment and mine crossed, but her pithier explanation makes the same point more efficiently.
I would like to say one thing about Freedom of Speech — I have to be careful about every word I say in this debate now because there are so many willing to jump down my throat. Some (not anyone here) have talked about freedom of speech and then did everything they could to silence me. Doesn’t that make them hypocrites? I know it was my choice to be silent, but how much choice did Mr Riley and his supporters really give me?
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
Thanks for the nod, Molly. To clarify: you are more than welcome to engage Tigtog’s points, or to talk more generally about speech, censorship, and so on. What I was objecting to was the dragging of the specific blogspat over here, calling out a third-party blogger on their moderation policy in this space.
Hope that makes it clearer.
Molly, now my comment and yours crossed, making my comment at #20 look as if it’s rather dismissive if people don’t pay attention to the timestamps.
Thank you for honouring Lauredhel’s wishes. When you’ve written your post do feel free to drop by and leave a link to it.
Deborah,
how have people attempted to silence you? Robust debate is not censorship, it’s effective rhetoric and logic.
Edited to add: I had never heard of Duncan Riley until you posted here and I followed a link to your blog. If you hadn’t responded to them, nobody probably would have noticed his posts about you. It’s a bit rich to promote your argument with an interlocutor when you think it’s going your way and then to cry foul when the direction of play goes against you.
Tigtog – Do you honestly think comparing me to the Nazis was not an attempt to silence me? There were lots more which I won’t go into here. How would this make you feel?
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
Do I think such ploys are unethical and slimy? Yes. Do I think they are censorship? No.
Aghhhh… Okay. I would have made the point on his blog but you short of probably get the point why I didn’t.
So Tigtog, yep you are right and support the heck out of Duncan’s right to blocking any of my comments and if he contacted me and told me why he blocked it, I probably wouldn’t comment on his blog but to just secretly delete the comment seems like you have a secret reason to do it.
But my point is that he shouldn’t be allowed to do, my point is doesn’t it make his argument seem a little weak or weaker. Also he let a whole heap of he says/she say comments between himself and Deborah and others commenting on Deborah and a bunch of name calling but deletes my comment that looks at his post and disagrees with it. So surely he can’t argue that he is keeping his blog clean as he didn’t. It just seems to me that he uses the deleting as a way to avoid having to defend his opinion that have no basis to back them up.
Also I think the debate should be on the Censorship of all media and not just the internet as that is what this policy is trying to do. Set the internets censorship up the same as the rest of the media’s consorship. Instead Duncan and others are trying to argue that it is the Gov. trying to take away free speech and block people that don’t agree with them.
JMTC
molly
Phillip Molly Malone’s last blog post..What would happen if the 12 days of Christmas really happened?
They were under-handed ploys to shut me up–that is censorship by one group to silence an individual. There is no logic in that.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
Deleting Molly’s comments are censorship and makes my point that some in this debate are hypocrites and are not worthy of your defence. When you belittle what they have done which you have done in this case, you are defending them and they are not worthy of that just because you are on the same side of a debate.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
Deborah, now you are imputing motives to me just because I’m not agreeing with your arguments.
My views on what does and does not constitute an infringement of free speech are longstanding and are well explained in the link I gave Molly above (which refers to a post I made in April). I have never accepted the argument that deleting comments on a blog is censorship – anyone is free to publish their own blog with one of the free hosting services and say whatever they like on their own blog. There is no right to have one’s comments published on someone else’s blog.
As to statements someone else made against you on someone else’s blog: I didn’t read them because I didn’t care to, and you could have made the same choice, and how much power would their words have had over you then? Without actual power over your means of publishing your words, no-one else can censor you. They can influence you, if you let them, but they can’t censor you. Please don’t lazily conflate the definitions of words.
I have found swearing at the computer screen, turning off the computer and refusing to engage the most effective method. Of course I often sneak back later to see if they are talking about me, and dammit, as soon as I’m gone I seem to be forgotten! The inconsiderate bastards.
Mindy’s last blog post..Why we should pay more attention to D&D
tigtog – it has nothing to do with you not agreeing with my arguments, I don’t have any problem with that at all and I’m happy to debate the issue of clean feeds and ISP filtering until the cows come home.
I take your point that I could have ignored what was said about me by Riley and that was mistake. But the same could have been said here when I initially criticised what was written on this blog (remember I didn’t name the writer). The writers here could have ignored it, but they didn’t. So you must know how hard it is to ignore criticism.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
Why this cheap shot then? It was certainly impugning my motives:
You have not apologised for that in light of the information given to you that my position is not newly adopted simply in response to this discussion.
