Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy said this today in what was obviously a New Years media dump that he hoped would avoid serious scrutiny.
If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree.
Yep, the Rudd Government has announced its “save the kiddies from the internet” filtering policy, and they have gone for a blunt and broad instrument.
Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.
And.
Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service, and will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet.
The Rudd government has plans to filter all internet media, and each of us will have to bear the cost of this unworkable policy through the higher fees compliance is sure to bring. Worse still is that it’s not opt in, which begs the question, what happens if you want to opt out?
Duncan Riley has more over at TechCrunch, and Paul Montgomery chimes in with another good piece.
So the rot has started already.As some have predicted.
At least he’s still not John Howard!
The heat must be applied toward bad policy no matter the government, Rudd and Conroy should be ashamed of themselves to even float this nonsense.
What makes me think they are actually serious is that there is no political mileage to be gained by this now, this is the kind of thing that governments do 6 months out from and election, it’s also significant to me that they are looking to hide this during the seasonal break, a cowardly device designed to avoid the kind of scrutiny you get when everyone is at full attention.
If it is an ambit claim then it’s a stupid one that tramples on the rights of the many in the need to expose the very few, an appalling overreaction to the mass hysteria that is child abuse, most of which occurs in peoples homes by uncles, fathers etc.
The Conroy pull quote I highlighted at the top is a testament to his insincerity in attempting to produce good policy, a cheap attempt to intimidate those who oppose this doggerel of a policy by painting them as kiddie porn watchers.
Genuinely awful, and doesn’t get much worse than that.
“At least he’s still not John Howard!”
I predict in two to three year’s time, it’s will be hard to tell the difference although Rudd will probably have less eyebrow hair.
Rudd didn’t get the title ‘Howard-lite’ for nothing.
So far the actions of the AG (re Hicks & same sex equality), and Conroy’s ’save the kiddies from the Internet’ conjure, unwillingly, horror images of Howard, Ruddock, Andrews et al which I hoped I would never see again.
I hope Rudd & family enjoy their occupation of Kirribilli House tonight.
PS Duncan Riley’s featured YouTube video appears too close to the truth.
I failed in my hope and belief in that we were entering a new era by not remembering, from the experience of the Rodent’s gang, that one should never trust a politician who wears his religion for all to see.
Anyone reckon he’s just toepoking the various policy waters to see just where he can ape Howard without public reproach?
@H&R, sure, possible, testing his limits. But why? Why now? Why bother? What’s the political gain? Howard’s gone, disliked and forgotten. Why ape something that’s a proven loser?
My take? Internet/broadband policy is the new television, the new plaything for politicians and political parties, a new frontier that’s still largely unfamiliar to many people.
My two points:
1. Let’s assume this gets introduced. What happens when the next Howard introduces next version of WorkChoices? His first action will be to have a regulation that extends the filtering from just topping kiddy porn, to also blocking all Union, Your Rights at Work, etc websites. Thankyou Stephen Smith.
A number of the net filtering companies already do this - the problem is that the lists of sites to block is usually secret so people can’t find out the filtering rules. There has been some attempts to crack the filtering rules and when they’ve succeeded, this is what they’ve found - left of center political views are blocked.
2. It seems in summary what’s being suggested is we go from an opt-in to an opt-out filtering method. I want to know what privacy protections are going to be put in place for the people who are on that list.
What on earth are youy all surprised about? Haven’t you heard of the Catholic Right in the NSW ALP? (And I mean no disrespect to Catholics on this site). Years ago Graham Richardson blocked X-rated movies on pay TV. This is just more of the same, though mind you I think kiddy porn should be blocked. At the same time, I can sere the point of the free speech angle. Labor HAS to learn, after Hawke and Keating, that if you introduce legislation giving the comnservatives an inch, they’ll turn it into an acre once they get into office eg Worchoices, Weelfare Reform. Just to think of two off the top of my head, where Hawke and Keating led the way, and Howard seized their leadf and created massive social and economic abuse. Maybe some of you with ALP ties could point this out to Rudd?
See, this is the problem when you tell someone they’re morally superior for several years, and then elect them. They believe it.
?”Mr Gaz, you appear to be suffering from delusions as well as unseemly vulgarity. Have you ever seen a horse, Mr Gaz, a stallion at that, a very big stallion! You’d strangle me?’
While we’re canvassing delusions, could you maybe let the stupid “blogging horse” schtick go? It sounds like something derived from the rich philosophical mother-lode only available to aficionados of old Leunig calendars and it’s really becoming irritating.
Not surprised at this development. Twas an election promise after all.
Goss/Rudd tried something similiar years ago in Queensland, at least at the ‘mouthing off’ level. Needless to say it came to nothing.
Main message - Rudd has good intentions. Expect more huffing and puffing as “Rudd cleans up the internet”.
Good politics but absolute BS. (And Rudd knows it.)
