http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0094/55.0/DLM...
Admittedly, the Chief Censor only published his decision on tuesday, so everything the ISPs were doing before then, they did on their own.
Plenty of parallels between the two. People are hurt in the filming of both. It's damaging to the survivors. It feeds into the fetishes of those who would watch such a thing (it's a snuff film). In the case of this film I could argue that potential perpetrators could study the film for their own plans.
Should the events be discussed? Absolutely. But I don’t have to watch these things to understand how abhorrent they are.
The ban will be done in parliament over then next week or so, looks like 95%+ of the currently elected MPs will vote for the change, all major parties in parliament, left and right, have publicly said that they agree with the changes.
Remember that less than one person in 15 in NZ has a gun license, and even fewer own semi-automatics, it's a small minority affected by this change, it's not all that controversial (in NZ)
Free speech is the right to express an opinion without being penalised. Left wing and right wing lunatics are free to distribute their wicked thoughts online, just as the US gun lobby and alt-right fanatics are free to publish whatever they like on the fifth amendment. Fine with me. It doesn’t hurt or ‘harm’ anyone.
A video of a fascist wacko shooting 50 people down is not freedom of speech. It’s illegal and sick.
Don’t confuse the two.
Actually it does. Even hate speech is free speech in the US.
> or spread unlawful things online
That's not a free speech violation then. The video in question is not classified, doesn't break any laws, it just depicts a horrible act. Should we make all war documentaries illegal too?
> Free speech is the right to express an opinion without being penalised
So you just contradicted your first point. If I, for example, say "you're an idiot", it's an opinion, it's protected speech (in the US at least).
AU doesn't have free speech except political speech, and has been making some Orwellian moves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#A...
NZ has the Bill of Rights of 1990 that states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form."
So it seems that any censorship would directly contradict that.
As others have pointed out, most countries allow for exceptions to free speech in cases constituting hate speech - the fact that the US does not is a neutral fact, and an appeal to free speech absolutism doesn’t really constitute an argument for why other countries should uphold the same standards of free speech.
On Australia: we have a different political system here to the US, which is similar to NZ. While our governments are different to the UK in that parliament has enumerated powers, we don’t require fundamental rights to be explicitly defined in the constitution. The provision for freedom of political speech for instance was built up when it became apparent that the way in which we want our society to operate requires such an interpretation of our constitution. On the other hand, the US system requires a constitutional amendment for issues relating to constitutional law and fundamental rights outlined in the constitution. Both systems have their merits and demerits, but the fact that ours doesn’t work in the way that the US’s does isn’t an argument against it.
The USA is the sole major exception.
any US government? Do you understand that many state-level governments are proportionally representative?
Woah hold the hyperbole. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt.
What actions specifically are you even referring to? The change in gun laws? Australia banned semi-automatics. It’s survived. Pretty sure New Zealand will be okay without them too.
This post is about the ISPs banning sites, not something that the government of either country directed. (As the post makes clear Australia’s largest telco is also banning these sites.)
> I’m all for the debate, but as an American it’s unimaginable to see such reactionary, arbitrary, far sweeping action taken by a supposed free country with almost no discussion or legal process.
What was far sweeping and done with no discussion or legal process? You pretend like there isn’t a parliament with elected members, a far more representative and democratic parliament that any US government due to the use of proportional representation. This parliament is the legislative branch and can, well enact legislation, which is doing to ban semi automatic weapons based on the results of previous government enquiries into the matter that weren’t acted on.
(Talk about throwing stones here, seemingly nobody remembers 9/11 and the Patriot Act, and mass spying on Americans, and trillions spent on false wars that followed.)
A civil debate about the actions of these ISPs and the ability of private companies operating as utilities to censor or throttle or otherwise mess with neutrality of the utility they provide is very much warranted, but you’re not doing that here.