WikiLeaks is a public-interest website which makes leaked material freely available on the internet. In the past it has revealed information on psychological torture at Guantanamo Bay, a Pentagon analysis showing it is losing the war in Afghanistan, and insider trading at J P Morgan. At the moment its hosting leaked memos from Barclays Bank detailing the extent of their tax evasion – memos which have been suppressed by the UK High Court (ah, the joy of a free market in legal jurisdiction). In short, it does good work, exposing corruption and malfeasance in both the public and private sector and allowing those responsible to be held to account.
You may be wondering why I’m not linking to any of that material. The reason is that WikiLeaks is now on Australia’s internet blacklist. Last year they posted a copy of Denmark’s blacklist, revealing some unusual censorship choices (one of the blocked sites was a Dutch transport company), and this apparently meets the ACMA’s definition of prohibited online content. Australian websites linking to it could be fined $11,000 a day. The last thing censors can tolerate, it seems, is free and open discussion about censorship.
The Australian government is planning to turn its blacklist into a mandatory internet filter, similar to those used in such great democracies as Burma, Iran, and of course China. This provides an excellent reason why Australians should not let that happen.
Didn’t the High Court find an implied right of free political speech in the Australian constitution?
Wikileaks would seem to fit squarely into the realm of political speech.
Didn’t the High Court find an implied right of free political speech in the Australian constitution?
IANAL, but as I understand it, yes. And I agree: being able to discuss censorship in an informed manner with reference to the abuses and errors of other jurisdictions is exactly the sort of thing it should protect. But that’s the last thing the censors want.
Meanwhile, the entire ACMA blacklist has now been posted to WikiLeaks. No, I’m not linking to it – because no doubt they’ll blacklist that too.
Mind you, if I recall the High Court’s decisions were somewhat qualified and related to defamation law.
I did have a look at the list. Aside from Wikileaks itself, some fairly mainstream gambling sites are on the list.
I believe it’s already been added to the black list. This whole stupid affair is a court case begging to happen.
The list seems so have some nasty and not so nasty stuff on it. But one tings that’s definitely clear; many of those sites are clearly not illegal in any real sense, and it makes me wonder who decides to add this on what criteria.
Btw, now Conroy is saying “that’s not the list”.
Of course, we just have to take his word for that – which looks pretty effing shaky considering he then says,
So if it’s not the list – not their list – why would the police be involved for someone posting something on a web page? Honestly, the idea itself, their hopeless appeals to their own wholly impotent authority and the entire handling of this is beyond ridiculous.
I thought the implied political free speech was discovered after the big media went against Hawke’s legislation to limit political jingoism and paid adverts – I wasn’t paying attention too much at the time so could be way off – according to Wiki, I’m a little off
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Capital_Television_Pty_Ltd_v_Commonwealth
(if anyone is in the know, how accurate i that wiki entry?)
Thanks for the article!
At the very least they should be required to see if there is contact information for a banned site and try to send them a notice that they are being banned, with a right of appeal in open court. I can imagine that the transport company would both have contact details and appeal, whereas illegal sites … wouldn’t.
The political abuse of this secret unreviewable power over information seems to me more certain than the sunrise, given the small possibility of an eclipse at dawn.
There was a link to prohibited content placed on the ACMA page on Wikipedia in the context of listing content ACMA block. The link was removed, but it still exists on the history page. Given ACMA have no control over wikipedia it will be interesting to see if they end up having to block their own page on Wikipedia (or more likely just the whole site).
Due to the ACMA’s incompetence: Dentist and tuckshop cited on blacklist.
Every little thing that neo-labor have to say on honest, transparent and open government can now be responded with in two words.
‘ Stephen’ and ‘ Conroy ‘
Fuck them all to hell.
Wikileaks site is unable to load from this rural ISP which might be getting governmnet subsidies. Better try again back in the big smoke.
Very disappointing.. Who would have thought we could vote in a more totalitarian government than Howard
I think the government might be surprised at the extent to which this issue has the potential to be a vote changer, particularly among groups it may assume are rock solid.
It’s not often both sides of politics can agree on something, and this is one of them. What were they thinking blocking Wikileaks? It undermines their whole case for the filter, and exactly proves opponents’ concerns with it. This should be its death-knell.
billie: wikileaks is down for the entire world, last I checked. I’m looking at you, ASIO :- )
Yeah, so what is it? Leaked, or Inaccurate? It can’t be both.
“…a more totalitarian government than Howard”
John Howard was lots of things. Totalitarian he wasn’t.
Has anyone tried to access wikileaks at their .org domain today? Nada.
Just because you aren’t paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t watching you.
This provides an excellent reason why Australians should not let that happen.
But it’s already happening! I’m sure I could threaten to send someone a stern letter telling them I’m angry, but I’ve seen Team America, I don’t want to be eaten by catfish!
Seriously, what can we actually do to reverse this disgraceful sitaution?
I am going to try to get on Wikileaks and then send it to everybody in my address book. COME AND GET ME, CONROY!
From both work and home (completely different servers), wikileaks.org appears to being blocked.
So the entire australian population is being denied access to the site? and what else?
Looks like it from where i am…
I’m prepared to switch my vote over this one issue. And to keep it switched until my net use is unfiltered.
