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Australia Chooses Education Over Filtering
riprjak writes "The Australian federal government has rejected a call for Internet filtering to 'protect' Australians from child pornography and has opted instead to undertake an education and information campaign to teach parents about the perils of the Internet."
Good God really? But what about the children!!!!!!!!
My Portfolio
A government made a sensible, non-kneejerk decision with regard to the Internet?
:)
I want to to move there!
Oh, wait... I already did.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Oi oi oi
[HERO]
i am a soviet space shuttle
The Internet at schooles (or at least the ones I worked at) already had an internet filtration in place which was controlled at a state level. Bear in mind this was Queensland, I wouldn't know about other states.
...the Howard government doing something intelligent?!
::looks outside to see if the sky is falling::
Really, it's laudable that the response by the Aussies is not the cyber-equivalent of smart-bombing (*cough*ChineseEmbassy*cough*Kosovo) but it's still part of the whole growing-pains thing that we'll experience for many years.
I'm not sure any government (save, maybe, South Korea's, which is its current form as a direct result of the internet) realizes just how much the internet is changing the world. Protecting your citizens' bodies is one thing--hunt those child-kidnappers down!--but it's too late for their minds...
and that's a good thing.
As a fellow Aussie, it's good to see the government doing something reasonable for a change!! :)
Friends don't let Friends use Internet Explorer.
only stupid people vote for filtering.
pr0n.au is my next investment.
Unless you consider that kids still have access to the pornography and no amount of "education" is really going to block them or persuade them from accessing it.
It's like those billboards that tell you that "God is Protecting You". It only reaches those who want to be reached.
And remember folks... if you go to warez sites, you're going to get child porn popups from hell.
The article quotes
including a British-style national internet filtering system but rejected it.
I wasn't aware that the UK has a national internet filtering system. Can anyone elaborate?
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Brian Harradine is such a f*ck-wit! While he's asking inane questions, how about "Why don't we also ban general broadcasts of news involving violence during prime-time, since this exposes violence to children?". Sheesh, to think my parents vote for this dick.
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” — Neal Stepnenso
Vegemite!
Basically the low down is Australia will have really educated children porn stars.
5 pt. badges for everybody!
No. But we do say things like "you farkin' idiot" to ignorant foreigners. flamearrows
The indiscriminate use of vulgar language is the linguistic crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker
I recently cleaned a friend-of-the-family's PC of a major spy ware infestation, brought on by their 7 yo son going on a porn site, egged on by his mates (as mates do). when the subsequent torrent of pop ups occurred a few days later, he was petrified that the cops were going to come and lock him up, as has happened to all the other people we have been hearing about on the radio/TV/papers.
Although it wont have a lasting effect (IMHO, if pron is there, it will get assessed), but not for a while he will stay away. the poor kid was so terrified, so conscious of what he had done, he will need some serious hormones to get up the courage.
I've got to say, given our (.au) history on matters Internet related, this is very much out-of-character. Refreshing though!
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Oi! Oi! Oi!
;)
If you're not Australian, and don't know, then don't even try to understand
Off topic? This is more insightful than anything. Consider what sensible action this government of theirs has taken regarding one of the best tools mankind has ever had for the retrieval and dissemination of information! Yes there are bad things that we don't want our kids to be viewing at an age where they don't comprehend things as we do. Sure violence and certain types of sexual innuendo may be inappropriate for young kids to view because of their inexperience and easily molded minds, where they may become confused and not interpret things correctly as we, their parents, would have taught them correctly.
[HERO] is definitely not off topic. You mods certainly are.
Let the karma burn.
Little Johnny will soon recover from this horrible bout of common sense, and will go back to selling our country out to American corporations.
Box of cereal 'worth $35,000'
The government rejected a national filtering system and is instead providing "education". Have they considered requiring filters in schools, public libraries, and government offices (as is being considered in the US)? This kind of system would not have the same drawbacks as a national filter.
PimpMyMazda.com - Crazy mods to a 2002 Mazda Protege DX.
In Korea, pornography is for old people.
