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

[calavarna]

You've said everything I've been thinking for months but am too hot-headed and overly dependent on my fast and unfiltered internet to put into words without it degenerating into an angry rant about the government. Thank you.

I'm not exactly an expert on politics or the internet, but I find it bizarre that the government can introduce a filter that slows down the internet, while jumping up and down about their super special new plans for a new, faster national broadband network. Seems to me in the best case scenario the filter will cancel out the faster download speeds.

[qthelights]

Well my angry rant was planned, but then there was so much info i wanted to say the rant lost out to brevity!

It seems to be considered by everyone very bad policy on a number of fronts.. I really just cannot believe that the government says it will go ahead with this when the country is against it.. i mean, that's just so ridiculously anti-democratic it's astounding.

[calavarna]

What I can't believe is that the television media hasn't given it more attention. It seems the majority of the current affairs shows are more interested in telling us where to buy the perfect bikini than they are in issues that could possibly affect their own research.

I've got no problem in a crack down on child porn. It's a good idea if done properly. But this? Not even close to the proper way to go about doing it. And the refusal to discuss it, and tell us what's on the list, and that it's widely gone under the radar makes me wonder whether we'll wake up one morning and find ourselves living under a totalitarian regime.

Why filter porn and gambling? Porn isn't illegal and to my knowledge neither is gambling, providing the site is Australian based. Why not filter those sites that tell people how to build bombs instead. Does Conroy have so little faith in the general public that he wants to police everybody's actions? It makes me wild.

Sorry, I'm getting worked up again. :/

[qthelights]

I don't get it either, it's such a major story - they wouldn't even need to spin it that much to get a panic going (and thus boost their ratings).

What worries me the most is that the child porn aspect seems to be being used as a cover to implement the filter - probably because it's hard to argue against it without being spun as pro-child porn. Apart from being deceiving it also means that actual child pornography will not be prosecuted to the proper extent because efforts will be spent on "filtering" and it will become harder to catch.

I have no doubt terrorist sites could easily make the blacklist in future. it's so easy to just "add one more thing" until we can't access anything.

don't worry - i keep getting worked up over this, to anyone who'll listen!

[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.

[verasteine]

Oh. My. God.

Ehm, speechless here. Are they serious?? That's, that's so many violations of civil rights I can't begin to name them all. The thing that freaks me out the most (other than just regularly freaking me out, which the whole idea does anyway) is This blacklist will NOT be available for us to see.

I mean, WTF? Have they morphed into China while you weren't looking?

And then, second thing, since when is it okay to regulate the internet/what people can see/can read/can enjoy?? I mean, let's face it, we (civilised nations -- and I use the term loosely) regulate against child pornography, and that's fine, but you can't take the half of the internet with you in one fell swoop. And, ehm, not to be a stickler or anything, but since child pornography is inherently pictures, searching on keywords seems a little, "hi, insect, meet my flamethrower". I refer everyone to Neil Gaiman for the explanation on why freedom of speech and access to information, even the stuff you personally don't like, is so important

[qthelights]

I believe that there are a few countries that already have such systems in place (britain being one) but the extent of the filtering and so on is much much less (tens of sites, not thousands) and quite different. The EFA have said that the filter will be more restrictive than those used in China and Iran. And having the setup scares me, now they want to filter child porn, porn and gambling.. what next? and as it doesn't WORK to filter that stuff why should we be paying millions of dollars for it? argh. it just makes me insanely mad.
thank you for signing the petition!

[verasteine]

Actually, in the Netherlands we have a filter system as well, but it basically relies on people reporting websites with child porn to an agency, who then in turn alert the ISPs, who make that website inaccessible. Job done, no fuss. It works, I've never stumbled across child porn on the net, and my connection speed is very good. The rest is up to the police

[qthelights]

Well it seems hard to tell, sometimes they've said just the child porn other times it's gambling and regular porn. the point is really that they won't tell us exactly. it's all being done under the guise of making the web safe for kids.

your filter system sounds like a good idea, so much simpler and doesn't break the internet either.

[smirnoffmule]

That is extremely scary. What's the legality of porn over there - will people still be able to access legal porn sites? And gambling, wtf? Is that illegal?

I'm kind of gobsmacked. That's utterly awful and I hope it gets canned before anyone else decides it's a great idea.

[qthelights]

Well porn is legal (unsure about the gambling online) but there have been various reports that they won't stop at illegal material and will remove things that are 'unsuitable'. the problem is we just don't know what they intend to block, they won't tell us. that's almost the scariest part.

[qthelights]

it is insane, thank you for signing!!