Senator Conroy has upset many Australian citizens with his plans to mandatory filter the Internet by forcing all Australian Internet Service Providers to install a Content Filtering System which will essentially fail by design.
Many concerned people (including those with a technology background) appear to be quite sceptical with the ability (or lack thereof) of an Internet Content Filter to catch all the correct information, especially without wiping out legitimate copy. Much of what the senator says they are aiming to eradicate cannot be accessed by general Internet browsing anyway. Child pornographic channels are believed to be that covert and sophisticated that they secretly operate through peer to peer (private networks) which can also get around the general Content Filtering.
On the flipside many believe that Content Filtering is essentially laying the foundation for total control and accountability purposes. An example of the additional control abilities that the powers that be will attain by the introduction of such a filter is the permissions the government will obtain to wipe anything they see fit from the Internet. I guess it’s about principle. Although the good Senator may say there is checks and balances in place for this to be prevented, it’s still laying the foundation for such abuse to potentially happen.
Others argue that ‘Big Brother’ is stepping in to do the jobs of Mothers and Fathers. In the ‘real world’ an individual has the right to do what they want right? ‘Freedom of will’? Sure we want to prevent much of the bad freedom of will occuring, however god (or whatever you would like to refer to as god), gave men and women the choice. Simply speaking, there is an arguement for an alternative whereby the government could provide ‘free content filtering software’ for Mothers and Fathers to install on their local machines, make all schools and institutions install respective software and employ agencies to stringently monitor the Internet for these obscenities….. Why? because many believe there is hidden agenda involved. Well that’s the picture that I see much of the opposing parties painting.
In any case, Internet Content Filtering is a very controversial topic. This may not be the case for you, however it’s something that warrants the need to be explored extensively and made known to everyone so that they can ‘make their own’ mind up. If you would like further information on Internet Content Filtering and upcoming Protest Rallies, check out the links below.
Block The Filter
Type: Causes – Protest
Network: Global
Date: Saturday, March 6, 2010
Time: 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Location: Your nearest capital city
Taken from Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200213317223&ref=nf
Block the Filter
http://www.block-the-filter.org/home.html
Electronic Frontiers Australia – Senate Internet Censorship Petition
http://www.efa.org.au/epetition/
Lights Out initiative
From Monday, January 25th to Friday, January 29th, Aussie websites will turn their lights out — “black out” — to inform Australians about the threat of imposed Internet censorship.
Join your website to the Blackout
We’ve created a very easy way to participate in the Great Australian Internet Blackout. Ahead of blackout week, please put the following HTML snippet just above the closing </body> tag on your website’s front page:
<script src=”http://www.internetblackout.com.au/ib/blackout.js”></script>
Taken from
http://www.internetblackout.com.au/websites/
Email the Senator
Email you’re dissatisfaction directly to Mr Stephen Conroy
senator.conroy@aph.gov.au.
More Info/Articles
http://www.nocleanfeed.com/
http://getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet/442
http://greensmps.org.au/content/media-release/net-filter-report-signals-trouble-ahead
http://www.inquisitr.com/55109/australian-government-to-delay-internet-censorship-until-after-next-election/
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2521164.htm
