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."

Comments

No, no, a thousand times no.

[KublaiKhan]

Government is the -last- entity that should oversee any censorship--because it has the most to gain from having such control.

Re:No, no, a thousand times no.

[KublaiKhan]

Or even just take the step of making it an opt-IN rather than an opt-OUT service. That alone would make it far less suspicious looking.

Re:No, no, a thousand times no.

[Brian Gordon]

Or even leave it up to *gasp* the private sector to provide censorship software. Buying services from a company is the obvious opt-in solution. It doesn't make any sense to have the government provide opt-in services since everyone who's not opting in is helping to pay for it.

Re:No, no, a thousand times no.

[hool5400]

The stupid thing is, they already provide free filtering software to download. The government has paid for it, on our behalf.

The licence for the filter software cost them $AUD 85M, with only 145000 downloads of the software, and no doubt even less active users. Those that want it, have it. But it seems not many people care.

Dan Rutter brings some light on the insanity here.

Censorship Is Never Necessary

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Censorship is never necessary. Ever.

But fighting it always is.

Re:Censorship Is Never Necessary

[KublaiKhan]

Censorship -within an individual residence- is potentially helpful in certain situations--young children and the like, when the parents want to ensure less chance of unfortunate images showing up and suchlike.

At any larger scope than a single family, though, yes, it's entirely unnecessary and should be discouraged whenever possible.

Re:Censorship Is Never Necessary

[N3wsByt3]

This argument is also known as the "OMG! Thinkofthechildren!"-argument.

I'm always struck by the inherent hypocrisy of it. At the same time, I believe people should be able to raise their kids as they see fit (at least, to a large degree), and the government shouldn't come into the picture anyway.

I guess the best solution would be to be involved with your children, talk to them about certain things on the internet, and if necessary, show your disapproval of certain things... but leave them SOME choice, even when you have the tendency to block all of it.

Because, let's be frank: WHO didn't start to get to know about "it" when they still were kids. I remember - in my days when the Net wasn't around - in the school some kid or another brought a Playboy with him, and we were all watching with big eyes what was in it. It's just the way things go; one learns about these things BEFORE one gets 18, and well...we all know how; by watching it 'under the radar' of parents and the like. Why? Heck, because we knew they would 'censor' it if they could - even if they themselves learned it the same way.

This never-ending cycle of hypocrisy is what bothers me the most. People constantly get in the 'savethechildren'-mode, conveniently forgetting - every damn generation - that they did JUST the same, and it was that way they got to know about it.

Of course, you have exceptions; like in China, where a married copple of over 20 didn't even know how the basic things. And I'm sure in the ever-more prude USA things are also really getting hysterically absurd in this regard...But the fact is, it's just a normal way of getting to know about it. The 'prudeness'-hysteria (including censorship) is doing more harm than good, sometimes.

Yes, yes: the net has also some extreme stuff, and a line has to be drawn somewhere. But by some people, that line is drawn pretty damn hypocritical. And the self-appointed 'childsavers' have their field day because of it; exaggerations abound to scare people into thinking the only possible response is censorship. Sometimes to the detriment of a more objective truth. The 'the net is full of porn where our kids just happen to stumble upon and were traumatised by it' is one example of such utter BS. Sure, that can happen, but the truth is, especially for teenagers, for 90%, when they come at 'dirty' sites, it's because they were *looking* for it.

*gasp*

Well, yes...in our time, we went looking to get our hands on Playboys and the like, nowadays, they search the net for it. Heck, if the Net had existed back then, I'm pretty sure I would have been trying to peep on those sites too. Is there any dude here (prude USA'ers not counted) that can claim he wouldn't have done the same?

(ok, I know that such a question begs smart-ass remarks, but the point is; I think we all know the majority of guys would just do the same if they were a kid. Why try to censor something you did (or would have done) the same? Unless one deems himself traumatised by those experiences, it just doesn't make sense to have such a holier-than-thee approach, knowing it's actually not true and hypocrite.)