I think, therefore I am. I think?
as shocking as it sounds, it could be the better option.
the filter would work for a little, but 'they' would get a way around it, and then what?
I think educating _could_ have better results.
It's uplifting to see that at least some places in the world are willing to aim for a more intelligent citizenry than simply legislating morality and restricting personal freedoms to for the sake of the idiot majority.
Unpleasantries.
Shouldn't you soccer moms be doing something more constructive, like raising your children or contributing to society than trying to regulate large bodies of communial information.
Australia's lucky we have the USA to serve as a test bed for many controversial ideas. We can see mistakes USA has made (or is moving toward making) and can steer clear of them in advance.
Part of me can't stand the terrible errors in judgement that other global powers have made, but deep down I know that their foolishness, while eating away at their own stability, is serving to strengthen Aussie liberal values...
'plex
Rich Gentlemen Hide - The Existential Comic
I wrote a metric shit tonne of emails to various people in positions of power about this.
I doubt very much at the end of the day my words directly had much to do with it, but some part of me really hopes it did. If only one minister sat and thought twice about what I'd written to them and it somehow swayed them to the more sensible course of action, I think I can be a little bit prouder of my country.
I'm sure I wasn't the only person making their voices heard over this issue, thanks to everybody else who stood up and let them know what we thought. We've done well this time.
[WHAT]
What do you mean "what about the children" ? They'd find a way to get passed the porn anyway via proxy, so please don't act as if the children are some how going to be saved from the evils of the world because they can't watch, "SuperSluts 12" in its full glory.
I see a good point here!
bob@abirnet.co.il
... I immediately assumed that the benefits of uncensored information had been recognized as a boon to education. Perhaps I was suffering from momentary naivete, but this interpretation still seems to hold much more promise than the other.
I've always believed, even as a child, that the biggest threat to children are their elders.
I know I for one never appreciated being lied to and manipulated, both of which largely define the relationship between the young and old.
One of the questions we commonly hear asked is what advice we would give to someone younger than us, what do we know now that we wished we'd known growing up.
Well my advice for the children of the world is this: Don't believe what people tell you, especially your parents. Keep your own counsel and take everything with a grain of salt. Just because someone loves you don't mean they won't lie to you, and it most definitely doesn't preclude their being crazy, stupid, ignorant, or some combination of all three.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying, but as an aside, here's an English note:
Overlooked means "forgotten about," which isn't what you meant.
You want to say overseen, which means guided and watched; exactly the opposite of overlooked.
Yes, there are all kinds of English jokes playing on overlook versus oversee. It's a funny language. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
With Alston (world's biggest luddite, for a time AU Communications Minister) leaving for the UK, and Family First promises to keep, I'm really surprised this happened...
No no no.
Web filtering might sound good in theory, but in practice too many sites with educational benefit are blocked.
However, web filtering is not just an inconvenience.
There is an alterior motive at work. The state is censoring information that might allow impressionable youths to form opinions that might be critical of the government.
I am a Year 12 student of a high school in NSW. Sites that have been blocked by the proxy that I have noticed include: *.mozilla.org; *.sourceforge.*; *.sf.net; etc, etc. I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before SlashDot is blocked too. However, porn popups often appear thanks to the school using IE and infested Windows 98 machines (Microsoft donates licences to our school, the practice of which ominously reflects Hitler's Jungvolk).
Of course, there are easy ways to get around the blocks, as there is no way you can completely filter the web effectively. It's an inconvenience for me, but someone who isn't a geek will miss out on access to a lot of information.
The stated goal of web filtering is to 'protect' us from viewing "objectionable material" such as dangerous, dangerous porn, but more and more sites are being censored to 'protect' us from websites that aren't directly-related to the short sighted curriculum, e.g. mozilla or sourceforge, and soon we will be 'protected' from material that the state finds objectionable, such as critics of the government. The political blogs will go first because few will notice, then soon the news sites until only Packer's and Murdoch's news sites are endorsed for student viewing by the government.
No matter how funny you may think you are, it doesn't excuse the anti-Australian bigotry inherent in your post.
