Australian internet censorship will hit poker sites

[jabit]

You may remember about 6 months ago I was outraged about the prospect of Australian internet censorship. I remain outraged.

Please see the below link for a leaked list of sites that will be censored.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Australian_government_secret_ACMA_internet_censorship_blacklist%2C_18_Mar_2009

This in the last few hours has been acknowledged as "close" to the actual blacklist by the minister responsible. (The government refuses to tell us exactly what will be blacklisted)

http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/296839/govt_undeterred_by_blacklist_leaks?fp=4&fpid=319049444

The website blocking is undergoing a live trial at the moment, but some of the largest ISPs are refusing to take part. Thankfully for me, I am signed up with the most vocal of the ISPs.

The blocked list includes (among others):

http://www.pokernews.com/online-poker-rooms.htm
http://pokerroom.com
http://www.pokerroom.com/newsroom/news/648/
http://pokerstars.com
http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/download/
http://www.pokerstars.com/sites/pokernews
http://www.UltimateBet.com/download
http://betfair.com   (a sports betting website.. Interestingly, there are many larger sportsbooks which aren't included?)
http://fulltiltpoker.com

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/e-sermons/butcher.html (unpleasant, yes.. illegal? not sure? but censoring this sets a very frightening precedent..

also, anyone familiar with a website known as "meatspin" may be amused that that made it to the government's list of most threatening and illegal websites. For those not famaliar, it is one of those joke links that you send your friends.. (def not safe for work, or around kids)

I am angry, and in all honesty, somewhat ashamed. I hold onto the hope that nothing will come of this. Most of the ISP's believe that it will slow our internet to dialup speeds. Yes, thanks to past idiocracy, Australia has some of the slowest broadband in the world. It is really sad that the reason that this whole thing may come to a dead end is not because of it is one of the most despiccable and backwards policies in recent years and the government will admit to its mistake, but rather because our internet is already so poor that it just cannot physically be done.

Kevin Rudd became prime minister almost 18 months ago. one of his key promises included an "information revolution" aimed at bringing us up to speed with the rest of the world. So far he has done anything but.

[MellowYellow]

Wow what does australia have against poker?

This is really surprising and shocking to me, I can't believe they are taking that big of a role in what you are allowed to view.  I just dont see how there is any precidence for this.  If something isnt illegal how can they tell u if you can or cant view it online.  Simply amazing and discusting..

[jabit]

This is what is really confusing me Mel. Poker is starting to take off in Australia. PokerStars is starting to buy prime time advertising. My local pub has 3 tournaments a week.

So why are poker websites being blocked, when online casinos are not? really, really strange.

Could it be a tax thing? is the government protecting the local casinos? I know that the B&M Casinos are upset at the fact that a lot of these poker leagues that are popping up at pubs get away without paying as much tax as them.


I mentioned this in the other thread, but I think it is important to say again. I have been absolutely against any form of censoring of the internet from the very beginning. Even before poker sites were even considered as part of the black list. The fact that my completely legal, enjoyable and harmless hobby is coming under fire as part of this is just a further kick in the guts.

[Tony]

This is shocking.  And the fact that this body acts independently of any Parliamentary influence means it can basically do what the hell it likes.  Very worrying.

The thought of clicking a website to be told "this page has been blocked by the government" is like something you might expect if you went to visit South Korea.  Just mind-boggling.

[MellowYellow]

South Korea?

[Tony]

LINK

"South Korea's internet censorship policy is highly political and particularly strong toward suppressing anonymity in the Korean internet. In 2007, numerous bloggers were censored and their posts deleted by police for expressing criticism of, or even support for, presidential candidates. This even lead to some bloggers being arrested by the police.

Subsequently in 2008, just before a new presidential election, a new law legislation that required all major internet portal sites to require identity verification of their users was put into effect. This applies to all users who add any publicly viewable content. For example, to post a comment on a news article, a user registration and citizen identity number verification is required. For foreigners who do not have such numbers, a copy of passport must be faxed and verified.

Although this law was initially met with public outcry, as of 2008, most of the major portals, including Daum, Naver, Nate, and Yahoo Korea, enforce such verification before the user can post any material that is publicly viewable."

[verstehen]

I heard about this on the 2p2 pokercast radio show.  Sounds like a really really bad development.  I wonder if the big brick-and-mortar casinos are partly behind this. 

Well, I guess the upside is that all of us americans can be slightly less embarrassed since some other country is doing even more out-of-proportion unnecessary things regarding poker legislation. 

