Slashdot Mirror
Aussies Hit the Streets Over Gov't Internet Filters
mask.of.sanity writes "Outraged aussies will hold simultaneous protests across Australia in opposition to the government's plans for mandatory ISP internet content filtering. The plan will introduce nation-wide filtered internet using blacklists operated by a government agency, away from public scrutiny. Politicians and ISPs will join protesters in the streets to voice their opposition to the government's plan, which has ploughed ahead, despite intense criticism that the technology will crippled internet speeds and infringe on free speech. Opponents said the most accurate filter chosen by the government will incorrectly block up to 10,000 Web pages out of 1 million."
Once again the guise of stopping child porn and terrorists will be used as cover to do the bidding of big business and lobbyists for the music/movie/software studios who want to block torrent sites. I doubt the U.S. and E.U. will be far behind Australia's lead, sadly.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It takes some amount of courage to stand up to laws like this. Basically they have to publicly oppose the guise of 'Safety' and 'For The Children'. For politicians and normal people alike it can be difficult to come out sand say you oppose anything that is 'supposed to protect children'.
Good luck to them I say, and lets hope this kills this insane filtering plan.
They will label the protesters pedophile sympathizers. Insinuations will fly. Motives will be questioned. Fingers will be pointed. Dissent will disintegrate.
Newspapers will be sold.
These protesters are only protesting the symptoms and not the root causes of modern censorship. That is why they will fail.
May the Maths Be with you!
That's the problem; since it's automated, that 1% blocked could be anything. cnn/bbc/etc could be blocked for talking about a child porn news item. That would seem unacceptable to me.
As for the whole "think of the children" issue. There are child protection software packages available. Parents need to start taking responsibility for their offspring and stop expecting everyone else to bend over backwards for them. You brought them into this world, not me. You take care of their well-being. I'm all for "thinking of the children" when it doesn't adversely affect anyone else but this does. Therefore, it is unacceptable.
-SaNo
However, I don not see anything else Aussies can do. I don't think their constitution is strong enough to carry a challenge against parlementary primacy. Naturally, they can vote the b#ms out, but that happens anyways as a matter of control.
Unfortunately, many "democracies", especially UK-style parlements, functionally are elected dictatorships.
"Opponents said the most accurate filter chosen by the government will incorrectly block Web pages."
:-)
The opponents are doing themselves a disservice by analyzing percentages. By doing so it takes the focus from "should we or shouldn't we filter", to "how much should we filter?" Government should never filter Internet access, and the US should put pressure on them however they can, though I concede that is unlikely to happen since so many politicians are too busy trying to figure out ways to convince the proles that the US Government should filter the net to slap the hands of others for doing the same
(admit it; you were in desperate need of a good run-on sentence and I filled it.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
That's the problem; since it's automated, that 1% blocked could be anything. cnn/bbc/etc could be blocked for talking about a child porn news item. That would seem unacceptable to me.
Well, according to the last part of one of the articles
The trial is expected to use a blacklist of 10,000 banned Web pages, using the rumoured 1300-page blacklist held by the ACMA mixed with dummy data.
If that's true, they are simply going to blacklist a bunch of websites. I heavily doubt cnn/bbc/etc will ever negligently be put on that list. I know little to nothing about this scheme but if it's a blacklist, you probably have little worry about with major news sites. A lot more to worry about things labeled as "counter-culture" or "low brow humor."
My work here is dung.
The best internet filter that can be used is called a 'parent'. The 'parent' places the child's computer in a high trafic area of the home and monitors what the child is doing. 'Parents' can also come with aditional feature which is called 'intrest' as in the 'parent' takes an active intrest in what the child is doing on line. (Comments accepted, special cases ignored)
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I think we need to back up and examine that statement in itself. Why should the govt. be involved at all in technology or laws that protect people from themselves?!?!
Isn't part of being free, the freedom to fuck up?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Do these people not realize that the web sites with the content on that they really want to block are moving targets. A static list will not work. It will have to be automated. Which then results in the blocking of medical blogs and forums. Have they all forgot AOL and 'breast' cancer.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Any widespread filtering of the internet at large will result in a massive tech 'arms war' that will make the cold war look like a Sunday picnic. Splinter cryptoed internets on both the current and eventually new internets will occur. Won't be pretty.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Lastly, how is this any different than what China is doing? I'm surprised nobody has made this connection and accused the government of being no better than anti-free-speech China.
It has before been alluded that it is just like what China have implemented, even in the senate. To quote Senator Conroy (the nut in charge of the department for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy).
I was wondering if I could get the questions without being accused of being the Great Wall of China.
From http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S11346.pdf.
No, you great twat, you can't, not when what you're proposing is so damn much like it.
Whether by the Chinese government, the Aussies, the US, wherever, censoring public communication is the ultimate expression of disrespect for the public, and seriously undermines the validity of the offending government.
Pornography has "no socially redeeming aspect"?
Can you tell me what the "socially redeeming aspect" of reading Slashdot is? And why I should allow you to continue doing so?
"This level of censorship will have zero practical effect on political speech."
On what basis do you make that assertion? And why are you limiting it to only "political" speech? And in what circumstances do limits on free speech (political or not) "often" make sense?
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
if they do this in the USA, there will be blood. end of story.
I didn't see any blood over the USA PATRIOT Act, did you?
No, in fact, I've seen outright approval of the PATRIOT Act. Too many people have the attitude "It doesn't hurt me in an obvious and immediate way and it just might help catch a terrorist, so it's a good thing!" A trivial application of critical thinking shows how it hurts EVERYBODY in subtle and long-term ways. It is one of many popular laws that exists because we base our decisions more on worst-case-scenarios than on rational cost-benefit analysis.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
Actually many Chinese get around those restrictions. However, there does seem to be a different psychology at work there, as well. The Chinese accept many restrictions we'd find outrageous.
That's because for all the freedoms taken away/mangled by the patriot act, it's not immediately present in the mind of the average american. Americans just plain don't like to be bothered. Laws like the Patriot Act get passed because it doesn't affect the day-to-day grind. But, take away the ability to surf porn and chat up myspace and people will be pissed. God knows what would happen if some ISP decided to block fantasy football sites here.
Someday we will as well if we don't stop it from happening.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
They can block anyone's free speech and blame the whole thing on a mistake.
From what I've seen over the years, the incompetence defense works every single time. Officials can do something they want to do and blame it on a mistake and the public accepts it unquestioningly every single time. It's one of the most perfect propaganda techniques ever engineered.
Write to your local MP and senators (especially write to those who hold the ballance of power in the senate).
The greens have already said they will oppose this in its current form (Whether they would accept it if it was 100% opt-in and voluntary I dont know)
If we can get enough people to oppose it (especially those on the liberal/national opposition in the senate) Kevin wont be able to pass the law necessary to implement the filtering.