Tuesday, 13 July 2010 12:12 PM
"Opposition to the government's plan to protect kids".
This line (in one form or another) has been used countless times since the proposal for a mandatory Internet filter was first put forth by Senator Stephen Conroy. Now it seems that this has got legs because a member of the Australian Childhood Foundation, Dr. Joe Tucci, is spouting the same nonsense.
When will these people get it into their heads that the filter will not really protect our children. Parents have to take responsibility for their kids and not the government.
Based on everything that I have read so far, the proposed system will NOT protect our kids enough to warrant a China-like approach. Surely there are other ways to resolve this issue because, make no mistake, the Internet filter IS a form of censorship.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Censorship | 0 Comments
Friday, 9 July 2010 1:35 PM
The government has placed the mandatory Internet filter on the backburner. They are finally going to do an independent review on all this nonsense.
Senator Stephen Conroy says that the review will likely take up to a year to be carried out and that Telstra, Optus and Primus have agreed to the move.
It's about time that someone got through to him. I guess now we have to wait and see what happens.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Censorship | 2 Comments
Thursday, 8 July 2010 11:48 AM
The article below was initially posted way back in April 2009 on our newsletter. Many of these points are still valid but don't just take my word for it, look it up for yourself.
The Australian Government has been running a trial with some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to censor inappropriate material on the web. In a nutshell, any user who tries to access certain "inappropriate" sites are denied access to that site. These inappropriate websites are stored on a blacklist maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The sites on this list remain a secret.
I would not normally touch anything even remotely political with a 10-foot pole, however, censorship across Australian networks is not a good thing. I am not saying that the idea itself is bad, far from it. The problem is that there are so many intrinsic issues related to this. Firstly, there may well be legal ramifications to censoring content. Then you have to think about the fact that the filter will actually slow our networks down (in some cases quite significantly) even more than they currently are. The additional cost for filtering will be likely be passed down to users. There are numerous other issues, and you can click here to read just one of the many blogs that are popping up on the Internet and protesting about the censorship.
iiNet is Australia's third largest ISP, and has recently withdrawn from the trial. Click here to read more about it. As you can see from the article, the blacklist is far from perfect. Here is another article on the controversial blacklist.
For a more objective overview about Internet censorship in Australia, click here.
Being a parent myself, I understand that other parents would want the Internet to be a safe place for their children. However, I believe that censorship by the government is not the right direction. It should always start in the home, with the parents.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Censorship | 1 Comments