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Australian Internet Filter Enters Trial Phase
blake writes "News.com.au reports "The Government's plan to have internet service providers filter pornography and other internet content deemed inappropriate for children is going full-steam ahead. [...] The trial will evaluate ISP-level internet content filters in a controlled environment while filtering content inappropriate for children." It all sounds in good taste, and we are told that you will be able to opt out at any time, but will putting this filter in place simply give the powers that be the ability to block access to content for their own agendas. Censorship may be necessary, but should it be overseen by Government."
Government is the -last- entity that should oversee any censorship--because it has the most to gain from having such control.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Censorship is never necessary. Ever.
But fighting it always is.
May the Maths Be with you!
It's amazing what potentially very dangerous tech people will tolerate just so they can "protect their kids".
Never mind that there's a million porn sites, the possibility of encrypted traffic or that there's the possibility that someone might use this to filter government-unfriendly information from your data stream...no, don't mind all that, just think of the children. Everything is fine.
makes it even worse. It should be opt-in. How many people will be too embarrassed, or too shy to call up and opt-out or not want their name recorded as a potential Pr0n lover..... If parents want the service, they should be able to call and opt-in, but don't make the default mode censorship.
Monstar L
So you have to opt-out? Great, so once in place, the Austalian Governement will have a list of all people who want to watch porn.
Sure, now it's optional and only in Australia. Soon it'll be in the UK, and then the US. After a while, they'll find some way to make it mandatory... I foresee something to the effect of "Kids could use your computer, and we must protect kids from the evil intertubes", and good luck to you if you speak up. "What, you want to hurt children? What kind of monster are you? Pervert!"
Hopefully I am overreacting, but I don't think I am.
Great Intellect...
.sig
HEY! I resemble that remark.
Besides, can I help it if question marks are tasty?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
In addition to the normal mode of filtering out adult content, I hope the filters can be configured to only allow it as well. I recommend the filter modes be labeled "Suck" and "Blow" respectively.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
In those households where parents actually give a rat's posterior about raising their kids, protect them from being prosecuted for child abuse for spanking or whipping their kids with a belt for consuming pornography and such.
If parents can't punish their kids worse than yelling at them or taking away their computer for breaking the family rules on not watching porn, how can you expect parents to keep their kids under control?
When my wife was in high school, she did a study for a class. She went around and asked the girls she knew if they had been spanked or otherwise physically disciplined when they broke the rules growing up. Those who had, the majority of them were the well-adjusted, decent girls. The rest fit many negative stereotypes...
There was an ironic article about outlawing such discipline in California. The state representative said that she'd never support such discipline because she would never spank her cat because some ill-informed vet told her it would do no good. Heh. I grew up with cats, and can tell you that if you spank them when they break the rules, they tend to behave well like any other pet. The reason we have most of these parenting issues is because many families treat their kids the way that they would treat a cat based on common behavior toward cats.
"Government is the -last- entity that should oversee any censorship--because it has the most to gain from having such control."
No, the government is exactly the entity that should oversee censorship, because it's the only organization that's accountable to the voters. No corporation should ever have the power to censor anything.
Of course, I don't think even the government should have that power, but voters have always been clueless.
My Sig: SEGV
We have 3 computers in the house and 2 children. My computer is in the basement in my "office" (I work from home). I'm the only one who uses this computer. It's a Linux box and I lock it when I leave so I know this for a fact.
My wife's computer is in the family room simply because we don't have any where else to put it. The kids computer is also in the family room.
I'm not saying that I will never allow my kids to have an internet-accessible computer in their bedroom. But for that to become a reality I will have to believe that they are mature and responsible enough to keep their personal information private and not get "too close" to anyone that they meet online without safeguards in place. In other words it will be when they're well into their teenage years and have had many a long talk with me and their mother about privacy and personal responsibility, and that I am comfortable believing that it has sunk in.
After all, our job is to raise them into mature and responsible adults. So keeping their Internet use "public" indefinitely is directly contradictory to that belief.
I'm also getting married to the woman who is my best friend in June.
What about the other 11 months? Is she someone else's best friend then?
Forgive me for piggy backing on a troll's frist psot, but, who the FUCK said the internet was meant for children? Why does it have to be kid friendly? Protective parents don't let their kids hangout and befriend strangers (adults or otherwise) unsupervised. Why should exploring the internet be any different? Just because a company attempts to target or exploit a demographic through some medium doesn't mean the medium needs to be sanitized for that demographic.
Ahh.. internet censorship, hell, censorship in general... such a pet peeve of mine.
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
Has anyone ever actually demonstrated that looking at porn is harmful to children/teens? Everyone seems to be taking it as a forgone conclusion, but I've never seen any scientific evidence in a psychology journal. If looking at porn is really as dangerous as many people like to believe, it should be very easy to demonstrate the harm - but so far as I know, nobody has ever done that.
And no, I don't consider "It gives people unrealistic ideas about sex" to be actual harm. Romance movies probably do vastly more harm to developing adolescents by giving them unrealistic expectations of what real romantic relationships are like. Having a grossly distorted "Hollywood" view of romance is probably going to be substantially more problematic to a teenager/young adult than being disappointed that your girlfriend doesn't want to do something kinky that you saw in a porn movie.
It seems like the government should have to produce some evidence that it's actual dangerous before they ban/censor it.
The article states that they want to filter pornography AND . . .
"OTHER INTERNET CONTENT DEEMED INAPPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN"
It's never really about pornography, it's always about that "other bad stuff", like dissident political opinions.
So, who's in charge of deciding what is and is not appropriate for children? Think of ALL the content that certain people and organizations have wanted to ban at various times and you'll get the idea of why censorship is fundamentally incompatible with freedom. Think of Christians wanting to protect the children from Charles Darwin and "political correctness" extremists wanting to ban Mark Twain.
when Dear Mr J Howard is brought before a criminal case for his lack of duty of care in placing Australian soldiers in a position of defending another nation's political ideology. When he and his colleagues are successfully sued for introducing a industrial relations that left some/many Australian citizens worse off in a period of time when corporations were experiencing a economic boom.
The only thing he was truly held accountable for is claiming that Australian citizens had never been better off.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...