Australia to join elite censors
I never thought I’d see the day……
……..when the government of a Commonwealth country decided to align itself with China, Iran, North Korea and Cuba in filtering internet content.
Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy admitted the Federal Government’s $44.2 million internet censorship plan would now include two tiers – one level of mandatory filtering for all Australians and an optional level that will provide a “clean feed”, censoring adult material.
“We are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material,” he told a Senate Estimates Committee.
Previously the net nanny proposal was going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option to contact their internet service provider and be excluded from the service.
I have a number of Australian readers, I wonder if they agree or disagree with their government on this one, my fear is that once a nation considered to be a liberal democracy goes down this road, the precedent is set for governments such as ours to follow suit. Having already discussed their willingness to intercept our emails, web surfing habits, and mobile phone records Brown’s government would surely jump at the chance of censoring the internet too.
Aurora blames “Red Rudd”
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Curly's Corner Shop, the blog! 
look… I think that people can get paranoid about such filtering…. I can tell you that I’ve had a guts full of sick freaks trying to spam me with filthy internet sites, drugs and introduction sites…
now that our children have access to the internet and to any site in the world they get targeted… children are now looking at full on porn with people doing unimaginable things to each other which are down loaded onto their mobile phones and shared around with their classmates..
children being exposed to all of this crap does irreparable damage to their respect towards each other and to the community at large and this is why we are now seeing a large majority of people around the world wondering what in the hell has gone wrong with our children..
it’s near impossible for a parent to filter this content for our children so it has to be done on a larger scale…. our governments need to take the cat by the tail here..
Blue...
October 31, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I have some problems with government interference. I have a laptop I lease from the government. I pay for it. Now, I work in a school and school networks go through a government censored site. I cannot access photo sites from school at all. I cannot access a lot of innocent sites. I find it frustrating as sometimes the very thing I want is a photo to show students.
Now i know the filter that would be imposed on the general population would be nowhere near this stringent.
But I have had some exprience with censorship about 12 years ago. I had free membership with AOL for a couple of months. They are an American provider and one day while surfing the net, i wanted to look up some information about breast cancer. I couldn’t. In their wisdom, AOL had decided the word ‘breast’ would only ever be searched for porn reasons.
So I am worried about filters as they sometimes block legitimate stuff.
Having said that, I would not object to the government explicitly blocking specific sites-very jigh level porn or incitement to violence. But I think if they did that, the list of blocked sites would need to be on public record.
It’s a difficult area, but on the whole, the less censorship, the better.
sherri
October 31, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I would whole heartedly endorse the sentiments of Sherri.
If you stop and think. All of these things that are taking place in the world today are pointing to a one world government, or as they call it today a New World Order. And it would be naive of anyone to say that this is not happening.
Bruce Douglas
November 1, 2008 at 3:10 am
This government filter does nothing to stop the trafficking or production of child porn,nor protect childre from cyber bullying or predation – the reasons for which it is being introduced. As to the exposure of children to “legal adult pornography” educating parents and using filters on the client end would be the best solution.
Giving up our freedoms because we are too lazy as parents to educate ourselves? maybe we do deserve a nanny state?
Sean the Blogonaut
November 1, 2008 at 3:39 am
strewth, doesn’t everybody realise ??
rudds a complete dickhead, and although i hate getting email about sheila’s having sex with animals, i would rather have the choice of sensoring these things myself, think i’ll write to rudd and tell him to pull his finger out and start worrying about things that matter, the australian public !
to hell with this global warming crap, internet filters, overseas aid and whatever else this treehugginmg son of a bitch wants to waste money on, charity begins at home, and no one appreciates a government wasting money.
madmarvin
November 1, 2008 at 4:35 am
This Australian thoroughly disagrees with his government’s plan to censor the internet. The ALP went to the election with an optional filter policy. They have broken that implied promise by replacing the policy with a mandatory filter for everyone. On 2 November 2007, just weeks before the election, ALP candidate Peter Garret told journalist Steve Price “once we get in we’ll just change all that”. At the time he was referring to climate policy. It now seems to have wider application.
This filter is a bad idea. It will be trivially bypassed with a VPN, but we’re still going to be encumbered with the increased cost and reduced network performance it will inevitably impose upon us. It will do absolutely nothing whatsoever to prevent the production of unlawful material. It will suffer from false positives and false negatives. It is an insult to the intelligence and integrity of all internet users in Australia.
To any Australians reading this: please write to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and your local representative and express to them politely but firmly your disapproval of this plan. Keep this issue in mind when we go back to the polls in 2010. I certainly will.
Allan Lewis
November 2, 2008 at 3:19 am
allan, i have to disagree with your advice to write to the government in a “polite” but firm way.
i would rather suggest that everyone writes to these government turds in an insulting fashion, calling them things such as liars, arseholes, inept inbreds, theives and dickheads, this would get the message across more efficiently if EVERYONE wrote to them in this manner..
being nice to these pricks only invites ignorance.
but make the idiots see that people are ready to abuse them, then the bastards might just wake up to themselves.
madmarvin
November 2, 2008 at 4:14 am
I think you can safely wonder that most Australian’s are against this. Unfortunately there are some scare mongerers trying to convince the dopey sections of the public it’s a good idea.
A recent article in the press had a ‘renowned’ psychologist trying to infer that internet porn was causing an increase in teenagers engaging in oral and anal sex. I will be rebutting this ridiculous claim in a future blog of mine, but have already commented on the original article and the psych’s blog.
ozatheist
November 2, 2008 at 4:50 am
what i think is interesting is the online activism surrounding this.
Twitter tweets – online petitions – blog posts etc.
It shows the power of online to rally action!
Is this what Big Brother is really opposing I wonder?
jacqueline
November 3, 2008 at 6:24 am
FYI there is a good podcast on this issue here http://tinyurl.com/6guxcj
jacqueline
November 12, 2008 at 1:21 am
Greetings! I am an American. I sympathize on this issue with freedom loving Aussies. Allan Lewis wrote an excellent reply above. I hope all of you get involved, contact your representatives, and stop the proposed assault on your rights to access information. Good on ya!
Josh N.
November 20, 2008 at 1:48 pm