New Zealand Looks at Internet Censorship

David writes "The New Zealand Government 'Select Committee', upon reviewing censorship law, has issued a report which among other things, recommends that ISPs face compulsory licensing "in order to control their behaviour", the forcing of a code of conduct upon ISPs, and recommends the implementation of an internet filtration programme not dissimilar from that of Australia's (although it is hazy on the details of what this would mean). They're starting to become really worried about the dangers of the internet."

Comments

Re:Can someone explain

[Anonymous Coward]

New Zealand film classification features two types of restriction; R, which means "you must be verifiably of a certain age to view the material". The second is a series of "guideline" classifications, which hint at the content, but are unrestricted.

For more details, see

http://www.movie-ratings.net/movieratings_nz.sht ml

Re:This is really interesting...

[EmbeddedJanitor]

'where is Old Zealand?' in Holland.

Re:Can someone explain

[jnzed]

All you ever wanted to know about Censorship in NZ:

• http://www.censorship.govt.nz/

Good old Telecom...

[The Ancients]

This is a country where the imcumbent Telco also owns about half of the Southern Cross Cable - the main data connection into the country (oh, and guess who owns another portion...).

This is a company that also limits the bandwidth available to customers through specific ports (think P2P). It doesn't matter that the customer has paid for the connection - they still tell (force?) you to use it as they want.

Prices for data? 128kb/s ADSL with 5GB monthly cap - NZ$65

up to 8Mb/s (usually around 2MB/s) ADSL (home) 500MB per month $49 1GB per month $69

up to 8MB/s (usually around 2MB/s) ADSL (home or business)

600MB - $62

1200MB - $120

1800MB - $176

3000MB - $292

5000MB - $458

10000MB - $888

20000MB - $1800

These are NZ$ (multiply by .6 to get $US equivalent) plus 12.5 % sales tax, and ISP fees, as this is just for the data flowing over Telecom's network.

And you thought sensorship was our biggest problem - I don't see why are they would sensor us anyway - it's not like we have the means, financially or technically to access much anyway.

And /.ers thought there wasn't a need for ASCII porn... ..k

Re:Read the report

[waynemcdougall]

Agreed. Pages 55 onwards are specific to the Internet and the summary of recommendation are on page 68.

My summary on the key points made in the Internet section of the report are:

1. Child pornography and other obscene material is more readily available because of the Internet (and is already illegal material).
2. Peer to peer systems makes it harder to control the distribution of such material - suggests law changes to make clear offering files on a P2P system is "supply"
3. Recommending that filter software be made available (ideally free of charge)
4. Education of users should be encouraged
5. Live shows are not covered by censorship/classification rules - "let's change that"
6. Ability to execute a search warrant on grounds of possession, rather than trading
7. Have ISPs adopt a code of practice - if they don't (and NZ Telecom's Xtra is noted as dragging it's heels), then force one on them.

Nothing in there that alarms me too much.

Child pornography is the bogey man, and the vehicle on which everything else rides, if anything extreme is going to be introduced.