I wish you cared about others more.
And of course with the recent child pornography scandal in Australia parents would be more aware than ever - the coalition's flopped again, filtering would be a much better way to go.
"One can't solve a sociological problem with a technological solution." - Edwards Law
...an education and information campaign...
:0/
How precisely do they intend to "educate" us about kiddie porn?
I wonder if this will apply to the Kazaa case .
(rim shot)
Who are they educating? If you are unaware, you have been away from the planet for a while? Are they educating the other people that school aged children spend most of their days with?
All this really means that they will produce 15 color brochures, and 5 very short commercials that will air off prime "cheaper" and no one will ever see either.
Why do they think filtering would cost so very much? Squid + Dansguardian is very cheap "less than $500". Almost every ISP already uses proxy servers to save bandwidth. Maintaining the filters would be the more challenging aspect, but certainly well under the price tag of $45 million startup and $33 million annual maintenance.
Get a free ipod.
This is not just commonsense, it will also free up for resources for fighting the TRUE dangers to our children here in sunny Oz:
If the dingoes don't get our babies, Steve Irwin will feed them to a crocodile!
I think the question here is how do we know that they aren't filtering outgoing news? And what sort of discombobulating filters does this internet thing go through before I get to read it? ...sorry, I'm just off night shift and I tend to get tin-foilie after a 12 hour shift.
you don't put porn site addys on the educational material: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=130592&cid=108 98026
Well australia rox.. even if people winge about broadband pricing its generally because they are stupid and dont understand the concept of money/costs/infrastructure..
Its just a shame that we are so far up george bushes buthole to see the rest of the world laughing at certain aspects of our political parties policies.
..."rejected a call for Internet filtering to 'protect' Australians from child pornography"... "teach parents about the perils of the Internet."
So... some or all australians are endangered by the possiblity they could view child pornography... right? And they need to be protected... right?
So government decides to pass over the responsiblity to parents and educate them how to do it... right? So parents are to protect whom from the child pornography...? Children it seems?
Why do they assume it's children who would be most interested in seeking child pornography? Maybe the government thinks "child pornography" would be something like "teen movies", Winnie the Pooh screwing Piglet or Snow White doing it with all 7 dwarves at once?
Some misunderstanding?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Its worth noting that a previous telecomunications minister pushed very hard for just such filtering up to a year ago. Polls showed that it was not a popular moove, and a tech saavy electorate didn't think it would work anyway. The kneejerk reaction already happened, but failed. This is just good politics.
Insightful? How about +5 funny!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
An arrogant Aussie on a US site - that makes me mad enough to forfiet my mods. We Aussies see the mistakes one particular "Global power" has made, then go right ahead and copy them. Examples that spring to mind are refusing to sign Kyoto, Iraq, Indefinite detention centers in the desert, Unflinching support for Isreal, Stealing oil fields from smaller impoverished countries we "liberate", Private prisons, Same sex marraige bans, Drug wars, Zero-tolerance, etc, etc, ect. If there is an unpopular or unjust US policy you can normally be sure Johnny will give it his full support. It would be nice to think our Government had a mind of it's own but this is definitely an unusual outbreak of independent thought from the Howard Government.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
We keep seeing LOTS of Australian news posts on /. for some reason, and most of them are always about censorship and ridiculous decisions on the part of Australian governing bodies.
For once they made a sane decision. THis is a rare case in Au though.....
Not to rain on anybody's parade, but... Isn't it hard to tell sometimes whether the greater danger lies in "education" or "technological solutions"?
For example: Advertisers speak of their blatant lies and FUD as "educating" the public. So do the **AA in their intellectual property regime propaganda. And also the politicians that lead us into their various pet wars--drugs and terrorism spring to mind. Education can easily mean lies and smokescreens that warp the majority's minds and damage society.
On the other hand, a "technological solution" can be just as bad, even if it does mean a likely gain in employment for a few of us technical types. For example, "technical solutions" can mean things like DRM chips and printers that call the secret service, as well as simple things like handcuffs and prison bars.
