www.flickr.com

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Censorship Smokescreen by New Age Labor

The New Age Labor Government has proposed mandatory filtering of objectionable (to be determined) internet sites, focussing on protecting children.

Stephen Collins, who obviously understands a lot more about the technical issues and who is also a parent has a well balanced piece discussing the proposed internet filtering plan.

Yesterday’s announcement verifying the Australian Federal Government will be mandatorily requiring ISPs to filter the nastiness from the ‘Net is plain and simple stupidity. Not only is it simply not achievable, it’s nanny stating at its worst and significantly limiting of free speech (something we don’t have a guaranteed right to in Australia AFAIK).

I am all for protecting children. We do it by only allowing internet access in our living room with parental supervision and talking openly about any slightly off the wall stuff that inevitably comes up.

Personally I think that this is just a smokescreen to mask some of the really hard decisions coming up about how to proceed with the huge promised broadband investment and the fight with Yanqui Sol and the boys from Telstra as they set about their plan to reestablish the Telstra monopoly on the the most profitable parts of the telecommunications infrastructure in Australia.

Duncan Riley from Techcrunch also has some thoughts including some good links and a very robust comment thread.

And here is the Public Announcement from Teh Department of Internets (Interwebs??)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do not agree with the censorship but would appreciate the ability to opt-out of pornographic/violent content.(rather than having an opt-in big brother system) It is not possible to watch older children/ young teenagers / 24 hours a day. Nanny programs cut out too much content or do not work satisfactorily. The alternative is to ban my youngest from the internet altogether but I do not want to do this. He is showing natural interest in such matters but finding sites that I consider 'unhealthy' for him. Being intellectually disabled, this has recently caused some problems with his behavior.

Anonymous said...

I only typed in my url there rather than nickname and url and the above came out as anonymous. It is possible the check mark was not in the correct box though!

Colin Campbell said...

Glad it worked. I agree that the issue is more challenging with older children, but even my seven year old finds stuff that I think is inappropriate and that is without all the pop up adds and junk. It is a real parenting challenge and I doubt that attempts to censor will fix that.

Glad the commenting thing is working.

Flat Earth Highlands Dave said...

Highland Free Press
http://www.weddingscot.info/
Scotland is under attack.
PLEASE See website for information

WHAT?


Dave Allison

Telephone: 07828 949584
Ross-shire Highlands >< SCOTLAND
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Two passions are not likely to die out of the world, the love of country and the love of freedom. They can be kept pure by one thing, which can tame yet not weaken them, tender love of all mankind."
George Trevelyan in 1943

Jayne said...

Ditto what Sueblimely said.Tired of the net nasties popping up but I certainly don't want a censorship across the board like some other countries use "for their citizens own good".
Got similar probs here with behaviour reactions from constant monitoring and complaints of trust issues :(

Ellee Seymour said...

I can't see this kind of censorship being effective anyway. Let's hope it never happens.

Colin Campbell said...

Ellee. I really think it is a puff of hot air. The statement was announced on December 31. A good day to bury bad news.

Shades said...

Gosh, they've only ben in office five minutes and they are already bansturbating. It might encourage a Libertarian Party down under if enough people get fed up with being told what to do.

Anonymous said...

The initial profitable ascent was realized by a quartet of climbers from Austria and Germany. Among the them was [url=http://www.thenorthfaceonlinestore.org]cheap north face jackets[/url] , the unparallelled Austrian skier, climber and explorer that is recognized by most from his reserve Seven Years in Tibet. Even with of currently being stunned by an avalanche at the summit, the four managed to brace by themselves and arrived out unhurt. The ascent took them several days and nights, for the duration of which they bivouacked for the fearsome [url=http://www.thenorthfaceonlinestore.org]cheap north face jackets[/url] by hanging suspended from ropes or crouching on small rock ledges.