Australian Senator Wants to Censor the Net

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."

Comments

Internet != Web

[MichaelSmith]

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.

Nasties on the net

[Paska]

"Keeping kids from nasties on the net"

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

Re:Nasties on the net

[mrchaotica]

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.

Does someone have a list of names?

[rolfwind]

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?

Alternative

[quokkapox]

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.

Okay by me...

[narcc]

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?

Re:Sigh...

[mrchaotica]

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.

Law will have OPPOSITE effect

[heretic108]

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.

Re:WTF!

[Jessta]

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.

I worry about my child and the Internet

[slashedmydot]

"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

Re:WTF!

[nx]

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.