[research] Draconian Australian law could target slash fans (among many, many others)

[unjapanologist]

Originally published at Academic FFF. You can comment here or there.

A new Australian law could impose penalties on anyone who views slash fic or other (fan) media that feature fictional minors in a sexual situation. This isn't throwing out the baby with the bathwater, it's also throwing out the bath, the parents, the dog, and a couple of people who were just walking past the house.

James Welker pointed me to the original notice linked above. Dru Pagliassotti worries about the law's impact on scholarship in Australia. An Austrialian government consultation paper has details on the proposed internet 'filter'. The protest website No Clean Feed explains how to take action, and indicates that the law will not only target anything that is deemed child pornography:

The category of material that has been 'refused classification' includes websites about euthanasia, controversial movies such as 'Ken Park' and 'Baise-moi', and many games that are designed for people over16 years of age.

If you don't live in Australia, you can sign a petition or donate to No Clean Feed.

Comments

[calicokat.livejournal.com]

My goodness, I'll certainly pass this on. God knows I write Bones/Chekov fic for the new Star Trek movie (in fact, one part has a specific flashback to Chekov losing his virginity at fifteen in Russia).

Under this law the whole lot of it, fiften or seventeen, would be illegal, and to that I'd say "Don't they remember being teenagers and perhaps want to write about the experience of having been a teenager?" Which is, personally, where I write from.

Or, perhaps these individuals were not teenagers, and like Athena sprang fully formed from the heads of other hysterical curmudgeons.

[water-rose.livejournal.com]

Hi, I was linked to this page by a friend.

Thanks for the concern, everyone. A filter on the Australian internet would be bad, but as an Australian, with real news scorces (which, in my humble opinion, Crikey is NOT), this website is exaggerating the situation.

As most protest sites do.

1. Even if the Labor Goverment commits political suicide by pushinig this filter through, tests and trial runs have already proved it nearly useless.

2. Australia is still aware of the differences between fiction and reality as well as the difference between text and images. Slash fiction is still in more danger from copyright then anti-child porn laws.