Time to lock and load.
The approach to questioning or opposition sounds a bit like Brough and Howard on any who dared question the “NT Emergency Response”.
@pyzo, you have contributed absolutely nothing of substance to this discussion, and neither have those who responded to you, I for one couldn’t give a rats arse about the male/female angle you’re spouting, you and them should get over yourselves.
You’ve done nothing except to derail the thread.
Talk about something related to internet/web/broadband policy or bugger off.
Once again I’m reminded of why I’ve stopped blogging here, I think I’ll go back to hanging out with folks without a chip on their shoulder or an off topic axe to gind.
Note: I’ve since deleted the comments.
Having come from an ISP background myself I can hear the bemoaning and cries of “oh not again!”
Who filters illegal drugs from around the world? The freight companies? No, a government entity called Customs. Although drugs still find their way into the hands of people that desire them. Here we have a similar situation.
Why should ISPs be given the responsibility of filtering such content?
Will the government provide the lists?
If it were so easy to filter content out then why is spam and phishing still a problem?
They’re just some of the technicalities. There’s always the moral and ethical arguments to be had.
Child porn of any kind is already illegal - ISPs already report it when they find it.
Anyway, on a side note - a good way to filter out dodgy content is to use OpenDNS. Costs nothing and links up with a reputable and effective list provider.
Dont waste your time Geoff. Several people have told him how tiresome his little joke is, but he says that he’ll keep doing it until Mark stops him. That’s one for Mark to think about. Still if Mark thinks that serial thread derailment is good for LP well it’s his blog and that’s his call.
Phil the “females” who have responded favourably to him are his sockpuppets, except Darlene, whose tolerance is almost infinite.
I agree with the intent of the policy - eliminating or suppressing child porn - but don’t know how practical the policy proposed is. Don’t even mind extra costs if this stuff can be suppressed. I think close to 100% of Australian parents would oppose this sort of vile stuff being fed to adults let alone kiddies.
Phil you should make it clear what it is that you oppose. Your assertions about where child abuse occurs are casual empiricism and of course even if this abuse occurs in the home that is no reason to favour the distribution of this gunk to all.
Its great to see the left attack Rudd. You guys need an enemy to sleep at night and, yep, you got one.
Maybe Krudd’s doing for censorship what Howard did for indigenous development: tear it out of state hands in accordance with ‘co-operative’ federalism and issue a great big NO FUCK *YOU*?
HC serves up his usual dish of prejudice and bitterness.
HC praises the intentions of Conroy. Doesn’t HC know the the road to hell is paved with good intentions?
When King Herod had the Innocents killed his intentions were good too, I suppose. He wanted to save the world a lot of trouble by getting rid of an illegitimate claimant to kingship before a movement grew around him.
But look at the methods Herod adopted to achieve his ambitions. They were evil and wrong.
However, even Herod’s methods were more likely to achieve success than Conroy’s.
Since when is it the role of a private firm, in the case an ISP, to decide what falls on one side or another of a line of legality?
Why should that firm be prosecuted if it gets it wrong, despite being conscientious and diligent in its application of the government’s prohibitions?
What ISP has the capability of monitoring effectively the torrent of material that passes through its servers on a daily basis?
What user of ISP services will be happy to pay the extra costs for ISPs to employ watchdogs to monitor this material?
Who wants these monitors snooping through their happy snaps attached to email on the off-chance that some of the images they are sending may be k*ddie p*rn?
Who in their right mind would choose to have her name attached to the government’s Orwellian “op-out list”? That’s just buying trouble.
Populist nanny-statism at its worst. I would recommend that Conroy reads the biography of Don Chipp so that he may understand how a genuine liberal approaches these difficult issues.
Mark, interesting developments indeed.
Since 11pm last night, all comments from Gaz have been deleted (as well as at least one of mine) while those from Phil (eg. honeymoon period) have been ‘adjusted’. The comments of mine that remain stand now in isolation and have been coded ‘Awaiting Moderation’ for good measure.
‘Evidence tampering’ and ‘jury manipulation’ I think it’s called.
From Phil: Pyzo re-read comment #15 above.
Phil and All:
For more than a year, I referred to the whole show as the Two-Parties-One-Faction system [=Liberals+Labor] or the Liberals-Labor-National coalition and since the election I’ve seen no good reason to change my mind …. yet.
Now to the specifics on internet use:
[1] If there was real concern about molesters and perverts getting access to kids on the internet then why haven’t a lot of resources gone into what appear to be the very successful trapping campaigns by big ugly unchildlike police officers? What about funding research into the motivation and habits of the offenders so as to know how to prevent them tampering with kiddies in the first place? There’s just been a COAG meeting, didn’t hear anything about any agenda items on the harmonizing laws across the country so as to make it illegal to have a computer with internet access in a closed room in any dwelling in which a child lives. Where is the full-on campaign to inform parents how to protect their kids - and for kids to protect themselves.