I think there are better options than bland censoring or forbidding youngsters to look for 'it'. It never really helps anyway.

Re:Censorship Is Never Necessary

[cammoblammo]

The Australian Labor Government, shortly after being elected, decided that the impossible task of making the internet pre-school safe was a better solution.

I hear this, and I've also heard all of Steven Conroy's announcements, but the TFA seems to suggest this has been in the pipeline an awful lot longer. Tenders for companies to provide the filtering system closed in July last year, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority waited until after the election to announce the successful bid.

I suspect that Helen Coonan would have had a similar announcement to make if the Coalition got up.

It's amazing

[Loibisch]

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.

This is a bad idea overall, but making it opt-out

[antifoidulus]

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.

Opt-out?

[Thondermonst]

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.

Re:Opt-out?

[Zarhan]

I'm not an aussie but I understood that their new Prime Minister (Kevin Rudd) started to gain support in polls over Howard AFTER it was leaked that he had gone to a strip club in Washington visit. Apparently the general image had been that the guy is absolutely boring bean counter, but after the news broke people were saying "Wow, that guy actually has a life....I could vote for him".

Mind you, this is COMPLETELY based on a random faction in media on the other side of the world..

Start Small

[bky1701]

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.

Re:Hmmm...

[apdyck]

I already have a nice filter installed. It's called me not letting them use the PC without my being within eyesight of the PC This is the approach that my parents took for many years (we were early adopters of the Internet, and as such parental controls were unheard of). It was remarkably effective. They even kept the computer that had the modem in a room with a locked door, so that we had to get them to unlock the door if we wanted to use the computer. There was another 'public' computer that wasn't online that we could use at any time, but if we needed to go online, it had to be done in the study under the supervision of one or more parent.

Multiple modes?

[fahrbot-bot]

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.

Simpler solution

[MikeRT]

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.

Re:Simpler solution

[apathy maybe]

I never said I considered children to be the same as adults.

I said that hitting children was domestic violence which is never acceptable, and I said that children should be able to watch porn if they want to.

As to work, children are legally not allowed to work are they... They are forced to go to school, a place which most of them find boring, the teachers are often useless, and the other pupils sometimes vicious.
I'll direct you to a great essay on the subject of what children should or not be allowed to do.
http://peacefire.org/info/why.shtml

Yes, it's true that teenagers don't pay a lot of taxes and are usually freeloading off their parents. But that's not because teenagers are lazy or dumb, it's because they're forced to work all day in school for free. If you took a bus driver's license away and made him study Biology and American History for 10 hours a day, he'd have to move back in with his parents too.

As for hitting them to get the point across...
What point? That they shouldn't watch porn? Why shouldn't they watch porn? Because it is sinful? What is sin and why is it bad? Because the bible said so? Why should I pay any heed to a book that is full of contradictions? Because you told me to and you will hit me if I don't... Great way to get your point across Dad.

Parents who use violence against kids are lazy parents and bad parents. They are lazy because they don't want to explain to their children why they should or shouldn't do something. They are bad parents because they are in effect teaching their children that violence is an acceptable substitute for rational dialogue.

Well, violence is not an acceptable substitute for rational and logical discussion, and it should not be a way of enforcing values and morals on children.

Wrong reason

[EvilNTUser]

"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.

Re:Wrong reason

[magarity]

No, the government is exactly the entity that should oversee censorship, because it's the only organization that's accountable to the voters
 
Think this through: what happens when they censor reports of censorship? Government is the ultimate monopoly more than any mere corporation could ever be. While it is technically possible to switch governments via either enough votes or armed rebellion, the both rely heavily on lack of censorship to effectively get the message out in order to be effective. No, censorship is an insidiously powerfull tool of government. Do not wish they have it.

Get the kids out, stay off my lawn

[Zashi]

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.

Who does the "deeming"??

[moeinvt]

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.