I'm just saying, this decision seems value-neutral, until we see how ethically it is implemented. Because as stated, the decision sounds to me like it could imply increasing criminalization [in the public eye] of technical hobbies, same as we have been doing in the US.
How does education of children stop adults from accessing child porn? Filters to block child porn are not intended to keep children away from it, it is meant to keep the consumers of it (adults and older teens) away from it. I'm all for supervision of one's children, but I don't see how this supervision/education effort that's proposed is going to address the problem that the filters were supposed to.
And not all narcotics are illegal drugs.
Narcotics are opiate-based drugs. This includes the illegal drugs Heroin and opium. It also includs perscription drugs like codeine, morphine, hydrocodone and oxycodone.
Cocaine, marijuana, LSD, PCP, amphetamines, etc, are NOT narcotics. They are commonly refered to as such by law enforcement and the press, but this is technicaly incorrect.
Nothing against the US. I love Americans... American lawmakers though...
I have to wonder why one country would think along these lines and another thinks in terms of censorship. Is it a cultural thing? Is it education? Crazy stuff, I can only begin to wonder.
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
install linux, problem solved
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
The short version: articles are tagged with generic classifications like 'asinine' 'stupid' 'hero' 'obvious' and so on (the front page shows this.) Sometimes, people disagree with the category the moderator chooses and will display the graphic of their preferred tag for the article as the text of their comment.
:)
The 'hero' tag is the closest one that fit, I thought, since these days governments tend to put their heads in the sand, don't trust their constituents, and over-regulate everything.
And you didn't phrase your answer in the form of a question.
i am a soviet space shuttle
an education and information campaign to teach parents about the perils of the Internet
What's this "information campaign" going to look like, eh? FCP, that's what. Fear, Certainty, and Panic. And after $30MM has been spent scaring the populace, what do you suppose the legislature will vote for the next time 'round?
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Thank you for correcting my mistake.
Errare humanum est, but true evil happens under the false sense that one actually knows something.
I was so convinced I was right it didn't even occured to me that I might need to check.
That lesson is as old as Icarus I guess.
What if this turns out like "sex education" in the U.S.?
"Now, little Jimmy, remember: the best way to avoid seeing gay horse porn is to never use the internet. Not until you're married."
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
Porn! Porn! Porn!
Why not get the real ultimate power?
Australia is to adopt the US Imperial measurement system and begin measuring everything in miles, inches and gallons. Also, the US grammar standard will be adopted, changes will be noticeable to words such as 'color' and 'humor'...
The New South Wales Police went one better recently, and actually sent child pornography images to thousands of state schools.
The irony and sad thing here is that it's illegal to have child porn on your computer, yet the police can obviously have it and they sent it out to others as well. Imagine inadvertently getting it in your email and then getting busted by the cops for it. Imagine now if a teacher gets charged for child porn. It just goes to show that merely having the images should not be a crime, since it is all too easy to maliciously plant them on someone's computer in order to frame them.
Visceral Psyche Films
The Internet at Queensland schools is modurated nazi style using.a qs/admin istration.html/ docs/oct2 9.pdf
http://education.qld.gov.au/schools/mis/f
Everything is blocked, then they allow what they decide is educational, profitable and some cases a personal and business interest of the person/s who controls the proxy settings.In secondary school, any teacher with no computer training that says they have knowledge with computers can become a network administrator or IT co-ordinator by simply discussing the role with the principal. You have the blind leading the blind unaware of a software dictatorship. My friend was recently told its against governemtnt policy to use open source and free software to solve problems at schools, he asked how he can continue his work with the ethical views he had and was released from his contract.
Here's an example of the misleading information they spread.
http://education.qld.gov.au/itt/learning
I don't see how creating a powerpoint slide can be explained as writing a program or creating software. My friend gave that teacher a remasterred gnu linux live-cd and it can run her ppts but she rejected it because her husband hates linux. Its sad these teachers are used as puppets when their work is with special ed, social justice and other human rights, freedom of choice/speech type subjects.
But hey, good one australian governmant, this should keep people distracted while we continue to pervert technology in education.