[huge_yakman]

How come sweet sweet porno is conspicuously missing from your list? Seems like they'd want to get their hands in the sweet sweet porno pie, too. Would be awesome if your government had sanctioned approved port sites.

Obviously, the censorship is ridiculous and I hope it will work itself out.

[jabit]

Hi Kurt,

The list I gave was just some of the ones that might interest the members of this forum. The stated reasons for the censorship, or as the government likes to call it, the "filters" is an attempt to stamp out child p0rnography. About 90% or more of the leaked list are actually child p0rn sites.

But there are also plenty of legitimate and completely legal p0rn sites which have been blacklisted.

I do support a serious crackdown on internet child p0rn, but this is completely the wrong way to go about it. It is a complete waste of time and money, because it will not prevent the sickos who are into it from getting it.

The actual list of sites is supposed to be secret. It is just so scary where this can go. I mean, a few legitimate p0rn sites will get "filtered", but who is going to stick their head out and complain about that? Then a few anti-anorexia sites will go? who will stop this. Obviously it won't take long for any alternative muslim sites to start to go missing. So who is going to stop ultra right or ultra left wing sites from the censored? Where does it stop?

Tony, that stuff about South Korea makes me feel sick to the pit of my stomach.

Although this law was initially met with public outcry, as of 2008, most of the major portals, including Daum, Naver, Nate, and Yahoo Korea, enforce such verification before the user can post any material that is publicly viewable."

This is what really scares me.

[poskid]

In Korea there are regularly fist-fights that break out in the middle of their House floor.  We used to watch the political channel there instead of watching WWE.  It is a country VERY politically divided.  They have like 7 major political parties too and if I remember correctly candidates will regularly swap between them like a giant square dance.  It's all very confusing and their censorship laws are very strict.  No sweet sweet pornoo may be sold in Korea that shows penetration.  In fact they cannot show the lower areas of the stars at all.  They have long censored the internet/TV for both political and social reasons.

PK

[verstehen]

In Korea there are regularly fist-fights that break out in the middle of their House floor.  We used to watch the political channel there instead of watching WWE.  It is a country VERY politically divided.  They have like 7 major political parties too and if I remember correctly candidates will regularly swap between them like a giant square dance.  It's all very confusing and their censorship laws are very strict.  No sweet sweet sweet sweet pornooo may be sold in Korea that shows penetration.  In fact they cannot show the lower areas of the stars at all.  They have long censored the internet/TV for both political and social reasons.

PK

I recently saw one of those "best photographs of the year" summaries.  The winner was a picture of the Korean opposition party breaking down the door of a parliamentary building with hammers and axes (!!!) because the ruling party had locked them out and tried to ram through some legislation.  Can't find the picture online right now but it was really amazing.

[MellowYellow]

It never sieces to amaze me how juvenial and fucking ridiculous some political stuff can be.  OFTEN times these rulers seem less mature professional and grown up then an average 12 year old, fuckING insane.  IMO when stuff like that happens they should all just be insta-impeached from office, its a fucking disgrace.

[verstehen]

Found it, you've got to see these:

http://www.shareordie.in/south-korea-politics-in-pictures/

My favorite is the opposition party busting out the fire hose after the 3 foot mallet couldn't break the barricade 

[MellowYellow]

What a fucking joke, how could anyone accept a law that was signed in this manner.  Wouldnt the people just rip it up and say bullshit?  Man its insane the little RULES that people go by, if this happened in any kind of real life situation we are all familiar with and they tried to say, "No we passed a rule the door was locked sorry" everyone else would just LOL and say yeah ok, whatever you say buddy, no fucking deal.

[Deadmoney]

Just amazing?????

There are ways around this of course,

anonymizer software and stuff like "Hide Ip"

Regards David

[jabit]

This is becoming even more worrying. Following one of Kurt's posts I just did a bit of a poke around the net. It turns out it is actually illegal for a website to offer online poker to Australians.

That is, everytime I log onto pokerstars, they are breaking the law.

So.... That means that if these filters are implemented, the government could "rightfully" block these websites.

Wow, this is serious sleight of hand.

[jabit]

There are ways around this of course,

anonymizer software and stuff like "Hide Ip"

Unfortunately David, the filter is applied at the ISP. So I don't think that would help.

oh, and the minister has done another backflip. He now says, well, actually, this won't stop child p0rn, (which was the whole premise for the damn thing to begin with) because it will still be able to be accessed through p2p networks. well duh.

