[Naren]

Originally Posted by Thrashmanzac

their reasoning = monkey see, monkey do.
and parents constantly blameing "evil" video games for their fucked up kids, not their own lack of parental guidance. imo.

So, do they ban most novels as well?

Their reasoning should apply to books as well.

[Thrashmanzac]

should, but does not.

[forelander]

Originally Posted by Naren

So, do they ban most novels as well?

Their reasoning should apply to books as well.

What's odd is I don't think books go through any classification here. Some magazines do, but I've never heard of books. Which is funny, since any kid can read Chopper Read's books, but can't see some pixilated sexual content. It's all a bit silly really.

Though I should be careful, if the OFLC gets wind of this soon no one will be allowed to read books with sexual content either.

[Naren]

Originally Posted by forelander

What's odd is I don't think books go through any classification here. Some magazines do, but I've never heard of books. Which is funny, since any kid can read Chopper Read's books, but can't see some pixilated sexual content. It's all a bit silly really.

Though I should be careful, if the OFLC gets wind of this soon no one will be allowed to read books with sexual content either.

Well, not specific to Australia, but something that I've found funny about censorship is that before television and movies, books were highly criticized and censored if they contained anything offensive. Then the censorship and criticism went to television and movies and lightened up a lot on books. Then video games came out and the censorship was on: TV, video games, and movies and completely off of books. Now, it's almost like, "Kids should be reading! They need to read books!" and they don't even think that this book has graphic sex scenes and intense violence that is much much more extreme than the movies and video games they are criticizing.

When I read books, I feel I know the characters and identify with them much much more than in any movie or video game. I feel like I personally know the people in the book I'm reading.

Not sure I get the reason behind this...

[DDDorian]

The reason video games get such harsh scrutiny by censors is that, because there are currently no substantial classification laws in place for video games, conservative types have carte blanche to put arbitrary restrictions on games or just outright ban them; for almost ten years there's been a push to adopt more tangible policies but the same South Australian politician has been cockblocking the entire process this whole time. They've used these same ambiguities to charge a Tasmanian grindcore band with distributing child pornography, too. That being said, the censorship of print and film is pretty lax here, in my opinion, it's just outspoken minorities in search of a moral crusade like to go after a relatively easy target live video games. Oh well.

[forelander]

Originally Posted by Naren

When I read books, I feel I know the characters and identify with them much much more than in any movie or video game. I feel like I personally know the people in the book I'm reading.

Not sure I get the reason behind this...

Exactly. I'm sure many people get a lot more insight into characters through books than games. With regards to what I said about Chopper Read, his books are essentially about his life of crime, so a kid can get inside a convicted murderer's head and read much more fundamentally disturbing things, or he can play as a criminal in a game and have cartoon sex. And everyone is up in arms over the cartoon sex. Nevermind the fact he can watch tv most nights and be exposed to worse sexual content, but I digress.

[JJ Rodriguez]

*warning, this is a legit question although coming from me it may not seem like it*

What about porno? Does it have to be censored or anything?

[DDDorian]

Basically, anything that deals with a specific fetish or contains "actors" who appear to be minors is rated X-18+ and is prohibited from sale in most of the country, although it's still legal to possess X-rated material or buy it from overseas. Like I mentioned earlier, five or six years ago a Tasmanian grind band called Intense Hammer Rage were charged with distributing child pornography due to explicit lyrics; they had all their recordings destroyed, their house ransacked and they're banned from ever performing live (not that that's stopped them). I think they enforce the laws pretty arbitrarily but their mere existence pisses me off.

Since the election late last year the government has been working on censoring the internet, too, by forcing all ISP's to filter violent or pornographic content; the filter will be optional for customers, but they'll get the "clean" service by default and will have to pay more for unfiltered internet access (assuming they even know their internet is being filtered, any notification will be typical fine-print crap). Ridiculous

[Stitch]

...hooray for NZ!

[JJ Rodriguez]

Damn, and I thought Australia was a magical land of hot bitches in bikinis, and deadly animals.