Bjohns [on 15]:
Excellent analogy.
Sorry but after the children-overboard stunt and the N.T. Intervention-and-land-restealing, I’m a bit sceptical about governments telling us to think of the poor kiddies. If kids are only the diversion, what’s the real agenda?
Does anyone have information about the filters in the UK and Scandinavia? Conroy seems to think they work all right.
Phil says:
Its un-refreshing to see post-modern liberals worry about possible public regulation of porn or “inappropriate content”. Cant they find any other more worthy causes to stand up for, I mean other than acting as a cheer squad for traitor-terrorist-deadbeats?
We arent going to lose much freedom by preventing substance abusive behaviour. Post-modern liberalism is a degenerative neurone disease which need constant round-the-clock intrusive care. That is why a dose of Big Brother is not so harmful to liberty in the current phase of history.
I am pleased to see the new govts me-too maintenance of the old govts conservative-authoritative line on cultural policy. I was prepared to take a punt on Rudd because he seemed like Howard’s mini-me on most things except Work Choices. He is doing nothing more than his job ie being a populist in a populist democracy.
I am also pleased to see the Fairfax-oped/Liberal-Legal/Left-blogger “end of the Culture Wars” stream of post-election spin-doctoring getting a quick reality check. It came accross as wishful thinking by juveniles let out of school early, just this once. One always enjoys the sight of vain hopes being dashed.
As if something as substantial as culture could be turned around by something as superficial as a change of govt.
Jack Strocchi,
Nobody in their right mind supports kiddy-porn. It seems to me one of the main questions being raised here is if a Government blocks kiddy porn (which personally I think they should), will they then use that technological expertise to block other internet sites, eg sites critical of government policy. I have, in this comment, carefully used government in general terms, rather than as a synonynom for any political party, because I believe all politicians regardless of party are prone to censor or otherwise try and stifle views and opinions they don’t like.Just look at the Howard years, the Menzies years, Hawke on the first Iraq intervention, Billy Hughes after he copped a rotten egg at a public rally, etc.
Phil re your comment:
” But why? Why now? Why bother? What’s the political gain?”
In the Media Statement - 19th November 2007. Federal Labor will improve existing government programs in this area by:
Providing a mandatory ‘clean feed’ internet service for all homes, schools and public computers that are used by Australian children, so that ISPs will filter out content identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The ACMA ‘blacklist’ will also be made more comprehensive to ensure that children are protected from harmful and inappropriate online material;
Providing children with age-appropriate online cyber-safety resources and making sure teachers are skilled in cyber-safety;
Establishing a Youth Advisory Group (YAG) to ensure that the Government is kept up-to-date with issues that affect children online;
Undertaking further research into cyber-safety issues in Australia to determine where best to target future policy and funding in this area; and
Establishing a permanent Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee to investigate and report on cyber-safety in Australia.
While I am not a supporter of a policy that I believe will not work. I understand what a BROKEN election promise is and its likely effects. Rudd must now proceed in some form or other.
When hc says:
“I think close to 100% of Australian parents would oppose this sort of vile stuff”
He is stating the political reality.
Sexual censorship is the precursor to political censorship.
Sure there’s a need for community standards. Fornicating on an unmown front lawn behind a white picket fence is frowned upon on Sundays by certain sections of our community. So the randy, by social convention must cavort behind closed doors. Hardly Rome, but we live here, so we cop it sweet if we’re recidivist root artists who wish to indulge our fully evolved creative and senuous selves.
On the www, kiddie porn, snuff movies, full colour close-ups of executions by BlackwaterUSA mercenaries in Iraq (MIC snuff), are recent examples of the Shavian notion of man’s inhumanity to man. Brion Gysin even went as far as suggesting that man is a bad animal. George “The Imbecile” Bush in a recent State Of The Union Address couched all in the Manichaeism of “you’re either with us or with the evil doers”.
But citizens of Oz Blogdom need fear no more; Steve Conroy is not Helen Coonan, and he’ll have all these public morality issues sorted in a jiffy. The Australian government will be able to keep a weather eye on home grown terrorism just like they do in Singapore while they simultaneously act as bastions of the public morality. Two for the price of one is an exemplar of cost efficiency, and ever so economically rational. Perhaps even world’s best practice which will make all the latter-day libertarians so proud.
Seems that those who have sold their souls wholus bolus to governments/ corporations and who are devoid of lives of their own are endlessly fascinated by the lives of others. For your work-a-day control freak, it comes with the territory.
As in rather strict regimes like China, Conroy’s initiative of course has absolutely nothing to do with brooking dissent or political censorship. Adult Citizens need to be protected from evil things in the privacy of their own homes, uber alles. Senator Steve is just doing what’s best for us. Unless you’ve got something to hide, in which case like Haneef and Ul-Haque you will face the full and fair application of the laws of this great democracy of ours.