The friggin Australian leaders are receiving pats on the back all round at the G20 summit, Barack Obama basically said that we were setting the best example given this whole financial crisis. But I have never in my life been more dissatisfied with our government. And that is at all levels of government, and about every issue.

And yet somehow our PM's approval rating has shot up to 75ish%. Could it be something to do with the fact that he has just handed about half out population a $900 cash gift? Anyone smelling a rat?

[huge_yakman]

Jabit,

It is interesting how the laws are slightly different.

For Australia, it is illegal to provide a program that will allow Australians to gamble via the internet. And they add in the "games of chance and mixed games of skill and chance" caveat.

For USA, at the Federal level it is illegal to use telephony to transfer funds for the purpose of placing a bet. This is why it is more difficult to get money into Bodog or the Party Poker network because they take sports bets. For now, Poker is surviving on the "game of skill" argument. But, once you have money at the sites, there are no federal laws that can keep a person from placing the bets via these international companies.

At the State level, however, there are states which specifically have laws against online gambling. The state in which I reside recently made it a felony to gamble online and specifically included poker:

Beginning next month (June 2006), Washington residents who play poker or make most other types of wagers on the Internet will be committing a Class C felony, equivalent under the law to possessing child sweet sweet pornoography, threatening the governor or torturing an animal.

Although the head of the state Gambling Commission says it is unlikely that individual online gamblers will be targeted for arrest, the new law carries stiff penalties: as much as five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

This law seems to protect the B&M card rooms from losing business. But, I've read that the true reason is to ensure that the law is unambiguous, so that illegal operators cannot try to jump through a loophole.

The State of Kentucky is going a different route:

There have been some new and interesting developments with the state of Kentucky
banning online gambling to their residents. In case you have not heard of this new state
strategy, the state of Kentucky courts have ruled that online wagering poker room and
casinos must block access to residents of their state by November 17th or the state will
confiscate their website url. Many of the biggest online gambling URLs in the world were
targeted by the state for forfeiture. These URLs include fulltiltpoker.com, pokerstars.com,
UltimateBet.com and doylesroom.com.

Here is what the judge ordered in regards to the 141 Online Gambling Domain Names on
the states list for confiscation:

The defendants will have 30 days (from October 16th, 2008) to install geographic blocks
that prevent access by the residents of Kentucky. They will then have to prove to the Court
that the blocks are "operational" and working properly by blocking full access to these
websites. Once the Court has been satisfied that residents of Kentucky can no longer
access the site, the URL will be "relieved" from the effects of the Seizure Order. Kentucky will
then serve written notice to the domain name registrar of the URL that has gained
compliance that the Seizure Order has been withdrawn. The final hearing for the forfeiture is
set for November 17th, 2008.

Most of the websites that own domains listed in the Seizure Order have indicated that they
are going to ignore the court ruling. Pokerstars.com, for instance, have their domain with a
foreign registrar and their registrar publicly stated that they are going to ignore the ruling.
They insist that the state of zZkentucky has no legal jurisdiction over them.

Other online wagering websites have their domains with registrars such as Godaddy.com
who has indicated that they will comply with the Court's ruling. Sites such as UltimateBet.com
and Doylesroom.com will be seized on November 17th unless those two companies can
show that they have indeed been able to successfully blocked the residents of the state of
Kentucky.

[jabit]

It is all very frightening. I guess that the fact the laws are different all over the place may be the main reason why these sites can't be pinned down.

What really irks me is that the people making these laws have absolutely no idea what they are actually legislating against. People don't understand what poker is. I find that even people who play poker socially, don't really get it. It's funny, I'm looking for a job, and spend a lot of my spare time thinking critically, reading critically, weighing risk vs reward factors, and generally exercising my brain. But I don't think I would ever be confident to list poker as a hooby when talking to potential employers. Way too much misunderstanding.

Another ridiculous thing here is Australia has a population of aobut 20 million people, but something like 20% or the world's poker machines (slot machines). These are built to purposely target people from a low socioeconomic background. They callously use every dirty marketing tactic possible to get more money into them. But the goverment refuses to reduce the number allowed, because the money made from them is what many of our sporting teams survive on. Once again it is a whole lot of smoke and mirrors. We have a gambling problem in Australia, financially crippling some of our most vulnerable people. But we are making too much money off them, so rather than actually doing something about that, we wave our hands, ban something other form of gambling, give a few press conferences and vwallah! everyone is happy.

[jabit]

And the worst part... It is barely lunchtime here.. Already I am +13 BI's for the day... and now I've had to close the poker client before I lose it because I know I'm tilting over this!!! damn.