Submitted 5 days ago by Deceptichum@quokk.au to australia@aussie.zone
This isn’t a particularly well thought out stance, but I do wonder if books are kind of self-selecting for appropriate audiences? As in, just being able to read and understand something in a book might be enough to warrant your permission to read it.
Movies and shows can be consumed more passively, with almost no maturity required to experience the media, so I can see why providing that guidance would be warranted.
But I don’t know, that stance might crumble under scrutiny.
There are already children’s and YA sections in physical libraries.
As for online the Booktok stuff is trash but censoring fictional things that make people uncomfortable isn’t going to address the occurrence of domestic violence in society.
I feel like it would be more effective to supervise and have age appropriate discussions with kids, because a nebulous age rating system isn’t going to catch everything or prepare them for challenging content or situations when they get older.
And if they’re so concerned with family violence they should address the actual causes and consequences.
There’s tools online for parents that want this kind of information.
No.
Absolutely not.
Books need informative ratings that aren’t enforced. You should be able to tell what sort of book you’re about to read to your kid, before you get to the detailed sex scene.
I think classification is important. That said, I’m not so concerned with books. While I don’t want my kids reading First Law Trilogy or Throne of Glass , that sort of content also isn’t really accessible language-wise to them. In that way, books tend to self-classify themselves with the level of language found within.
Reading between the lines of this article, I think “Emma Hussey, a digital criminologist and child safeguarding expert at the Australian Catholic University’s Institute of Child Protection Studies” is probably more concerned with the normalisation of LGBTQ characters in modern fiction. She specifically said “Just because there are cartoons on the front, [it] doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be developmentally appropriate for a 12 to 17-year-old”.
Translation: ‘We don’t like the Heartstopper books because they’re teenage love stories all about gay boys’
I’m not opposed. It’s a clear guideline. Information for parents. Parents let kids watch R rated movies all the time. The issue will be if they start getting declared unclassified and banned.
There’s precedent, American Psycho was given an R+ rating when it was released and to be honest it deserved it. The capitalistic debauchery of the characters was grossly offensive.
Deceptichum@quokk.au 5 days ago
IMO we need to move away from classifications and censorship, not further embrace it.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 5 days ago
Realistically, any kid with an internet connected device can access whatever they want.
Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
kids be accessing lemmy on their 3DS web browser
Nath@aussie.zone 4 days ago
Ratings and classifications are not censorship. I rather enjoyed the movie 300, but my kids aren’t ready for that sort of content yet.
Deceptichum@quokk.au 4 days ago
If they stop you accessing something, they are censorship.