Agreed with this view HC, but the issue is the unworkability of this at the ISP level, and there are technical issues in terms of broadband speed. The tecchy folks I talk to say this is gonna fail and will only impose cost and technical burdens to a system already overpriced and slow.
It’s interesting that Conroy talks about a need to work with providers so as not to slow down net speeds, something that is a an admission that this policy will do just that. Does anyone want that?
HC, As an economist I’m sure you have something to say about the where high speed broadband is important to our future productivity, so it’s here too that a policy like this can negatively impact on our future progress if implemented incorrectly.
This needs to be seriously rethought before implementation, it’s fine to offer a clean feed, but surely opt in is a better instrument than one which penalizes all legitimate web users.
The more things change the more they stay the same - for instance, will Conroy manange to improve on Alston’s performance? Telecommunications is a policy area that has a pretty undistinguished history over the last couple of decades, which leads me to think of it as a bellwether in terms of ministerial competence. Not looking good.
Paul Burns Jan 1st, 2008 at 8:59 am
Yes, which is why the Victorian period was the golden age of free speech in this country. Whereas by the time Keating got to office the jack boot of fascism lay heavily on the land.
C’mon, get real. Look around you. Does this country or its govt look in the least interested in “crushing dissent”? By Keatings time the govt was practically sponsoring demonstrations! Howard and Rudd have just restored balance.
Most citizens can look after most of their own lives most of the time. They dont want much from their politicians, apart from taking a stand on matters of the heart. Trying to preserve the innocence of childhood is one of them, at least for this old-fashioned guy.
Politicians might as well be King Canute for all the effect they can have on post-modern liberalism’s tsunami of “inappropriate content”. So I applaud this act of futility by Rudd.
Jack,
You have a peculiar idea of political balance, but I’m refusing to get into the neo-fascist tendencies of Howard’s racist government. My point was all governments want to over indulge in social control (even though, to reiterate, I 100% support stopping kiddy porn.
Phil,
If this is going to slow broadband considerably, what on earth will it do to dial-up? I suspect economic realities (or the profit motive) may get in the way of enforcing morality. They usually do.
To conclude,this may seem a bit contradictory since I’m sort of defending the right of free speech, but thank you very very much for getting rid of that thread disrupting horse.
Paul Burns Jan 1st, 2008 at 9:41 am
Yes funny old fascist Howard and his racist henchman Ruddock. Bringing in thousands of troubled Sudanese as part of a cunning plot to restore White Australia.
I was under the assumption that you did not suffer from the Howard-hating mental disorder. My mistake. Sorry.
The Wets. People, including my self in the odd introspective moments, protest that I portray them using unfair stereotypes.
Then someone like Paul Burns steps into the fray to reinforce the caricature. Absolutely no hope of relent in the Culture War with that sort.
Thump! thump! thump!
*Bangs head against wall several times as he wishes for a new kind of discussion on LP while wondering if there is any hope for blogging in 2008*
I’m suspicious of all governments, Jack, whatever their political colour. Howard just happened to be one of the worst. What I’m suspicious of here is that the Labor Government is setting up a means of disrupting debate that is anti-government on the net. W#hile Labor may choose not to abuse this power (and that has yet to be seen) there is no doubt that the vestiges of the Howardistas in any future Coalition Government will be sorely tempted, asd Howard was in his attempts to nobble the ABC. They will have been out of office for, I hope, a considerable time, and will be mightily p***ed o9f that the Australian people had refused to acknowledge their superior knowledge about how an economy and society should be run. My worry is that Conway is providing them with yet another way of smothering dissent. It seems to be the concern of some other commentators as well.
Not a week goes by without some creepy child porn pusher or group being sprung. Law enforcement officers from around the world, working closely together, seem to be up to the job of catching them. Many incidentally identified as pillars of society but hardly in numbers, as a percentage of the population, to justify such drastic action.
So why is the senator getting his knickers in a knot? Conroys measure is more likely to get in the road of enforcement of already very strict laws than anything.
Just political games you would have to conclude.
And he will fail because business will be agin it and punters will opt out in droves.
I agree that existing measures are likely the best option - national and international law enforcement to chop at the roots. This censorship will only serve to drive this particular distribution method further underground causing them to use more obscurity and encryption.
A far simpler ‘Opt-In’ filtering option to protect children from stumbling upon such content in much the same way a parent wouldn’t let their children frequent a adult shop or bottlo should suffice to defend the innocent. It can work in the same way that ISPs offer spam filtering - turn it into a marketing tool for ISPs that wish to target familes.
Paul Burns Jan 1st, 2008 at 10:28 am
I am suspicious of people not just governments, whatever their political colour. Especially when they sing the praises of liberty in principle and leave a bloody mess in practice.
