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Australian Government Delays Internet Filter Legislation
An anonymous reader writes "It seems the Australian federal government is being forced to delay the introduction of its proposed and much-hated, much-maligned Internet filter. It will not be introduced in the next two sittings of parliament, which realistically delays it until after the next election. News on withdrawing the filter, which was a promise from the previous election, has disappointed lobbying groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby."
Yeah, only a misguided geek or a member of NAMBLA would of modded this as Troll. Don't get me wrong though Mr Troll-Flagger, I hate Conroy with a passion but I do get what brendan_hill is saying, and that is filtering is fundamentally a good idea.
Lets look at it this way, how great would it be to have a safe internet? At the moment its like walking down the streets of a bad neighborhood, if your not familiar with the area, you'll most likely get robbed, literally.
And having those looming DDoS attacks from organized crime groups is a kin to the old fashioned bank robberies we had in the wild west. Extorting businesses to hand over cash or they'll shoot someone, in these days its now threaten to kill their IT infrastructure.
Ideally a filter would give us a foundation to eventually build facilities and technology to trump these things but Conroy's attitude was far misguided to create a valuable tool to the internet and was in-turn looked upon as a restriction of freedom.
We still have IP6 to look forward too and the technological benefits it _could_ bring to internet security, but again its something too far off and I'm sure someone is bound to stuff that up to (I know I'm a cynic).
You think the state censoring racial hatred or child pornography in various forms of media is WRONG? I assume you're joking.
Of course censorship rules aren't limited to mainstream media. They essentially apply to all mediums. They already apply to internet content hosted in Australia, this simply extends what we already have to internet content hosted internationally as well. So what's the big deal? (tin foil hate references to human rights abuses aside)
You object to the filter blocking information on euthanasia. You should object to it on that basis, because the government has no right to criminalise such discussions.
Yes but by any reasonable measure, they have the right (in fact the moral obligation) to criminalize "discussions" of committing terrorist acts, or "discussions" of how to promote child pornography.
The thing is, the government has no right to criminalise any discussion, only actions.
Freedom of speech is the guarantor of all other freedoms, and that's why it must always be defended against petty tyrants like Kevin Rudd and Stephen Conroy.
Oh rubbish. Nobody serious defends the right of an Islamic extremist to "discuss" what buildings to blow up next. Get real.