Google Yahoo Join Broadband Internet Anti-Filter Movement

When the like of search engine corporations such as Google and Yahoo pledge their support behind a movement such as the Safer Internet Group which is against the government’s current policy of content filtering for the Internet, you know there must be something fundamentally wrong.

Firstly, I’d like to point out that the search engine giants are not directly opposing the government’s Internet content filtering propositions, moreover they are seemingly suggesting that there are far better and more effective methods for achieving a practical outcome. Furthermore, they are also concerned with the primary fundamentals behind the the individual rights of people and the importance of the flowing of information.

Sue Hutley from ALIA ‘Australian Library and Information Association’, says a more effective way to protect our children from the Internet shortcomings was to work together with and through education, policing, technical measures and ISP’s along with government and police agencies.

For example, suggestions that child sex abuse stems from general Internet use (which an Internet Content Filtering system would intervene) is largely untrue as this type of activity is not found in the public domain, but more so in the chat rooms and across organised ‘peer to peer’ networks that the filter could not prevent.

The government’s Internet Content filtering message is essentially giving parents the wrong idea and thus possibly planting a false sense of security according to statements made by the SIA. As more and more evidence presents itself to the contrary, along with the gradually awareness in the public domain, perhaps the government might want to take a step back and ‘listen’ for a change or perhaps get filtered out of the publics collective consciousness come the next election.

… Oh, and by the way, it doesn’t help when you hear remarks such as wishing ‘Australia was more like China’ in regards to censorship and filtering coming from the Federal Minister of Broadband and Communication himself, Senator Stephen Conroy.