Fortunately the Australian people have shown much common sense than the elites over the nineties and noughties, Their reaction against post-modern liberalism was healthy.
Consequently the Howard govt, as a populist democratic reflection of the people, was a lot better than most governments in most areas.
The country prospered, becoming “richer, prouder and stronger” as the years rolled by. No ministers wound up being multi-millionaires out of their portfolios.
The hard facts speak for themselves. In 1996, the last pre-Howard year, Transparency International perceived corruption index ranked AUS as the 10th (score 8.6) least corrupt country in the world. In 2007, after 11 years of Howards “power, corruption and lies” the TI ranked AUS 11th (score 8.6). We got nudged out of the top 10 by Iceland.
So the Howard-regime, for all its faults, managed to lose the high moral ground to Bjork-land. All the moral grandstanding by the Quiggins and Bahnisch’s seems to have been much ado about nothing much.
i,m afraid I,m a member of the keep your nose out of my private life group,what I do in the privacy of my own home is none of the Govt,s or anyone else,s.
I don,t give a stuff what anyone else does and as far as I,m concerned its nobodys business what I watch listen to read or do with my Computer,if parents cant control what their kids do don,t blame me for it.
The best way to make something popular is to ban it or restrict it it some way,so to those who think that go live in China and leave me alone,I,m think I,m adult enough to make my own decisions thank you,whether you like it or not
And isn’t it all just a little bit funny that our Kev has been spruiking the laptop for every kiddy at later high school. I would have thought that the best measure to protect children from any danger, that the internet may dish up, is adult supervision.
Somebody mentioned it earlier I believe. Kids are best at tripping up clean feeds and the discreet bedroom computer is not the way to go. Loungeroom computers, that everyone can see, for me.
This is just the stuff of the silly season to give people like Jack and Harry Strocchi a bit of excitement. The Rudd Government is tough on child porn, and don’t you forget it!!!
The get-out clause is Conroy’s caveat that the government will work with the industry to ensure that internet speeds won’t be reduced.
Conroy knows perfectly well, because the industry has already told him, that you can’t have effective filtering at the ISP level without reducing internet speeds. Why? Because while it is relatively easy to block specific sites, it is difficult and costly, if not impossible, to generically block all child porn sites. Serious filtering will reduce the internet to dial up speeds. But the government wants nationwide broadband at 100 mbs. Who does Conroy think he is kidding?
And even with specific sites blocking is just a temporary measure because they can change their URL faster than the regulators can put them on a black list. We’ve been through all this before. 10 years ago Richard Alston, at Brian Harradine’s insistence, introduced regulations that allowed blocking of porn sites if someone complained about them. About 6 sites were blocked, which left about 15 trillion porn sites unblocked.
A bit like Stephen Conroy, right wing protector of yoof and gulper for media oxygen, has been upstaged Santa, already?
It’s the technical, rather than moral or ethical issues with this policy that concern me most. Porn filters available for home PCs are notoriously heavy-handed. Many Japanese names -such as Fukuda and Takeshita- get blocked; and just try getting away with Scunthorpe! So maybe an ISP-based filter is a better approach, as it would also work with mobile phones?
Spiros: depends. If you’re prepared to dedicate serious processing power to every ISP customer, you could theoretically do this without affecting internet speeds too much.
But you’d basically require something like a PC’s worth of computing power devoted to everybody using the internet at any given time. Needless to say, this will cost a bloody fortune to provide. Hence, they will announce in a few months that this hairbrained scheme is impractical and they’ll go back to opt-in client-side filtering.
Of course, any teenager with half a brain and a few minutes unsupervised access to a PC should be able to bypass the filtering. Might be a great way to teach the teenagers of Australia about SSH tunneling…
Robert Merckel
My dear, I warned you all about this 12 months ago. I do hope you will pay more attention this year!
fozzy
Let’s assume this gets introduced. What happens when the next Howard introduces next version of WorkChoices?
That next Howard has already arrived, their names are Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. Their version of Work Choices is called Fair Work….We have always been at war with Eurasia and all that.
So it’s either actually impossible or effectively impossible because of the cost.
The funny thing is how suckers like Jack get taken in that this represents a shot for their side in the culture wars. But that is incidental to the policy . The real purpose is to convince suckers like Harry that the government is serious about attacking internet child porn.
You guys are going to have to learn to not take Stephen Conroy literally.
Spiros re your comment:
“The real purpose is to convince … that the government is serious about attacking internet child porn.
Spot on. Let’s not forget Rudd is about to roll out a half a million computers to adolescents across the country. There is also more money for internet access.
The MSM will have a field day identifying the rise in porn downloads. And shock/horror stories for night upon night on ‘current affairs’ shows One can predict articles along the lines
“No one in Australia better assisted the growth in the porn industry than the PM”
Rudd has no other political option, than to act (or at least seen to be acting).
