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Australian Government Ignoring Problems With Proposed Filters

Posted by Soulskill on from the la-la-la-i-can't-hear-you dept.

halll7 writes with an update to the proposed Australian national firewall we discussed recently. According to the BBC, "The official watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), has been conducting laboratory tests of six filtering products, and the government plans a live trial soon. ... After its recent trials, ACMA reported significant improvements on earlier studies. The network degradation on one product was less than 2%, although two products were in excess of 75%." Now, Ars Technica reports that "an Australian newspaper has uncovered documents showing that the government minister responsible for the program has ignored performance and accuracy problems with the filters, then tried to suppress criticism of the plan by private citizens." The EFA has a great deal to say in opposition of these plans.

1 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. It is all about Australian domestic politics by papafox_too · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Australian governments' proposed ISP filter system has little to do with censorship or child porn - it is all driven by Australian domestic politics.

    The government requires control of the Senate to get its legislative program through. The Senate consists of 76 members, with the Government (ALP) holding 32 seats, the Opposition 37 seats, the Greens 3 seats, Family First 1 seat and one Independent senator.

    The goverement requires the support of all non-Opposition memebers to get legislation passed - with Senator Steve Fielding, the Familiy First senator a vital supporter.

    The Family First party is a socially conservative political party. Senator Fielding recieved 56,000 primary votes out of a 3.3M votes cast. However, through preference distributions he gained a quota and was elected.

    Senator Fielding has demanded that the government implement porn filters, with ISP filtering being his method of choice.

    So, the Australian government is implementing ISP filters, no because they work for filtering porn, but because they work at meeting their political needs. Complaining about the effects of ISP filters on freedom of speech or internet performance will fall on deaf ears - the filters will be implemented because they are critical to the governments tenuous control of the Senate.