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Nation-Wide Internet Censorship Proposed For Australia
sparky1240 writes "While Americans are currently fighting the net-neutrality wars, spare a thought for the poor Australians — The Australian government wants to implement a nation-wide 'filtering' scheme to keep everyone safe from the nasties on the internet, with no way of opting out: 'Under the government's $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material. ... According to preliminary trials, the best Internet content filters would incorrectly block about 10,000 Web pages from one million."
www.iwf.org.uk
Whilst to be fair as far as I understand it does a good job in that it focuses entirely on child porn and hasn't as I'm aware stepped out of this remit I am a little concerned that it came into play without anyone ever really noticing or anyone ever really being told.
Can we be sure this organisation does only do what it says it does? Can we be sure it doesn't ever abuse it's powers? Would we ever know if it did?
It is not run by the government and is an independent organisation, so not having a connection to the government increases my confidence in it a million fold at least however.
It's a real plan alright. It was an election promise/threat made shortly before the federal election last year, but it got surprisingly little attention. At the time I figured it was just an empty attempt to look tougher than the Liberal party (with their taxpayer funded filters for everyone's PC) program, and I hoped it would go the way of most election promises. Here's an EFF article about this from the beginning of the year, including links to Stephen Conroy's media releases: http://www.efa.org.au/2008/01/02/media-release-efa-attacks-clean-feed-proposal/ .
My understanding is that this has progressed as far as some technology demonstrations. I'm still hoping that technical infeasibility and resistance from ISPs will win out, but it's a worry that it has gone this far.
Tell your legislator that you are watching them very closely on this issue, and if they vote in favor of it, they won't be your legislator for much longer, because you will organize a campaign to de-elect them in two, four, or however many years it takes. Add that you won't allow your right to free speech to be trampled. That written speech should NEVER be censored no matter what it might be, and that anybody who supports censorship of webpages deserves the label "book burner" and include a picture like so: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/1933-may-10-berlin-book-burning.JPG/250px-1933-may-10-berlin-book-burning.JPG
Here in the States there are certain persons who want to block internet downloads of "Huckleberry Finn" because they think it's racist. Well, anybody who's actually read the book knows it is the exact opposite of racist, and in fact teaches a lesson about how blacks are no different than whites. Fortunately for us, our government agrees and does not censor Mark Twain's greatest novel.
Unfortunately for Aussies, your government doesn't have the common sense God granted a jackass. They are the 2000-era equivalent of book burners.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I would not be in favour of this at all.
The system we have in our home is simple, the computer is in the kitchen where everyone else is. To my mind that is the only sensible way to keep your children safe on the Internet. If they come across something that is unsuitable then we talk about it. That means they know what's dangerous and how to deal with it, and we know what they're getting involved in.
Blocking access is just wrapping your kids in cotton wool - and when you can't do that any more, they suddenly become very vulnerable.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Why is censorship of illegal material bad? If the material is illegal, why shouldn't it be censored?
Can anyone make this argument? Because if the material is illegal in the first place, meaning you would normally get in trouble for accessing it, period, then a preemptive measure shouldn't harm you, logically.
Cast aside the argument that it will make the Internet sluggish, because that argument will be nullified if technology and such improve enormously. Also cast aside the argument that it will be expensive to do, because what if we make it incredibly efficient?
Also cast aside the false positives occurring, because what if they get it so refined that a false positive is a one in a million occurance. In such a way that the system works exactly as proposed, with no drawbacks (concerning false positives, network lag, etc.) whatsoever.
I'm not defending censorship. I want someone to make a good argument.
So what if Huckleberry Finn were a racist book? That wouldn't be a reason to censor it either. Nothing should be censored, ever.
There are other political parties out there that will fix the issues: Try the LDP:
http://www.ldp.org.au/federal/policies/index.html
I'm sure I can get a policy statement from them if I try hard enough...
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Its interesting how so called free countries are rushing towards censorship, control and out right Big Brother, faster than so called bad countries.
