Dark Brightness

The Aussies and Canucks have Human Rights Commissions. (Us Kiwis do as well, but it is generally seen as a joke over here, after De Breis was the chair). They are trying to shut down ED as it makes harmful comments.

But online rights group Electronic Frontiers Australia said trying to stamp out the deplorable content would only create the “Streisand” effect, whereby an attempt to censor online content only brings more attention to it.

In a letter to Joseph Evers, the owner of Encyclopedia Dramatica (ED) – a more shocking version of Wikipedia that contains racist and other offensive articles dubbed as “satire” – the Commission said it had received 20 complaints from Aborigines over the “Aboriginal” page on the site.

via Aussie bid to shut offensive site | Stuff.co.nz.

Some problems.

• You cannot legislate morality.
• Being offended is part of being human. This post is offensive to the PC. Get over it.
• ED is a site that is run by trolls. The first rule of the internet, is DON”T FEED THE TROLLS.
• The internet sees censorship as damage, and moves around it. This will increase traffic to all the 4 chan sites. Of course, this could damage $cientology, which is a good thing.

Australia is, bluntly weird. They have a culture that celebrates diversity and is anti authoritarian — and then regulate everything. It feels more oppressive than Helengrad (which misses the Control Freak government we voted out last election).

But Aussie ain’t the world. There is a wee thing in the US called the 1st amendment. They do not have a hope, and (again) they will be feeding the trollies instead of starving them.