iiNet Pulls Out of Australian Censorship Trial

taucross writes "ISP iiNet today confirmed its exit from the Australian government's Internet filtering trials. iiNet had originally taken part in the plan in order to prove the filter was flawed. Citing a number of concerns, their withdrawal leaves only five Australian ISPs continuing to test the filter."

Comments

They never took part in the trial anyway

[deek]

iiNet had registered interest in participating in the trial, but they were not selected for first round of testing. Now it appears as if they've pulled out of the whole process completely.

It seems the major reason for the backout is because wikileaks published the ACMA blacklist. There were many URLs on the list which were not associated with illegal sites, but instead, politically undesirable sites.

Hooray for wikileaks! They've proven how easy it is to abuse compulsory censorship, even in a democracy of elected officials.

This isn't a technical problem for the government

[Dracophile]

...because we all know that the filter can be circumvented. I'm sure the government also knows this. The problem for us will be political. If the government can have legislation rammed through the parliament, then it doesn't matter even if every ISP drops out of the filter test. They can just ram it through (in principle at least) anyway and make it unlawful to attempt to circumvent it. If they could do it, they would, and no amount of non-testing or technical faults would stop them.

However, given that a) they do not have the numbers in the senate on their own to ram it through, b) there is no way the Greens will support it from the cross-benches, and c) the Lib-Nat coalition seems bent on opposing the crap out of everything the government does out of, well, who knows why those clowns do anything at the moment, I cannot see the return they're getting on the investment of political capital in this scheme. Independent Senator Nick Xenophon seems to have lost interest in the filter lately, so that leaves only Senator Steve Fielding of Family First. This filter would naturally appeal to Fielding, but what on earth does the ALP think they can gain by courting him this way? He's shown that he isn't that interested in dealing with the ALP but is instead prepared to scuttle legislation unless he gets his way.

So what's this really all about? Is it really just some bloody-minded insistence upon seeing the program through to its bitter end regardless of its seemingly inevitable failure on both technical and political fronts? Surely, they'd look less daft just admitting it's a failure now than seeing it through to an end of certain failure? I don't see why they're pressing on with it.