Techcrunch has a scathing report on the Australian government’s new plan to filter the internet in this country:
The Australian Government has announced that they will be joining China as one of the few countries globally that broadly censor the internet.
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As recently as the week prior to the election, Labor Party candidates were telling those concerned about the proposed law that the censorship wouldn’t be compulsory, and that the “clean feed” would be opt-in, not opt-out. Today’s announcement by Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy states that the censorship regime will be mandatory, although people will be able to opt-out of it. The problem of course then becomes if you opt-out questions will be asked as to why you want out, which in itself may lead to Government monitoring.
There are a myriad of other reasons to oppose this. Not least of all is that forcing internet service providers to install this sort of filtering is going to increase the already high cost of broadband in this country. Furthermore, the government is already reported to be saying that the filter will extend beyond just pornography to include a broad class of website it considers “violent”. This definition will likely include ‘extremist websites’ or websites perceived by the state to be advocating violence or terrorism. However, once the technology is in place, the government will be able to exercise considerable control over what sorts of ideas and content Australians can access.
9 comments ↓
I’m all for banning pornography.
Watch out Touchstone I came out in support of the clean feed on my blog and now I have an angry mob after me. Duncan Riley from TechCrunch has personally attacked me on his blog because I dared to disagree with him.
What a load of cobblers. It is very worrying - people should be free to look at what they want and form their own opinions therein. New Labor New Danger?
It is unfortunate that the moral panic in vogue now is terrorism, and not child pornography or something similar–if the state’s going to filter something out I’d prefer it to be that.
But definitely, if this goes through it is quite worrying especially when you consider that most Australian politicians really don’t have a clue what they are talking about when they discuss the topic of terrorism (banning websites promoting ‘jihad’ would certainly seem within the realm of possibility).
Censorship? How is this good for a free society?
They key point we need to focus on here is that once this is in place, the government is able to censor whatever they deem unfit.
As for terrorism and child pornography there are already laws in place to deal with such people.
The government will use the fear of such wicked things to get the masses in line. No one seems to worry about the repercussions of giving up their freedoms or the consequences of giving the government so much power over their lives.
Oh there are always people trying to protect you from yourselves. Better yet they will protect your vulnerable children from (fill in the blank social ill). Sad part is there are far too many people willing to trade in their liberties for the thin gruel of “security.” So enjoy your crappy Internet speeds with the knowledge that any half respecting cracker with a modicum of “skills” will blow past the safeguards and download all that evil whatever the government is trying to protect the wee ones against.
Of course you could install parental involvement 1.0 it is put out by big bang industries a division the Allah Corp, it has been rigorously tested and comes with one hell of a tech manual.
There is no angry mob after you Deborah, just people expressing their own views which happen to disagree with yours. No need for hysteria, it’s called free speech, but perhaps you only believe in it for yourself? James is right. If you don’t want your children to see and hear things of which you don’t approve, start doing your own parenting and don’t expect the rest of us to take responsibility for your life choices.
“…once this is in place, the government is able to censor whatever they deem unfit. ”
“However, once the technology is in place, the government will be able to exercise considerable control over what sorts of ideas and content Australians can access.”
Seriously, these are nothing more than slippery slope arguments. If the government ever tries to block out info relevant to our political freedoms, that will be the time for “scathing reports”.
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