The Coalition isn’t convinced net filtering will protect kids

Napolean says:

06:39am | 28/01/10

I thought only about 8,000 sites were being blacklisted because the government realises any more would slow the system down too much. Those 8,000 sites will find a way to distribute the same information through another URL or source. So no problems with civil liberties, but you are right - parents may be lulled into a false sense of security

Jaz says:

07:38am | 28/01/10

Well meaning people who need a government to assist them with their own personal responsibility currently hold the balance. Australia is now one of 12 countries that is classified as an oppressive state along with China, Myanmar and the like.
“The road to ruin is paved with good intent”
Happy Australia day.

Robert says:

10:47am | 28/01/10

Be right back, getting a british VPN to get around filtering for $25. Cya later.

Trent Fisher says:

10:48am | 28/01/10

since when are we following China’s lead on freedom of speech & human rights ??

YOU ARE THE OPPOSITION, STAND UP AND OPPOSE CENSORSHIP. (Trust me there is enough anger about it to win an election over it :D)

let’s hope you do.

formersnag says:

11:07am | 28/01/10

When will the opposition wake up to how angry, all of us are, about nearly everything, our corrupt politicians & bureaucrats on both sides, have been doing for the last 40 years or so?

Harquebus says:

01:00pm | 28/01/10

You can’t argue with religious nuts. Comrade Conjob needs to be ridiculed and relegated to the lunatic fringe where all the religious loons belong.

Ben says:

06:48pm | 28/01/10

I’m with the author on this one. Please do your best to convince your colleagues to vote against this as well.

Everyone in the party is embarrassed by the policy - Rudd hasn’t said a word, Conroy is in his cave most of the time and when he does make an announcement he scuttles back into the cave for hiding, and the party took filtering off the agenda of the ALP National Conference then put it back on after the fact.

Richard H says:

09:47pm | 28/01/10

Isn’t convinced? Do you want YOUR internet censored and slowed by up to 87%, Australia? Sadly, this is not a hoax and in spite of the glaring shortcomings, legislation is set to be introduced to parliament this February. Were you aware that during their ’07 electioneering for the Christian vote in a live simulcast, John Howard and Kevin Rudd committed 189,000,000 tax dollars to an anti-pornography scheme? That would want to be foolproof technology, wouldn’t it? The underlying platform has been proven to be entirely ineffective. Ironically, the Australian Communications and Media Authority found such filters frequently let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly block harmless content and slow network speeds by up to 87 per cent. Their report, released in February ‘08, conceded that Web 2.0 technology poses the greatest threat to the younger generation: “Filters are currently unable to sift the content of communication between users using instant messaging or chat services ... The risks to Australian youth are primarily those associated with Web 2.0 services - potential contact by sexual predators, cyber-bullying by peers and misuse of personal information,” ACMA said. Mr. Rudd’s scheme simply ignores this. The Internet should NOT be censored by Rudd, Conroy and the Australian Christian Lobby, a political action group who are funded by the loopy evangelical right in the USA. This from Senator Christine Milne, “The Australian Christian Lobby is a private company, it’s a lobbying company, and like every other lobbying company it lobbies on behalf of its clients and it was not clear to us who’s funding the Australian Christian Lobby and where they were coming from ...before we see this incursion of really fundamentalist religious right into Australian politics, people need to know where it’s coming from, and I think Mr. Wallace could clear that up by actually saying who’s funding the Australian Christian Lobby [www.abc.net.au Nov ‘07] And from the Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby himself, Mr. Jim Wallace: “To be truly effective, it is important that the list of sites to be blacklisted be continuously updated and that the parameters for blacklisting sites and material are similarly continuously reviewed,” he said [Australian Christian Lobby Press Release, February ‘08]. According to an article in The Age, December ‘09, “A version of the Government’s list of banned sites was leaked on to the web in March, revealing that the scope of the filtering could extend significantly beyond child porn. About half were not related to child porn and included links to poker sites, YouTube, gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia, euthanasia sites, fringe religions, fetish sites, anti-Christian sites, a tour operator and a Queensland dentist.” At the last election, Mr. Wallace told ABC TV’s Lateline program he expected the Christian vote to have a big impact on the coming election; unsurprisingly, it was at this event that the politicians revealed the $189 million anti-pornography initiative. Senator Allison says the separation of church and state is becoming blurred: “The Prime Minister this morning said that there were a great number of Members of Parliament in Coalition ranks with very strong ties to the Christian church ... I know this is a Christian country but people with very strong religious views are heavily over-represented, if I can put it that way, in the Parliament,” she said. Does it particularly matter that the scheme and the technology is a completely lame duck? “Yes Minister” Kevin Rudd is intent on blindly going where no leader outside of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia has gone before -  in full knowledge it is totally ineffective. Holly Doel-Mackaway with Save the Children, the largest independent children’s rights agency in the world, said educating kids and parents was the way to empower young people to be safe internet users. Doel-Mackaway noted the claims by the internet industry that the filters would be easily bypassed, would not block content found on peer-to-peer networks and chat rooms and would be in danger of being broadened to include legitimate content such as regular pornography, political views, pro-abortion sites and online gambling. If we all sit back and allow back-room bureaucrats and the ‘idiot fringe’ to decide what we are entitled to see online at the ISP level, as opposed to OPT-IN filtering, we’re going to Hell courtesy of born again ‘let-me-shove-my-views-down-your-throat’ clowns. If an individual or family chooses to opt-in to this filtering, the system will be nonetheless ineffective; however, at least the rest of us will not be subjected to mandatory censorship. All you need to do is click on the ‘Internet Blackout’ link below - and learn the facts. That’s it! JOIN the millions of moderate, sane Australians who give a %$#@. http://www.internetblackout.com.au/ http://stopthecleanfeed.com/

Carl Palmer says:

08:06am | 29/01/10

@ papachango says

Thanks for your input. I must admit that I didn’t think about the public blacklist been used “as a shopping list for sickos”. Clearly my head ain’t in that space….

Much appreciated - cheers

Greg N says:

10:02am | 29/01/10

Its sounds like a simple solution…. So it wont work!

proud aussie says:

11:53am | 29/01/10

The devil is always in the detail with the Rudd Govt.  Be careful what you agree with where their flawed policies are concerned.

IFrom my observation,  the Rudd Govt often does the opposite to what they say publicly. There always seems to be a sinitster motive to every bad policiy they try to force upon Australians..

thomas vesely says:

09:25am | 18/02/10

this in australia,who’d have thunk it.that it is even proposed seems hard to believe.

Loerderon says:

11:48pm | 20/03/10

Err why is that so many people just assume that parents are all so stupid that they will simply and suddenly be lulled into a false sense of security by an internet filter with just 10,000 entries?

If they are so dopey, then you can educate as much you like, they will not change. You cannot have it both ways, either parents have a modicum of sense and will at least as attentive as they are now, or they are obtuse and will throw all caution to the winds and education won’t help anyway.

I am a parent and think this assumption is either a big fat red herring or a tub of presumptious lard…

LC says:

12:25pm | 21/05/10

They will need to come out in serious oppoisition to the filter (not just “not convinced it will work) and ditch Tony Abbot as their leader before I seriously consider giving them my vote.