“The MSM will have a field day identifying the rise in porn downloads.”
Never mind what the teachers will do. Imagine what the students will get up to…
More the reason to drop the ill-considered lap top for yoof policy that tin-tin seems so keen on. I mention again that supervision should be the parents role.
Grand computers in the loungeroom are far less of a prob. And am I the only nieve dad who believes that kiddy porn, swamping the internet, is akin to WMD’s all over Iraq?
No porn site would touch it, coz they would be sprung in seconds and think it too low to go. Conroy should come up with the evidence of what we need to be protected from because methinks he is suggesting the crushing of a pea with a sledgehammer.
You guys are going to have to learn to not take Stephen Conroy literally.
So we go from actual internet censorship to a minister in a newly-elected government who is lying already.
Um, this is a good thing?
Ozymandias [42]:
Spot on! Months ago, I was blocked when I tried to access Larvatus Prodeo from a public computer with a nicety filter; probably because somewhere in the history of Larvatus Prodeo, someone had used a rude word or a potentially rude word.
Jack Strocchi, HC et al:
I’m not opposed to filters as such …. but it will take a lot of irrefutable evidence to convince me that they will achieve their STATED purpose. On the other hand, giving a massive increase in funds towards preventive education and towards police operations, both of which are demonstrably effective, would cost the taxpayers a fraction of the overall cost of this proposed filtering scheme …. so, if this scheme costs a lot more and is far less effecive, why do it? Back to the drawing board and start again.
Come on you lot.
It’s to be optionally made available to schools and libraries that request it. It’s a service. The real question is why does a government have to mandate it’s provision. Perhaps it;s a service that won’t get used so it is not commercially viable.
The carry on here is about as silly as right wing nutters believing seeing a bit of tit leads to sexual perversion.
Re the above talk about kiddy pr0n - remember, this is actually about normal porn (and the Orwelling catch-all ‘inappropriate material’) being kept from kiddies.
On a technical level, any filter short of China-level gatekeeping will fail. Cost and speed are minor issues compared to the incredible technical challenge of scrutinising everything landing in someone’s browser. It’s not just about blocking sites, you know.
On a moral level, why does the government think it should take over basic parenting duties like supervising children’s web browsing? Talk about the nanny state!
Any parents out there, the solution to your fears about the ‘innocence’ of your child is simple - put the computer in a public area; turn it off when you’re not around; put a password on it. No more problem.
Strewth this gummint-mandated ISP-filtering of saucy sites is a monumentally bad idea.
If parent’s are genuinely worried then they should (a) make sure their kiddies are supervised in their PC use and (b) install their own net nannies on their own PCs, as the Liberal gummint proposed last year.
I don’t trust net nannies, and I don’t trust any gummint deciding what web sites I can and can’t access, especially if the lists are secret.
You guys are going to have to learn to not take Stephen Conroy literally /
The problem is, if this was most other ministers I’d agree it was a bit of hot air for the media so they can say they tried. But with Conroy you just never know. The man doesn’t believe in any form of free speech. It would not be surprising in the slightest if he was using this as a deliberate Trojan horse to get in all sorts of other forms of suppression.
It won’t happen, unless he can fool everyone into believing he’s not serious until it is too late - the combination of not working and disastrous sideeffects will make for too much opposition otherwise.
The advantage of Rudd over Howard is that some of his ministers will be significantly better and some will be similarly bad. Conroy is the exception, who may well prove worse than anything Howard had on offer.
Sorry about the accidental bolding of the whole thing. Unlike Conroy at least I admit I’m pretty useless at many aspects of the Web.
From above:
‘Since when is it the role of a private firm, in the case an ISP, to decide what falls on one side or another of a line of legality?
Why should that firm be prosecuted if it gets it wrong, despite being conscientious and diligent in its application of the government’s prohibitions?’
.
Um, liquor licensing laws and selling cigarettes to minors comes to mind. Seriously, most of what i just read above sounds somewhat paranoid. Yes censorship sux etc etc, and no, i don’t want the state ultimately deciding what i can and cannot read, view, or say however, we are talking an opt out system - i don’t think its as orwellian as is being projected.
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I have very net savvy tweens, who spend a lot of time online, and personally i would be happy to have the service, at least for a period of time (say while they are between 7yo and 14 yo)and welcome not having to install some stupid firewall thinggy myself.
Kids can accidently stumble across things in their naivety - (You guys obviously haven;’t had kids who tried to research furry brown beavers and bears to illustrate an assignment for Canada) and i’d rather they didn’t have to end up at some hard core virgin asian teen animal p*rn site.
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Ironically, even the fact that some of my own (legitimate aesthetic) artwork could potentially be censored/blocked accidently (lots of naked flesh in my older work, boys) bothers me less than having to deal with the swathes of rubbish that has to be navigated by my kids. But of course it won’t. We are not talking china here.
