Web Censorship

[qthelights]

Right, so those of us in Australia know that the current government (specifically Senator Conroy) is going to implement a mandatory Internet Filter at the ISP level. This is supposed to block paedophilic content, gambling, pornography and other "illegal content" - obviously this has the potential to include a lot of stuff including political

Comments

[demotu]

That is really scary, and I had no idea it was going on. Holy crap. I hope that gets canned, and sooner rather than later.

[qthelights]

Well it has kind of flown a little under the radar, not so much in the papers but the television media have ignored it a fair bit. What scares me the most is that they say they're going ahead regardless, and that they are doing all this with no input from the public and flat out ignoring the input from the technology sector. And yet they wonder why we might worry it'd be used in a totalitarian way...

[demotu]

Sounds like China, sheesh. I can't believe this isn't in the newspapers and that people aren't getting outraged - is it the ''if you're not for it you're for pedophilia'' rhetoric that's scaring people?

EFF needs an Australian branch, stat! (Maybe they are global, I don't know.)

All that stuff about there being no way to contest it is the worst. What kind of a system is that? And what are they worried about? It's not as if pedophiles are going to come and say ''hey, you blocked my site!'' Sounds like they just want it to be as little work as possible, and cost as little as possible, and if that means not giving the public any access, so be it.

[demotu]

Haha, you mentioned EFF in your post. Silly me.

[qthelights]

It's quite possible that the peadophilia aspect is just the front of the idea. I believe some normal porn and gambling will be blocked too.. basically it's a great way to bring in a filtering system - because as you say, when it's being put as a filter against child porn, of course people are going to think it's a good idea.

It's in the newspapers definitely - nearly all of them against the idea, as anyone with a brain has to be. Not so much in the television media though. And as the govt is REFUSING to debate the issue I think people haven't realised how bad an idea this is just yet.

The EFA say it will be more restrictive than China and Iran's filtering. great list to join.

[demotu]

Except porn in general isn't illegal, so isn't it a complete and utter mark against freedom of speech to block it? So couldn't someone just take it to your supreme court if the idea goes through and force them to make the filter illegal? Of course, that's a bandaid after the fact, but if it goes through it's probably what will have to happen. (That and once people start experiencing the effects, they're likely to vote the government that did it out. :P)

Weird, cause the media would have a lot to lose with bad blocking and a slower internet.

[qthelights]

I've seen it said that it actually won't matter, they'll block legal and illegal things. And how would we know? we don't get to know the criteria they're using or what the sites they block are.

The problem with taking it to court seems to be that once the filtering is in place it will be very difficult to get rid of (i'm not sure why, but it seems to be a technical thing...).

Yeah, i'm not sure why the media haven't jumped on this either. I'm not sure why it isn't a HUGE deal to people.. part of why i had to post about it really, it needs to be talked about - loudly!