Slashdot Mirror
Australia Says No to Internet Censorship
Brenton Fletcher writes "A nationwide protest rally against the internet censorship filter proposed by the Australian Labor Government was held today. Over 9,000 people were slated to attend. I was fortunate enough to go to the rally on the steps of Parliament House in Adelaide, South Australia. I heard speeches from the Digital Liberty Coalition, the Green Left Weekly, and other concerned members of the public." Reader mask.of.sanity adds a link to ComputerWorld's photo-heavy coverage of the gatherings.
[Parent comment omitted]
It's nice to see all you have to do to get a +5 Insightful on Slashdot these days is spew unrelated obscenities in a semi-literate fashion. Well done.
I'll bet that this whole thing really has little to do with "Christian nutters" as you so eloquently put it. To get the government to spend that kind of money on that kind of project just screams corporate lobbyists. The real targets of this "censorship" project is probably downloaded music, movies, and software. They can block torrents for movies and software as well as any unofficial music sites like AllOfMP3 (now defunct) and MP3Sparks (still online) -- all in the name of protecting the children.
The fact is, it is incredibly hard to effectively censor pornographic or other generally illicit websites. There are always exceptions to the contextual rules the filters try and use to determine what shouldn't be allowed and URL blacklists are completely worthless. Since the filtering is done at the ISP level, how are you supposed to bypass the filter so you can read that Wikipedia article? On the other hand, blacklists are easy and work great to block domains and IP addresses of the most popular torrent sites and trackers.
The whole thing smells like an attempt at continent-wide piracy prevention, Internet DRM, or whatever you call it. Don't be surprised when port 6969 all of a sudden stops working.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Nobody turned up except the tinfoil hat types because most people who know anything about it also know it's not going to pass the senate. The entire project was set up to plactate senator Fielding from the "Family First" party. Because of the current make-up of the senate he gets to be "the decider" in certain political stand-offs. The previous government did something similar because belive it or not some people do want the govt to censor the net, and they have themselves a senator.
"Something has to be done before you all just give up all of your rights!
If the "Family First" party was more popular then I might think about getting off my arse, but as it stands my "rights" are intact and are likely to stay that way.
"Come on, there was 1/2 a million for the anti Iraq rallies, I guess since the public couldn't stop the government on that one they just can't be bothered anymore."
As with the US, Aussies had a chance to show their displeasure at the war by kicking the bums out at the next election, they chose not to do so.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The nutters that pretend to be Christian unfortunately are the difference between the government getting laws passed or not. This makes politicians nervous that their own backsides may not be on their parlimentary seats after the next election if they don't do something about it - and that's about the most powerful force in politics.
We've imported a bit of US pentacostalism (despite being excommunicated as a nation by Oral Roberts) but then got it wrong and given it an even more unfortunate twist with cults like Magnificant Meal and Exclusive Bretheren. The EB in paticular put a huge amount of effort into the last two elections. That is the "corporate lobbyist" you are loooking for.
Personally I think it was seen as a quick way to appease some single issue nutters which got badly out of control. Anything with secret rules and secret lists is anti-democratic in my opinion, and I really think we should be worrying about the people doing horrible things to children a lot more than worrying about pictures (which is bizzarely beconming the greater crime).
I was at the Melbourne event and I'd be surprised if there were more than a couple of hundred others there. Again, the weather was terrible and I suspect that put all but the most die-hard supporters off.
I was still kind of shocked at the level of apathy though. Perhaps, as geeks, we haven't done as good of a job of making Joe Public aware of the issues involved as we should have. Or maybe Joe Public has bought the "think-of-the-children" line or just doesn't care. Whatever the reason it makes me sad to think I'm in a minority for standing up against this thing.
Turn out was disappointing. The Brisbane protest was probably the most successful, but of the thousand people on Facebook who said they'd attend only a hundred turned up. Kudos to those who did.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/rally-rejects-rudds-internet-filter/2008/12/13/1228585168416.html
The Sydney rally was a disaster. Poorly organized, it was supposed to start at 11AM but didn't start till 11:40AM. When they did it was a very poor speech by of all people some wannabe-politician from the "Sex Party", and by some dufus with a guitar who thought this was going to be his break into the music world. Those few who attended just wandered off.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1102985&p=35
> there was 1/2 a million for the anti Iraq rallies, I guess since the public couldn't stop the government on that one they just can't be bothered anymore.
True. The people got out and protested but the then Howard government ignored them. The people said "well, what can you do?", went home and re-elected Howard anyway. LOL Western Two-party Democracy.
But back to the protests... the organizers of the Sydney one should be shot. I went to a few of a the war rallies after the big one and they were a poor effort: organized by students whose egos were overblown at their now found (and very short lived) celebrity. If they try these anti-censorship rallies again, they need some decent organizers. Get rid of the hangers on like marginal parties no one will ever vote for and any wannabe musician who is friends of the organizer. Get someone from the Greens or even the Liberal Party to speak. My enemy's enemy is my friend if you will. This was an opportunity lost through sheer ego. Sure the Greens/Liberals would have got on board if anyone asked them. Next time get EFA: they've got far more experience at lobbying than the Sex Party clowns do.
I noticed the protests received marginal coverage from the mainstream media (at least for the Sydney protest their lack of coverage was deserved). They're probably hoping the net dies anyway.