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Frankly i’ve even had a gutful of the spam (not that this will be affected in anyway) that lobs into my 11 year olds email accounts every damn day.
No, Mr Massspamloser, my daughter does not need a Superdik or Viagra, nor does she at this particular point in her rapidly vanishing childhood, want to c*m like a volcano.
A moment’s intelligent reflection would indicate the difference between the two cases.
A retailer of liquor is selling a legal product. She sells it to individuals who identify themselves by their presence in her shop. The retailer is in the position to demand identification of all those whe deems to be underage.
On the other hand, how difficult would it be for that liquor retailer to sell iiquid in unlabelled bottles, some of which is deemed to be suitable for sale and some of which is deemed to be illegal? To satisfy herself that she is selling legal goods, every time a customer comes to her shop she would have to sample the goods being sold.
In the first case the illegality inheres in the potential customer. In the second case the illegality inheres in the product sold.
Now, no liquor retailer would ever sell unidentified liquid in bottles without reliable labels. It would be criminally reckless to do so.
But that is what ISPs do all the time.
The difference? Um… One is a physical product, the other is mere expression of ones and zeros.
SublimeCowgirl [57]
I would like to agree with you but you haven’t taken into account one of the nastier aspects of Australian society: the adoration of mindless bureaucracy for its own sake and the consequent obsession with controlling and regulating everything imaginable. For the moribund “ruling class” [under whatever name they go this week] it’s a hangover from the Convict Days and from a time when they were terrified of Feinians and Papists hiding under every bush. Stopping perverts and molesters? No, that’s only the excuse; there’s another agenda in there.
Then get someone else to install it for you, rather than forcing yer nannyism on the rest of us.
sublime cowgirl,
I’ve got a spam filter from Bigpond, which is low cost which gets rid of most of the spam -at least the objectionable kind of stuff you referred to.
For parents who want to ‘control who uses the computer and individual programs, when and for how long’, we used ENUFF PC for our kids for a few years and found it very successful. By setting daily time limits and having it ’supervised’ by the PC we saved lots of ‘it’s time to get off the computer’ arguments.
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(It doesn’t control what sites can be accessed.}
Get ICANN, IEEE, etc involved. Attempt to thrash out acceptable solutions that can be applied to multiple countries rather than just our own, added benefit of ease of international policing.
Or maybe hierarchal ISP logons, primary/parent; secondary/child; tertiary/guest. Or whatever.
Annecdotally, a mate who works at CoPort.Phil libraries reckons telling off patrons for surfing for porn is a regular event. He once shared the delightful story of someone needing help getting an email to display properly, as soon as the staff member had configured the display settings up popped Goatse…
One of my pet hates are stupid stupid laws & regulations that cannot either be enforced, or are not being enforced. Australia already has, courtesy of the previous government, some of the tightest controls on ISP content provision - & to what aim? How many spammers have been prosecuted of late? How many ISPs prosecuted with carrying “objectionable” material? Sites might be blocked, but frankly those responsible with enforcement have neither the resources or ability to enforce the existing regulations.
I suspect a lot of this has to do with the Feds knowing full well how extraordinarily expensive it will be to provide each of those famed upper high school laptops with a high level of net security & scrutiny that wont be breached by the average net savvy user, exposing the kids to “objectionable” material & exposing the government to criticism from the opposition & MSM.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that it is a further attempt to gain some control over a media & information sector that has proved less than easy to patrol & control. But it is technically unworkable, cynical buck passing & just plain bloody stupid. Do a bit of homework Kev - if you want this to fly honey, you’re going to have go down the China Road - block sites & ISPs. Always a good look in a modern social democracy…
It’s that “technological expertise” that worries me. Who believes there’s a 100% reliable “block kiddie porn” checkbox on said miraculous filtering software with 100% positives and 0% negatives? It’s not like the rock spiders are going to thoughtfully tag their images with <kiddie-porn> tags.
It’s not going to happen, so they’ll just widen the filters to catch all the offending material even if 99.9% of what they block isn’t. Which I wouldn’t mind if it was opt-in - hey, it’s your choice then.
It’s bad enough dealing with the moronic dead hand of WebWasher at work - there’s no way I want it at home. The question is, as Katz asks, who’s willing to have their name added to a whitelist?
“The question is, as Katz asks, who’s willing to have their name added to a whitelist?”
As i said before, punters would do it in droves…whitelist, whiteflags, whatever.
Once the internet speed slowed and they saw harmless sites that they new before “banned” or got horny and needed to check out some pron…
… whitepages, would be just as busy as the don’t ring me at home registry.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the UK’s child porn filtering system, due to be in place by the end of 2007. Guess what? The government has already indicated that its scope could be widened beyond kiddie porn, and it won’t work anyway.
