Australia Censorship News

In July 2015, Australia game censors began to use a random rating generator that it refers to as the International Age Rating Coalition Classification Tool.

This is a low level automated tool that makes its decisions based on a few survey questions. It produces very shoddy results that for high profile games cause press embarrassment and lead to appeals where human censors can override the automated rating with something more sensible.

However for low profile games and apps the low quality ratings are allowed to stand presumably because it costs significant money to get them rectified. The net result is that there are plenty of games and apps that end up permanently banned.

refused-classification.com reports that about 1500 titles have been banned to date of which 55 have been banned since March 2020. See the full list of banned titles from refused-classification.com

The Medium is a 2020 Poland single player psychological horror from Bloober Team

The game has been banned by the Australian Censorship Board for reasons unknown. Neither the censors nor the developers have specified any particular reasons for the ban.

The censor's database notes that the film was rated as Refused Classification (banned) in July 2020. The database also notes that the game was submitted under the automated random rating generator process known as IARC. This has a long history of ludicrous ratings that eventually get overturned by human censors.

The game's developers, Bloober Team has made a name for themselves thanks to the line of horror video game titles but it looks like The Medium will be their largest project launch to date. It is claimed that due to computing requirements, it will only run on the latest consoles, notably Xbox Series X.

It is reported that Bloober Team are making cuts to secure a presumably R18+ rating.

Australia has banned the import of adult anime media and products, including hentai, into the country.

This new ban was first reported by popular Japan-based online anime retailer J-List, who informed their customers on October 14th that Australia is killing off any chance of adult anime entering the county so he shop has had to stop shipping there. The retailer explained:

DHL Japan called us last week, informing us that Australian customs have started rejecting packages containing any adult product. They then advised us to stop sending adult products to the country. Following that, current Australian orders with adult items in them were returned to us this week.

J-List then stated that adult items banned by Australian customs include onaholes, hentai manga, doujinshi, cast-off figures, JAV DVDs, and any product marked with a +18 symbol on the product's thumbnail.

Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant has rejected the practicality of a know your customer-type ID verification requirement for social media companies to ensure the age of their users.

Addressing Senate Inman-Grant said such a regime works in the banking industry as it has been heavily regulated for many years, particularly around anti-money laundering:

It would be very challenging, I would think, for Facebook for example to re-identify -- or identify -- its 2.7 billion users, she said. How do they practically go back and do that and part of this has to do with how the internet is architected.

While she admitted it was not impossible, she said it would create a range of other issues and that removing the ability for anonymity or to use a pseudonym is unlikely to deter cyberbullying and the like. Similarly, she said, if the social media sites were to implement a real names policy, it wouldn't be effective given the way the systems are set up. She added:

I would also suspect there would be huge civil libertarian pushback in the US.

I think there are incremental steps we could make, I think totally getting rid of anonymity or even [the use of] pseudonyms on the internet is going to be a very hard thing to achieve.

I want to be pragmatic here about what's in the realm of the possible, it would be great if everyone had a name tag online so they couldn't do things without [consequence].

The Trouble with Being Born is a 2020 Austria / Germany Sci-Fi drama by Sandra Wollner.
Starring Ingrid Burkhard, Susanne Gschwendtner and Simon Hatzl.

Elli is an android programmed with memories that mean everything to her owner but nothing to her. The story of a machine and the ghosts we all carry within us.

Controversial Austrian film The Trouble With Being Born will make its belated Australian cinema debut at the Adelaide Film Festival on Saturday, three months after the Melbourne International Film Festival dropped it over accusations of 'normalising sexual interest in children'.

Sandra Wollner's dystopian sci-fi tale, which centres on the relationship between an android child called Ellie and her human Papa, will also screen later this month at the Fantastic Film Festival at Sydney's Ritz cinema.

Meanwhile, boutique Australian distributor Potential Films has bought the movie with an eye to a broader theatrical and home entertainment release after these limited festival appearances.

Adelaide Film Festival director Mat Kesting commented:

I believe one of the fundamental roles of a Film Festival is to provide a platform for critical debate about issues confronting our society.