blacklisting slash sites in Australia?
Jan. 27th, 2010 05:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mickeymWill New Law Block Many Slash, Anime, Manga Sites in Australia?
Excerpt from the article:
Let's take as another example, 'Wincest', that is, imagined sexual scenarios between the two Winchester brothers in the hit TV show Supernatural. 'Wincest slash' turns up 109,000 Google hits - a lot to filter out. But surely Wincest is OK because the brothers are adults? Not so, because under the existing classification system 'incest fantasies' are refused classification. Hence, although it is not currently illegal to read Wincest in Australia, since incest merits an RC category, Wincest is eligible to be placed on the blacklist to be filtered out. Again, I would be interested to see research into the Wincest fandom that could establish links between these fantasy narratives and the increase of actual incestual relations among the fandom.
But maybe these concerns are just a storm in a tea cup? After all, the proposed filter blacklist is to be compiled on a complaints-based system. The government is not proposing to recruit an army of censors to track this stuff down (and given the scale it would require an army) but has instead entrusted the Australian Media and Communication Authority (ACMA) to investigate and make referrals to the list on the basis of complaints. Surely no-one in their right mind would waste ACMA's time referring BL stories of boys bonking or Sam and Dean Winchester getting it on to ACMA?
Just passing along the information.
Excerpt from the article:
Let's take as another example, 'Wincest', that is, imagined sexual scenarios between the two Winchester brothers in the hit TV show Supernatural. 'Wincest slash' turns up 109,000 Google hits - a lot to filter out. But surely Wincest is OK because the brothers are adults? Not so, because under the existing classification system 'incest fantasies' are refused classification. Hence, although it is not currently illegal to read Wincest in Australia, since incest merits an RC category, Wincest is eligible to be placed on the blacklist to be filtered out. Again, I would be interested to see research into the Wincest fandom that could establish links between these fantasy narratives and the increase of actual incestual relations among the fandom.
But maybe these concerns are just a storm in a tea cup? After all, the proposed filter blacklist is to be compiled on a complaints-based system. The government is not proposing to recruit an army of censors to track this stuff down (and given the scale it would require an army) but has instead entrusted the Australian Media and Communication Authority (ACMA) to investigate and make referrals to the list on the basis of complaints. Surely no-one in their right mind would waste ACMA's time referring BL stories of boys bonking or Sam and Dean Winchester getting it on to ACMA?
Just passing along the information.