Well, 9-11 9-11 9-11. 9-11 9-11 9-11, 9-11. "9-11". Fear, 9-11. Uncertainty, 9-11. Doubt, 9-11.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I've seen a lot of posts from you, I guess it's your sig that I remember. Anyway, you're pretty hard line, I'd consider you as someone at the extremities on most topics. Don't be offended though, it's just an observation gleaned from a few hundred lines of text and subject to stereotype and various inaccuracies.
I'm happy you are all for censorship (which is really to say that I don't care either way), and I'll defend your right to do whatever you please so long as it doesn't affect me. If you want to censor my own inane disgruntled rantings as a former secret 3 letter agency worker drone, then I'll be more than happy to censor your.... (insert whatever it is you hold most dearly)
If you want to protect me from the ogrish of the world, don't bother. I don't need it. I'm big enough to handle my own affairs and sane enough to give my baby girl a happy and balanced childhood filled with pony's, daffodils, geek, and a sense of place and purpose within society. I can do this without the help of the government, so thanks anyway, but censorship is not for me.
I don't think it is an accident that these things are going forward in the English speaking countries where Murdoch has the most influence, US, UK, & Australia. So far as I can make out, Canada and NZ are sticking with freedom.
>>>So you're ok with child porn then ?
No because involuntary sex is wrong (it's rape), but I don't have any objections to Nudist sites which feature family photos. God created the human body; there's no reason to censor his artistry.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
It's sad that this is happening. As an Australian, I'm appalled that this is happening. Although I'm glad for many reasons that we finally got rid of little Bush Jr. (John Howard) and replaced him Kevin Rudd, it's a disaster that they now want to impose this crap on everyone.
Personally, I think the whole idea of content filtering to protect the children, as they claim, is bogus. Regardless of whether the filtering is done by the parents on their own computer or by the ISPs on the whole internet, I think it's bullshit.
Kids don't need overly restrictive blocks in place to prevent them getting access to porn, bomb making instructions or whatever else is deem inappropriate; nor do they need any kind of punishment if they do get access. Rather, they need good parental guidence to let them know what they should and should not look at, and be taught to be responsible with whatever they do get access to.
Besides, if some 13 or 14 year old boy looks up some porn, good for him. I did when I was that age, as did almost everyone else I knew back then, and it did me no harm at all. (Also, letting kids get porn for free from the internet is better then letting them resort to stealing porno mags that they're not allowed to buy legally)
By reading this signature, you hereby agree with the content of the above comment.
So you're ok with child porn then ?
The images themselves? Fine, as long as I don't have to look at them. Keep them where they will only be found by those actually looking for them.
As for the production of said images - that's a completely different matter, not related to censorship at all.
You might disagree on it being a different matter, but look at other crimes. Hitting people with baseball bats are a crime. Showing footage of someone hitting people with baseball bats on the news is not. Outlawing that would be considered
censorship by most people.
Photographic evidence of a crime is not the same as the crime.
Or your bank details appearing on the web ?
No, because they are my business only. But if you wanted your bank details to appear on the web, they should not be censored for you. See the difference?
Now, there is a relation between those two questions other than the censorship. The person in those pictures might not want them out there. However, them being out there does not harm said person (as opposed to abusing the bank details), only the knowledge of them being out there. However, censorship does not solve this point. The pictures are still out there, the knowledge that they exist are just the same. If you know or think that pictures were taken, you know someone somewhere is jacking off to them. If you are not aware that pictures were taken, you don't go looking for them.
> Wow, a couple of networks may at some point be wrongly blocked by mistake for a short period of time till the mistake is identified.
You REALLY believe these mistakes will happen seldom and be fixed quickly? You must be new here.
Actually what I'd say is even more worrying is that it won't annoy 'everyone' with the false positives. Sure, if a site like YouTube, or Gmail or even Slashdot were blocked there would be outcry, but what about all those little sites that might be blocked or might just be down? What about the single page on the whole internet with the obscure information you need that's been up on some university server since 1996?
I'd be much more inclined to believe that you'll just get a generic error bounced to your browser than an actual redirect explaining that the government required blocking is filtering out the page you want. How are you going to know what you're missing out on and what's really not there? That's perhaps an even greater worry - once they do have this in place it'd be very easy to make the whole system effectively invisible to the vast majority of users. Few people (at least nobody considered worth listening to, unfortunately) will complain about something they don't notice.