That makes no difference when you link to the blog post, does it? As soon as someone clicks on the link they see who the writer is.
The difference is, Deborah, that Lauredhel and I are not complaining that we are being attacked. Frankly, we rather enjoy a bit of a stoush. You, it appears, do not. Horses for courses.
I have to apologise to you because I disagree with you? I don’t agree with you that deleting comments on a blog is censorship. I don’t agree with your view that I wasn’t personally attacked and you won’t me to apologise for that?
No, the difference is that you apply a different standard to yourself than you do to others. You said I should have ignored it. I said then by your logic, you should have ignored what I said in reference to this blog. You then said above quote. But the difference is I didn’t personally attack you and that is a big, big difference. If you can’t see that, then maybe you need to examine your own bias.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
tigtog – after receiving a barrage of criticism, personal attacks from others in regards to this issue, I am very touchy and i got very upset when told I was personally attacked because I know that wasn’t true.
I do apologise to you. I have no wish to offend you or anyone associated with this blog.
Unfortunately I’m taking the brunt of the backlash for the government’s decision only because I’m the only one willing to debate the issue on the Internet. Yes, it’s my choice but it still hasn’t made the last few days any easier.
All I ever wanted to do is to support this move by the government because it restricts access to porn and violence. I hate porn and violence and as the mother of two boys, I don’t want my kids generation to grow up exposed to it. It’s everywhere on the Internet. I hate porn because it exploits women and as the mother of two sons, I’m trying to teach them to respect women. But there are so many other influences out there contradicting us mums.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
what I meant to say is “I got very upset when told I wasn’t personally attacked because I know that’s not true”
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
You really don’t appear to spend the necessary time reading to fully comprehend what is written. You wrote that I was only defending Riley (for deleting comments from his blog) because he was on my side in this debate. I have shown you that I have held the position that declining to publish submitted comments is not censorship for a long time before this debate. That slur on my motives is the matter for which I wish to receive an apology.
I’m not willing to debate you further until you do apologise for that false imputation.
Agh, I was replying to #33 above, and then when the comment was published there was #34 and #35.
Deborah, I don’t require an apology from you for engaging in debate or disagreeing on many of the issues. You are perfectly entitled to continue to disagree, and hopefully we can engage in dissenting debate with a modicum of decorum.
There is one and only one specific comment of yours for which I require an apology, and I have explained it in detail above, as you seem confused by what offended me.
I was confused as to what offended you. It seems we were talking about two different things. I wasn’t referring to your opinion that deleting comments isn’t censorship. I was referring to your comments:
This upset me because I feel I have been silenced. I could never have this debate on my blog because it is being monitored. I know this because Duncan told me himself.
I just re-read through your comments and now see where you were offended. Correct me if I’m wrong:
I do apologise because I can see the way it reads makes it look like I said you were defending Duncan because he deleted comments and you both oppose the clean feed. Of course, I apologise because this was never my intent. Anyway, I’m sick of talking about Mr Riley.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
By the way, I take your point about providing the link to the post on this blog so I have removed it from the article where it appeared on the website. There is now nothing identifying this blog on Australian Women Online except the trackback link to this post which I am happy to remove if you want me to.
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia
Thanks for that, Deborah.
I too can see how you feel that you have been bullied. I still think that there is an important semantic distinction between abuse on another person’s blog and actual censorship, I can of course also see that such distinctions can seem very academic when you are feeling so vilified.
I’m no fan of cyberbullies, and my defence of a blog-owner’s right to decline to publish submitted comments does not extend to failing to recognise the hypocrisy in deleting only comments from those who aren’t part of the fan club in a heated discussion.
Anyway,
If it actually would restrict access to porn and violence, there wouldn’t be so many people arguing with you.
Regarding removing the link from your post – I appreciate that the action was well-meant but it is, I think, unnecessary. However, this is Lauredhel’s post and that’s her call, not mine.
I don’t find it at all necessary, nor have I requested it. To use an offline analogy: given a choice, I would rather people talk about me in front of my face than behind my back.
I’ve edited out everything else I was going to say, since I’ve put myself on a 24-hour stop on the to-and-fro. A worthwhile thing to do when a comment thread becomes a rapid-fire between only two or three people.
I’m out of this debate (see my post at https://hoydenabouttown.com/20071231.1286/the-great-firewall-of-australia/).
Take care everyone.
Deborah Robinson
http://www.australianwomenonline.com
Deborah Robinson’s last blog post..Sexism alive and doing well in Australia