South Australia wants to ban humiliating images from the Web

Matthew DeCarlo

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According to a report by the AAP, the South Australian government hopes to outlaw violent and humiliating images from the Internet. Proposed by Attorney General John Rau, the legislation is the first of its kind in Australia and would make it illegal to post demeaning images of others online without their consent. Rau said that the law is designed to punish people for publishing videos of themselves performing violent and degrading acts -- a common practice among teens.

"The government wants to attack this disgusting fad of thugs engineering and filming violent and humiliating acts and posting the images to websites," said Rau. "This behavior is so disturbing and potentially damaging to the victims that I believe the creators of these images should be subject to severe penalties, including jail sentences. The government wants to make it very clear that if a person participates in any way in an act of this sort, then the consequences will be severe."


The law would extend to all parties involved in posting the offending material. For instance, if you knowingly allow someone to upload the images with your computer or phone, you'll also be in the hot seat. Of course, this is all easier said than done and opponents of the proposal raise several valid concerns. "We have no indication of how this initiative will be policed or how we can avoid people being unfairly caught by the legislation," contests justice spokesperson Stephen Wade.

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Good luck with enforcing such a thing. My god, you'd have thought someone in the Aussie governments think tank that came up with this idea would have had enough knowledge of the subject matter to know it's impracticality.
 
Does Austraila's political body not have anything better to do than come up with more absurd ideas about how to censor the Internet?
 
Okay, just imagine that cat with half the length in legs, a slightly bigger head and eyes, and orange (calico, however you spell it) fur, and THATS my cat. Not that anybody cares.

/ignoring article purposefully
 
Owner of that pic should be jailed for animal abuse no matter what else. People who do things to their animals, even if (like in this case) it's harmless and just to be funny, can suck it.
 
maybe im wrong but i could gave a hoot about animals when 1% of humans own 90% of the wealth and thousands of HUMANS are dying daily.
 
Arris said:
Good luck with enforcing such a thing. My god, you'd have thought someone in the Aussie governments think tank that came up with this idea would have had enough knowledge of the subject matter to know it's impracticality.

They work in the goverment, they dont understand "the internets", youtube "Your Dad Asks Computer Questions" :p
 

Sorry, meant to add to this... This is my google gallery posting my cat. As far as I can see, techspot did not have a location to upload photos and I do not know the proper way to direct to the pics. Sorry techspot mods. If this is against rules, please just let me know before taking any actions against me.

Still ignoring the article on purpose... it's just silly. Not the article itself, but what it's about.
 
Comment reposted because of removal by (I'm assuming) mods (The core of it, minus any comments directed at other members):

Techspot,

It is irresponsible to include the picture you embed in this article, without any explanatory caption. The article discusses "violent and humiliating images" being legislated against by the Australian government with respect to HUMANS. Yet the picture you include is clearly meant to be a funny picture of a cat who has been shaved for what is apparently (from the tone of the text in the image) not a preventative grooming measure, but rather just for fun. In so doing, you implicitly encourage and condone such shaving of pets, which besides being insensitive and inhumane suggests, on some level, cruelty to animals. If this is the kind of message you want to send, fine. If it isn't, I suggest you remove the picture asap and replace it with something more appropriate, or provide an explanation for including it as you do. You, of course, have every right to police the behavior of those who frequent your forums. Shouldn't you also police yourselves?

-Ry
 
winner: black market pirates for gaining a new market niche
looser: the australian dignity for having politicians that make laws instead of creating solutions.
 
The image is meant to indicate that the animal in question had no choice and the look on its face in that picture indicates that it is humiliated. It is in no way animal abuse to shave the fur off a cat - many people do it and you can ever get companies who will 'groom' your kitty in such a manner.
 
raswan said:
Comment reposted because of removal by (I'm assuming) mods (The core of it, minus any comments directed at other members):

Techspot,

It is irresponsible to include the picture you embed in this article, without any explanatory caption. The article discusses "violent and humiliating images" being legislated against by the Australian government with respect to HUMANS. Yet the picture you include is clearly meant to be a funny picture of a cat who has been shaved for what is apparently (from the tone of the text in the image) not a preventative grooming measure, but rather just for fun. In so doing, you implicitly encourage and condone such shaving of pets, which besides being insensitive and inhumane suggests, on some level, cruelty to animals. If this is the kind of message you want to send, fine. If it isn't, I suggest you remove the picture asap and replace it with something more appropriate, or provide an explanation for including it as you do. You, of course, have every right to police the behavior of those who frequent your forums. Shouldn't you also police yourselves?

-Ry

Dude grow up.. You have no idea why that cat was originally shaved. Some cats fur is very prone to mattes. if the mattes get to bad, the only way to fix it is to have the entire coat shaved. This is a common practice for most groomers that deal with matted cats. The only thing I see is someone making a good laugh at the cats expense. That however is not animal abuse..
 
Does Being Paid to Model take the Humiliation Away....?

If "South Australia *** " is serious about this, then they should either throw "abbywinters" off the web altogether, or force them to recruit some decent looking women.

I'd suggest Scouting for models from either the Ukraine, or the Russian Federation.

(***) This makes it sound like "South Australia" is a separate country. What does "North Australia" have to say in the matter? Do they have a different standards requiring a higher level of proof that "actual humiliation has occurred"? How about if you've humiliated yourself on purpose, does that count? How about if you've been paid to humiliate yourself? Because here in the USA, we have entire TV franchises dedicated to people being humiliated. (America's Funniest Home Videos, to name one. Then there's the Jerry Springer Show, which takes self humiliation to a transcendent level! Oh, and before I forget there's, "Jacka**").
 
The denizens Northern Territory (North Australia) and Queensland think the rumours they've heard regarding indoor plumbing are nothing more than science fiction....For the most part I suspect they would assume that xxx is a typo concerning their breakfast meal
 
The denizens Northern Territory (North Australia) abd Queensland think the rumours they've heard regarding indoor plumbing are nothing more than science fiction....For the most part I suspect they would assume that xxx is a typo concerning their breakfast meal
Dude, that's harsh. A happy bathroom is a bathroom with a half moon on the door. And a happy family, is a family lined up to use it. Of course there will always be the occasional grumbling about one member's temporary loss of "download speed".

You still haven't either explained, or made apologies for, "abbywinters"....are they from the North....???

Is there a territory wide pandemic of, "paranoid delusions of Crocodile Dundee-hood"....?

(I'm still in awe of your prowess for finding ways to illustrate your point).
 
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