Clap… Clap… Clap… Would everybody join me in an ironic slow clap for the South Australian government, who according to an AAP report today have decided they want to make it illegal to post “violent or degrading images” on the internet. Yeah, that’ll work.
According to the report, South Australian Attorney General John Rau claimed:
“The government wants to attack this disgusting fad of thugs engineering and filming violent and humiliating acts and posting the images to websites.”
People charged with uploading these images and videos would then have to prove that they had a legitimate purpose for capturing the image other than humiliating the victim.
The move comes following the internet popularity of this video of a school kid fighting back against a bully.
But given that the proposed law could only be applied to either South Australians or images uploaded in South Australia, and the internet is a global network, this is kind of like trying to use a thimble to empty the ocean. Not to mention the fact that there are so many grey areas involved that it would be near impossible to enforce – would the law apply to news organisations and paparazzi? Could someone use this law to get an unflattering image removed from Facebook (and the photographer charged?)
Almost everyone agrees that bullying and pre-engineered violence is not welcome in society, but this isn’t going to do anything to change it.
[ZDNet]