“The Home Office has previously indicated that it has considered requiring ISPs to block access to articles on the web deemed to be “glorifying terrorism�, within the meaning of the new Terrorism Act 2006, saying “However, our legislation as drafted provides the flexibility to accommodate a change in Government policy should the need ever arise.� The measures have been criticised for being inadequate as they only block accidental viewing and does not prevent content delivered through encrypted systems, file sharing, email and other systems.�
Surpise, surprise, surprise.
How about we accept their Cromwellian filter and whitelist if we are absolutely guaranteed the following as well:
*a seamless 100 mBps broadband connection (including any networked machines) from the ISP of our choice in any part of Australia accessible any time of the day notwithstanding Internet traffic
*fast hassle-free multimedia downloads
*spam-free e mail ?
*a reduction in connection prices to match those in other parts of the net-savvy world
As the ads say…I’d like to see that.
40 SpirosJan 1st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Modern liberals used to brag about giving power to the people. Now they pat themselves on the back for giving porn to the people.
They have put their own progressive Whig theory of history into full throttle reverse. What an unedifying spectacle they must represent to the shades of Mill and Milton!
46 Spiros Jan 1st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Filtering is difficult - really? Tell me something I dont know for a change.
As an old-timer from the early days of usenet, blogging and a builder and admin administrator of web sites for yonks I know better than most that porn site blocking wont work. But “I applaud this act of futility by Rudd” all the same.
This is a futile symbolic issue. The Republican cause and Sorry demand are useless symbolic issues of the Left. (I oppose these but understand that the intention behind them can be good.) Anti-kiddie porn filters are one of the many futile symbolic issues of the Right.
As Buckley once said, it is the job of conservatives to every now and again “stand athwart the juggernaut of History and yell ‘Stop!’”.
Most citizens most of the time do not require the governement to hold their hands. But occasionally they want their leaders to take a symbolic stand even if it does no good.
Particularly parents battling to bring up young kids in a world overflowing with unsavoury temptations and pitfalls. They want to know that the government is on their side.
“My side of the culture war” is simply the side of civilised people trying to preserve the innocence of childhood. Call me old-fashioned, a “sucker” and all manner of uncool things but I confess a distaste for low-life scum bags who exploit children.
Apparently Spiros is unfazed about this sort of thing. What some people will do to ensure they have no friends on the Right. Anything to keep up the facade post-modern liberalism is still the Next Big Thing for people for people who so desperate to display their ideological hood ornaments.
But Jack, surely it’s the parents’ responsibility, not governments, especially as it won’t work. Why should adults be stopped from looking at legal porn (not kiddy p**n), if that’s what they like?
I thougt you lot were against the nanny state?
Jack, I would prefer that the government actually does something about getting rid of child porn.
Whereas, you are gratified by gestures which you know to be empty, not only because they won’t work if they are attempted, but which won’t even be attempted.
But that’s OK. Each to his own.
Jack Strocchi That’s a very good post.
“Most citizens most of the time do not require the government to hold their hands. But occasionally they want their leaders to take a symbolic stand even if it does no good. ”
I think Rudd understands that only too well.
And also:
“Particularly parents battling to bring up young kids in a world overflowing with unsavoury temptations and pitfalls. They want to know that the government is on their side.”
Well said.
Dear Jack,why the hell should you or anyone be able to tell me what I can look at,if parents cant monitor what their kids do on the Net to bad,don,t lumber me with their problems.
Why the moralising lot cant leave things alone has me buggered,I am getting tired of being preached at about what I can and can,t do in the privacy of my own home on a computer that I paid for
Ostensibly the filtering will start with the illegal stuff (kiddie pr0n, etc).
But once it’s in place and shown to be restricting the really bad stuff, then they’ll come a hollerin’ for more stuff to be filtered out. First the bad stuff, then the naughty stuff, then the illegal stuff, then … just stuff.
Family First will yank Rudd’s nuts immediately: “Yer banning kiddie pr0n but still letin’ the kiddies access pr0n on their gummint laptops? No workchoice repeal for you unless you ban more pr0n”. There goes yer adult erotica of choice.
Then the media companies will complain about moofies and toon downloads, so yer big bit torrent sites will be next to get the chop.
Then the religious and racial vilification sites will be added. Don’t larf — almost 20 years ago Sir Joh banned “The Last Temptation Of Christ” from Qld cinemas, so there’s wowser form here.
They may as well just filter out the top 100 web sites and be done with it.
OK i concede having read the above that it is a difficult thing to implement, but like Jack, and wpd, i think it is still a commendable, if not unrealistic policy.
I just don;t see the policy as an assault on free speech, but more of a content management system. Just as we, as a community do not allow under 18s access to certain movies, or shops or whatever in the IRL.
Now an honest question i have for all anti-censorship buffs . When does publishing this stuff about indigenous people cross over into racist vilification and become ‘illigal’?
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