Australia to Offer Widespread ISP-level Filtering

Phurge writes "According to a Sydney Morning Herald article, the Australia government has decided to take the controversial step of having internet service providers filter web content at the request of parents, in a crackdown on online bad language, pornography and child sex predators. 'The more efficient compulsory filtering of internet service providers (ISPs) was proposed in March last year by the then Labor leader, Kim Beazley. At the time, the Communications Minister, Helen Coonan, and ISPs criticised his idea as expensive. Three months later Senator Coonan announced the Government's Net Alert policy, which promised free filtering software for every home that wanted it. She also announced an ISP filtering trial to be conducted in Tasmania. That trial was scrapped. Today Mr Howard will hail the ISP filtering measure as a world first by any Government, and is expected to offer funding to help cover the cost. Parents will be able to request the ISP filter option when they sign up with an ISP. It will be compulsory to provide it. The measures will come into effect by the end of this month.'"

Comments

What's the big fucking deal???

[Pig Hogger]

What's the big fucking deal with profanity?

Jesus H. Fucking Christ Almighty, it's only goddammed fucking words.

Hmmm

[Spad]

Today Mr Howard will hail the ISP filtering measure as a world first by any Government...

I don't think that's something I'd be proud to admit.

What's the problem here?

[TubeSteak]

Three months later Senator Coonan announced the Government's Net Alert policy, which promised free filtering software for every home that wanted it. She also announced an ISP filtering trial to be conducted in Tasmania. That trial was scrapped. This isn't filtering at the ISP level
The ISP is just being forced to provide filtering software at your request.

It's censorship... if you want it.
What's the big deal?

Re:What's the problem here?

[CellBlock]

For every parent that picks this up so they can just plop their kids in front of the computer and ignore them all day, there's going to be one that actually uses it the right way: as a means to enforce rules that have already been set down in the house. If mom and dad say "no porn," a kid is going to try to look for some anyway. If he's blocked, he'll probably think "damn" and find something else to do, instead. If he's motivated enough to circumvent the block, then perhaps another talk with the parents is in order. Also, the filter could be useful for a lot of those instances where "accidental" porn come up, like every other Google image search.

What the Hell

[eboluuuh]

So they're basically making a V-Chip for the internet? The real reason why teenagers are sexually abused by predators online is, essentially, bad education. http://www.apa.org/releases/online_sexabuse.html Though my favorite is this: http://rotten.com/about/obscene.html "Certain people (including parents and schoolteachers) have complained to us and stated that rotten.com should not be "allowed" on the net, since children can view images on our site. One US schoolteacher wrote us a very angry email that complained some of her students had bookmarked images on this site, that our site shouldn't be on the net, and other claptrap. This is our response. The net is not a babysitter! Children should not be roaming the Internet unsupervised any more than they should be roaming the streets of New York City unsupervised. We cannot dumb the Internet down to the level of playground. Rotten dot com serves as a beacon to demonstrate that censorship of the Internet is impractical, unethical, and wrong. To censor this site, it is necessary to censor medical texts, history texts, evidence rooms, courtrooms, art museums, libraries, and other sources of information vital to functioning of free society. "

Re:What's the big deal???

[Von Helmet]

Profanity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers.

Re:could this actually be a good thing?

[computational super]

Right now, my TV is "filtered" - even my cable TV. I can call the cable company and unblock the "filtering" (e.g. get access to channels that are not "filtered") - as long as I'm willing to pay $19.95 a month extra per unfiltered channel. ISP's are salivating over the prospect of applying this "business model" to their service. "Unfiltered" internet (that is, paying them to stop doing something you didn't ask or want them to do in the first place) will CERTAINLY end up being more expensive that "filtered" internet. I give it one year, tops.

Re:And your point is?

[russ1337]

>>> ....knows there is a difference between CNN.com and MySpace.com when it comes to community discourse

Let me guess: One is full of sexy pictures, trash, lies and people manipulating the truth, the other is myspace?

only pedophiles...

[middlemen]

Only pedophiles think about the children :D