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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."
Your local government knows best.
This bill was brought to you by your local censors.
I want answers, damnit! I'm Aussie, and not used to fighting these sort of things - Americans, what's the best way forward to make my voice heard?!
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
Is this some new scheme to confuse use by putting commas in the wrong place?
And let me guess, the Australian guys in the government that want this, are the sames that scream "dictatorship!!" any time Venezuela, Cuba, or China is mentioned. Hypocrisy
I'm actually surprised that it is that low.
What I particularly object to (in addition to the whole concept) is the capricious nature of many blocks. BoingBoing has been blocked by a number of blocklist companies, not because of anything rude or illegal, but because they had articles about filtering companies
At the end of the day, you have a human organisation making decisions, and even in the best of worlds that will be open to abuse.
As a brit, I welcome our Aussie friends to the panopticon of fear.
Paul Leader
"We have buttiduously canvbutted the industry, buttessed what is available and buttembled the finest selection of PFI contractors for this buttignment. The filters will buttociatively clbuttify all communications and filter then, I can butture you, rebuttemble them with surpbutting exacbreastude in any quanbreasty. Consbreastuents can be rebuttured that a mulbreastude of industry compebreastors will butture quality and keep our clbuttrooms safe. EDS Capita Goatse will not embarbutt us."
The plans have attracted wide criticism. "It will only give supersbreastious rebutturance to medireview thinkers. Automated systems won't solve human problems like loveual harbuttment. Mbuttacring the written word into a Picbutto painting is not the anbreastank missile of Internet safety."
Unions also butterted that such close buttessment of staff in the workplace would hamper efficiency and could verge on workplace harbuttment. "Watermeloning cranberries."
The government was unfazed. "Butterting free speech is one thing, but a triparbreaste committee considers that that does not justify mere pbuttive breastillation at the expense of others."
The first filtering offices will be set up in Arsenal, Penistone and Scunthorpe.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
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.
"users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material" Does this mean illegal material is appropriate for children?
This bill was brought to you by your local censors.
So Aussies can look forward to a rabid reaming by prurient hypocrites, and the undoubted pleasure of being billed for it, too. The details of the public reaming will also be off-limits, of course (for the public good: can't have people witnessing such lurid acts).
Due to the shotgun nature of blocking filters, there will be many pages wrongfully blocked. Based on the blocking policies enforced at some workplaces, entire domains may be blocked on account of just a single objectionable page in a single user's subdomain. Whole domains may also be blocked wrongly, through ambivalent ignorance or a mere typo.
Whole communities might find themselves wrongfully off-limits, as happened a few years ago, when the alt.binaries.pictures.astronomy usenet group was blacklisted by a large US ISP. The ISP did not block all alt.binaries.pictures groups, but chose to lump the astrophotography group in with the porn groups. That's what misinterpretation of phrases such as "heavenly body", "images from last night", "multiple exposure", "open truss", "polar mount", "white dwarf", "full moon" and the like can cause. I doubt if anyone involved in the decision to block the group actually looked at the images being posted there - I never saw an inappropriate image in several years of regularly reading that group.
Presumably, all anonymizing services will promptly find themselves on the blacklist, lest anyone use them to bypass the filters and look at unapproved pages. Expect also, that anyone acting as a freenet node will be dealt with appropriately (ISP cutoff, or legal action).
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire