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Australian Senator Wants to Censor the Net

Posted by samzenpus on from the think-of-the-children dept.

Paul writes "An Australian Senator wants Australians' internet connections to be automatically filtered by ISPs. Anyone who wants to view pornography or 'other adult material' (details not specified) must apply to their ISP to be given access to it. Another step towards becoming a nanny state."

19 of 588 comments (clear)

  1. WTF! by yuri+benjamin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anyone who's desparate to surf pr0n will find a way around it.

    --
    You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
    1. Re:WTF! by Jessta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The main problem is that this is generally about preventing underage kids from accessing porn. The thing is that if kids are intent on acessing porn then this isn't going to stop them. If kids are just accidently coming in to contact with porn then a lot of the time it would be through spam email. Lets see them try to filter a ssl connection to hotmail.

      Some people don't understand the technology, but think they are qualified to make decisions about laws governing that technology. Some People are idiots.

      --
      ...and that is all I have to say about that.
      http://jessta.id.au
    2. Re:WTF! by nx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I agree that children stumbling upon pornography is a concern, this is NOT a good solution. For instance, why is it an opt-out solution, instead of an opt-in solution? Or why not let the market deal with it: sooner or later, there will be a demand for this service. At that point, any ISP can take it up, and those who want their Internet censored can simply use that ISP.

      Those with a conspiratorial mind may see other uses for this. It's a first step towards general content control. Even though this almost certainly is not the intent, there will always be people who feel that such a great tool can always be used for many more things. Next step might perhaps be blocking (without the opt-out, of course) child pornography. That's not likely to garner much opposition. After that they'll go for snuff, or prostitution. After awhile they'll start finding things that aren't really illegal, just morally reprehensible (to most people). Pretty soon, censoring yet another thing won't be such a big deal.

      There are times when censorship might seem like a good idea. However, anything that might lead to a less free society is not a good solution. It might sound callous, but I'd rather have a few children messed up by seeing pornography accidentally (if that really is such a trauma) than live with a perpetual censoring filter, just waiting to be abused. Parents, find another way to protect your kids, please.

      --
      L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers.
    3. Re:WTF! by jacksonj04 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not the ISP's job to monitor your child's internet access. It's yours.

      Install Net Nanny or something like that, or as an even more outstanding idea just watch what your kids are doing.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    4. Re:WTF! by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Kids were accessing porn way before the internet came along. Whether it was stealing magazines from their parents bedside drawer, or renting foreign films from the local corner shop, kids have had access to porn. There's also 12 year olds having sex, so naturally they are seeing naked people. Shutting it out from the internet isn't going to have any effect on whether or not kids actually get to see "porn".

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  2. Internet != Web by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article talks about the Internet but my bet is that they are talking about content filtering on http traffic.

    Peer to peer is much harder to filter and readily available to the porn industry.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  3. Nasties on the net by Paska · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Keeping kids from nasties on the net"

    Here, I have a much better suggestion - supervision your children while they use the internet!

    1. Re:Nasties on the net by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Insightful
      If you've raised them right, then yes, they won't do the wrong thing.
      More importantly, if you've raised your kids right then they'll be able to see pornography and not be negatively affected by it.
      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    2. Re:Nasties on the net by Squozen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Heh. You probably think your teens aren't having sex too. :)

  4. Nanny-ness of this isn't important compared to by Dachannien · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The privacy issues of such a rule are staggering. Suppose the police want to find out who all the pervs are on a city block. They just subpoena the local ISPs to find out who's applied for pr0n access. Not to mention what happens if the ISP gets hacked (electronically or socially) and someone manages to get a copy of the pr0n access list. I suspect a lot of legislators will eventually be exposed for their hairy palms if such a law ever got passed.

  5. Does someone have a list of names? by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Just a senator?

    From TFA:
    LAST month, 62 members of the federal Coalition signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a ban on access to pornographic, violent and other inappropriate material via the internet.

    The signatories believed the internet should be regulated in a similar way to other media. If adults wished to "opt in" to access the material then of course that would be their right, and they would have to apply for their right of access.


    Does someone have a list of names of these idiots, so our Australian friends know who to rail against and vote out of office ASAP?
  6. Alternative by quokkapox · · Score: 5, Insightful
    FTFA: I believe the system should default automatically in favour of protecting our children before we start considering the rights of adults.

    I believe the system should default automatically in favor of protecting our rights as adults before we start considering the children.

    Big difference...

    The adults who wish to protect the children in their custody can then opt-in (and pay for) whatever safe haven/playpen schemes they wish to create.

    --
    it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
  7. Okay by me... by narcc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They can filter all the porn they want -- as soon as they can define it: http://www.spectacle.org/296/opt.html (Safe For Work)

    (Or, even better, tell me why it's immoral.)

    More seriously:

    There are some fine lines between art and porn...stuff like: http://konzababy.tripod.com/photography.htm
    (?Not?Safe?For?work?) Click the tiny image to enlarge. -- Is this art or porn? (I say art 100%)

    Even closer still are things like http://www.domai.com (Not Safe For Work)

    See this interview (Not Safe For Work) on domai.com for an interesting dialog about nudes/art/porn. -- Is Domai Porn? Difficult to say (I lean more toward yes, but I have reservations)

    Any thoughts? What makes porn ... porn?

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics
  8. Rule #1 by Mr2cents · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Be very, very, very watchful when you hear someone saying "we need to protect the children". Those people are using an argument that can be used to defend almost anything. And it makes it hard to say "No".

    --
    "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
  9. You don't think they actually comprehend that! by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You are attributing far too much intelligence to them. Anyone who would seriously think of filtering the internet obviously has no idea of what it is.

    --
    Infuriate left and right
  10. Exactly -- don't call it a "nanny state." by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Call it what it actually is: totalitarianism

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  11. Re:Sigh... by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, it's not even good in theory! It's extremely bad in theory! It's opressive and totalitarian, and is a policy better suited for those "towel-head" theocracies that the US and Australian government are -- allegedly -- enemies of. In fact, it's the kind of idea that in a sane world would get this senator kicked out off office almost immediately, because it's dangerously close to treason for any allegedly "free" society.

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  12. Law will have OPPOSITE effect by heretic108 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This law would have the exact opposite of the desired effect:
    1. Parents are presently concerned about kids accessing unwholesome stuff - in the absence of government/isp-level censoring, many parents are actually doing the unthinkable - Spending Time With Their Kids
    2. Kids love breaking rules, so the possibility of accessing illicit material will become more attractive
    3. Two new words will be added to kids' vocabularies: CGI and proxy
    4. For every cgi web proxy the ISPs detect and block, two more will spring up in its place.
    5. Meanwhile, parents and teachers will doze off in a false sense of security that Big Nanny State is keeping their kids safe, while the kids meanwhile are actually seeing stuff that's as bad as ever, maybe worse, with much less parental oversight and guidance than before.

    The only, repeat only way to police what kids see on the net is to have a human in the loop in real time, for every kid. And we could be waiting a while for that to happen.

    Well, I guess the developers of Freenet, I2P and other anonymising networks will be grateful, as support, userbase and donations surge.
    --
    -- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
  13. I worry about my child and the Internet by slashedmydot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she's too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry about. I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?'"

    --Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation