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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."
The Australian Christian Lobby can go fuck themselves sideways with a 40-foot barge pole. Fucking morons.
With the election looming and the popularity of the Labor party taking a dive the Government is dumping all sorts of unpopular policies including their much touted Emissions Trading Scheme, the disastrous Insulation Scheme and of course this ridiculous Internet filter. Of course if Australia votes them in again, they'll say they have a mandate for this filter but the opposition is pretty much a joke. *Sigh*
With any luck we can get this farcical idea shot down somehow before then... I just wish every day Joe and Jane understood the slippery slope that is censorship. Unfortunately the government lackeys and christian rights groups continue to scream "CHILDREN!!!" and "PEDOPHILIA!!!!" and no real logic ever comes into play. Oh well, I already have a remote box in Europe anyway... this won't effect me. I just feel bad for the technical illiterate folk who suffer. I wish it was OPT-IN.
Elections in Australia happen every three years, no four. That means they will be this year.
Rudd knows just how unpopular the filter is, even if it only loses him 10% of the votes it's enough to scare him as he got in by a gnats wing in 2007.
The question is will Rudd shelve the plan or just carry on regardless after the next election. Personally I don't want to find out but I cant vote for that hyper religious nut-case, Tony Abbott as he'll probably turn around and do something worse so personally my vote is going either to the Greens or an independent against the filter.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Frankly the Coalition scare me more then Conroy. Both the leader of the Liberals and the Nationals are ultra conservatives (not in the good way, they are religious nutbars) so voting them in would be just as bad, probably worse then another 3 years of Rudd. Personally my vote is going to a minor party (likely the greens) who, if given enough power can keep out bad legislation, just like the last filter vote.
Also Rudd and Conroy are getting a lot of heat from the Labor back bench, even Kate Lundy has openly questioned the filter after towing the party line and defending it. The prospect of Rudd facing revolt from his own party this close to an election is not a good one.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Last week I was discussing the filter with a friend who is an intelligent and sensible, non-religious person. Unfortunately he had swallowed the whole "think of the children" argument and thought the filter was a good idea. When I put the standard negative arguments to him, he agreed that it wasn't as simple as he'd thought. Problem is, he's probably representative of a large majority of ordinary people with voting rights in Australia. It's imperative that the debate about the filter is kept up and every Australian citizen is brought up to speed, otherwise I fear that we'll end up having it simply because nobody really bothered to give it much thought.
1) Stephen Conroy is spot on when he says the internet shouldn't be treated any different to any other forms of media. It isn't a magical beast, it's just another form of media (albeit more accessible and chaotic).
So there's nothing fundamentally wrong with filtering it. I mean hell, it's already illegal to *host* this sort of content in Australia.
Nope, Internet is not quite like other media, at the extent that all the other media require a physical support for the information. Thus, any censorship of other media will result in somebody, not affiliated with the government, in Australia knowing about the censorship: in extreme, the censorship of that item may be made public and, possibly, debated if necessary.
By contrast, Conroy's scheme assumes censoring the Internet without anyone's knowledge (at least no one affiliated with the gov, or law enforcement), letting you defenseless in the matter of exercising your control over the power. Not that the power one simply citizen would be quite remarkable, but if you give it away - so small as it would be - you remain with what?
The above letting aside that I take pride of being able to take care of what I'm doing or suffer the consequences. I don't need my own mother to take care anymore of my actions, why should I trust the government to do nanny me???
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
1. The filter is not restricted to illegal material - RC material is not ilelgal in itself, no matter how many times Senator Conroy repeats the line "including material such as child pornography".
2. It is certain to be abused. Even before the filter has been created, the blacklist is intrinsically abusive in its abandonment of due process and legal recourse.
3. Ineffective laws are bad laws. If everyone breaks the law, everyone is a criminal. Is that what you want?
The filter is an abomination of human rights. Everyone should be opposed to it. If you're not, you're wrong.
This angers me significantly: this is not a debate about the theory of filtering.
This is a tooth and nail fight against a specific proposal put forward by the current government.
Every variation of the filtering plan that has been put forward in the media has been savaged by opponents, who are entirely correct in their criticisms. What Conroy has failed to do is provide a convincing counter-argument. In media interviews, when grilled, he often struggles with defining just exactly what it is he is proposing.
One moment it's a URL blacklist to protect children from accidental porn; another moment it's to prevent access to abhorrent material which is currently RC content. Conroy has not listened to one iota of the overwhelming feedback from members of the public; and is utterly clueless as to how to move forward from here.
I absolutely cannot tolerate such a waste of time and money on an unworkable solution driven forward by an individual who does not listen to reason for entirely political purposes.
Brushing this off as "filtering is ok in theory" is a red herring: the currently publicised intentions of the government are not ok; and all efforts by Conroy to implement such should be fiercely resisted.
1) Stephen Conroy is spot on when he says the internet shouldn't be treated any different to any other forms of media. It isn't a magical beast, it's just another form of media (albeit more accessible and chaotic).
No, I see one crucial difference in the way these two mediums are being treated that I haven't seen brought up anywhere else yet.
In other forms of media the censoring applies to the creator of the media. What the filter proposes to do is censor the audience, not the creator.
Now I'm of the opinion that total freedom of speech isn't necessarily a right I feel everyone needs. The greater good of our society trumps the rights of the individual when it comes to banning things such as child pornography, hate speech (at its most extreme), and shouting fire in a crowded cinema. I have no problem with these things being illegal, and the authorities coming down on those responsible for such things.
But don't persecute the audience. (with the exception of child pornography, where there is a clear link between the creator and the consumer)
Freedom to listen is a much more important right than freedom of speech
1) Stephen Conroy is spot on when he says the internet shouldn't be treated any different to any other forms of media. It isn't a magical beast, it's just another form of media (albeit more accessible and chaotic). So there's nothing fundamentally wrong with filtering it. I mean hell, it's already illegal to *host* this sort of content in Australia.
The point to walk away from this with is not that internet filtering is alright in principle, but rather that state filtering is wrong in principle in ALL forms of media.