Australian Labor Party Proposes ISP Level Filter

An anonymous reader writes "The Australian Labor Party (much the same as the Democrats in the US) are claiming they will force ISPs to block violent and pornographic content if elected. From the article: 'Mr Beazley said all households would be included in the policy unless there was a specific request for access to such material. It was "too hard" for many parents to install internet blockers on their computers to prevent offensive material being downloaded.'"

Comments

What?

[guardian653]

Just who defines "violent" or "pornographic" material? What is "violent" or "pornographic" material? Frankly, people who are smart will eventually get around it anyway...

Re:What?

[tha_mink]

People who are smart will of course get around it, but this is not for smart people. It's for the masses and so it'll work just fine. It's also pretty cheap and easy to implement site-specific filtering and most any ISP can do if if they know what a route is and how to make squid work.

Actually, I couldn't disagree more. It's the content PROVIDERS that will get around the filters. It's too large a job for any body or company to find EVERY site or page with questionable material and filter it. How do you know what a jpeg of a naked person is made of? You don't! There is no way to block porn at the ISP level. It's harder than blocking spam and we know they can't do that.

Let's not forget, the internet is for porn. Simple supply and demand. All you can do by trying to filter it is make yourself look like a zealot and/or a fascist. Lots have tried, all have failed.

Filtering software is too hard to install?

[Tim C]

Cry me a fucking river.

Can't install filtering software? How about sitting down with your kids and keeping an eye on what they're doing instead? Move the PC out to a communal area - the front room or dining room, somewhere you can see it from. Hell, you could even end up taking an actual interest in what they're doing, discussing things with them and perhaps even taking a part in their education (dangerous, I know). You never know, they might even learn a few limits of their own.

God forbid that parents should have to take some personal responsibility for what their children are exposed to. I know parenting isn't easy, but this trend of shoving responsibility and effort off to third parties is sickening.

Re:Filtering software is too hard to install?

[DrSkwid]

If I want a babysitter I have to pay $

If I want an internet filter I could, you know, pay someone to provide me with one.

Still, it is a land where the PM can get web sites closed down if he doesn't like them :

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/20/oz_satire_ site/

It's about time!

[3.5 stripes]

Without something like this, parents would have to do things like be responsible, or supervise their children!!!

It won't happen

[GrahamCox]

The ALP is currently in unelectable self-destruct mode, and appears to show no real signs of getting that fixed before the next election. Which is unfortunate, as the incumbents are a bunch of equally obnoxious nazis, though for other reasons. I doubt that having such nanny-state type policies is likely to help them in any way. What I can't figure out is why they don't just hand over the leadership to Julia Gillard and start working towards making themselves actually attractive to voters. None of this stuff is relevant to that goal, or will help them in any way shape or form. And I speak as a parent.

Australia seems to be more repressive than US

[sgant]

It seems just about every week we're hearing more and more censoring and blocking and "You can't do that here" talk from Australia. I always thought this was a free-wheeling, "come and say g'day" kinda place. But it sounds like it's more puritanical than the US, something I didn't think was possible.

What is up with this country?

Porn defined

[x2A]

Porn is anything you lose interest in after you cum

The problem is "opt out."

[Kadin2048]

And will the list of people who "opt out" be kept confidential? How confidential? How do people know that by opting to receive porn, they won't end up on a list somewhere -- since obviously by definition there has to be a list at their ISP -- of "Social Deviants who Like Violence and Pornography"? Just the fact that such a list could or might exist, could easily cause people to not want to opt out. Everyone has a price; how long before some overzealous investigative reporter or tabloid journalist bribes someone at an ISP for the list, just to see what interesting people are on there? I can't think of a better story than revealing which government officals are on the "Porn List."

The way to do it is to make the system opt-in, not opt-out. If people have kids, all they need to do is make a phone call to their ISP; various ISPs can even market the feature as a selling point of their service if they wanted to. But any scheme that automatically filters everything and requires you to put yourself on a list in order to get uncensored access is inherently a bad idea.