Quoll – I think its just down. Its not reachable from at least some machines outside Australia as well.
Their blog is up fine, but not very recent posts.
http://wikileak.org/
I got into wikileaks earlier today.
Prior to this debacle, I’d never heard of it. I wonder if that was the case for a lot of people and the increased traffic has caused the crash.
Way to go Mr Conroy. Ban something and watch the demand rocket.
Whoops, that is not actually wikileak.org, but another blog with some stories and debate about the site and particular cases.
So steve you’ll be voting Green next time?
Let’s not panic, everyone. I have access to a server in Texas. Ran a traceroute on “wikileaks.org” from there and it timed out. Systems do go down of their own accord, you know.
Well, I;ve sent out the blocked site to about 59 people. including a couple of Lp-ers, (hope you don’t mind) asking them yo forward it on to friends. Also sent it to Tony Windsor, Kevin Rudd and the local papers. And gues what, Rudd refused to receive it. (Mind you, way back when, I did send him a couple of insulting e-mails, but I can’t remember what about.)
FXH @ 25 In the past the coalition have opposed ISP level filtering (Coonan said it wouldn’t work). Don’t know if this is still their policy though.
I tried Joe Hockey on Facebook. I would suggest asking the question on any relevant Member’s wall.
Ah, the Streisand Effect strikes again. So satisfying.
This site is handy, although I suppose it depends how paranoid you are.
DownForEveryoneorJustMe?
Next stop, google cache
I had a squizz at the Danish site when it was released on Wikileaks.
There was one website on that list with a .com.au domain name.
I can’t remember the exact url, and didn’t want to click on it in case the Danes blocked it for good reason.
However, the url did have acacia something in the title, and it crossed my mind that it might not be illegal pornography, but something contentious to do with DMT.
Wikileaks is important. Go to hell Conroy.
This is from the wiki page about wikileaks…
The Chinese government currently attempts to censor every web site with “wikileaks” in the URL, including the primary .org site and the regional variations .cn and .uk. However, the site is still accessible from behind the Chinese firewall through one of the many alternative names used by the project, such as “secure.ljsf.org” and “secure.sunshinepress.org”. The alternate sites change frequently, and Wikileaks encourages users to search “wikileaks cover names” outside mainland China for the latest alternative names. Mainland search engines, including Baidu and Yahoo, also censor references to “wikileaks”.
Now that Conroy has said that the Wikileaks URL list is not an ACMA list does that make linking to it illegal?
Probablay, because the list shares a lot of the same URLs according to Conroy.
Which of course gives us a very good idea about what ACMA has banned so far.
Following links to links to links, I found some real funnies listed:
Hey Google, you’re banned! Wikileaks has published an alleged Australian Government URL blacklist
This is the notice you get at Wikileaks.com.nz
Wikileaks censored by Australian Government
This domain previously contained a redirect to the Wikileaks website.
As of the 16th March 2009, the Wikileaks domain was inaccessible to Australian internet users.
On the 19th March 2009, Wikileaks published a leaked list of websites blocked by the Australian Government.
For more information about this you can visit the following sites:
Leaked Government blacklist confirms worst fears, Electronic Frontiers Association
Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day, Sydney Morning Herald
Does that mean Wikileaks was pre-emptively blocked? Were they aware of the leak before it was published?
Fair cop, though
I’m pretty sure vanbokhorst.nl translates into English as some pretty nasty combinations of sausages, vans and some guy named Horst.
…
as you were.
I tried to access wikileaks earlier today and it was blocked, their story on the matter is still available via Google cache.
This is a disgraceful, underhand manifestation of arrogance and vindictiveness. The only way they might ever get my vote back is if Minister for Blocking the Internet Conroy gets the sack next week. I don’t need those posturing fools to tell me what’s good for me.
How dare they wrap themselves in the pornography flag, in their malicious attempts to stifle debate.
The file itself is named ACMA Blacklist Aug 08. So (maybe) what Conroy is really saying is that it isn’t the up to date file.
If you are looking to promulgate this file around, there are mirrors around but thy are being flogged to within an inch of their lives.
I had a look early this morning if your having problems try a proxy
[Blacklisted URL Removed]
It’s on the blacklist. The outrage. I’m changing my vote.
and [Blacklisted URL Removed]
say it ain’t so, Kevvy.
wbb, It may suit you to be manipulated, but don’t trivialize my concerns with your snide, obilque insinuations.
wbb: and please don’t post links from the blacklist. Doing so could expose Larvatus Prodeo to a substantial fine.
Sorry about that, blogreader. I’d hate to trivialise a mole hill.
It’s the mindlessly multi-levelled totalitarianism that gets me about the whole censorship thing. It is now obvious that the list has been drawn up incompetently, that it is already being abused, and that the government has an active interest in suppressing free speech despite the fact that they were elected to terminate Howard’s excesses in that area. Also:
1. If a list of sites is blocked, for whatever reasons, then people cannot get at them readily, so why is there any need to keep the list secret?
2. If people get their hands on a list, and it is the wrong right list, how and why threaten them with any punishment?
3. The “if you’re not with me, then you support child pron” argument was utterly offensive and tantamount to mass defamation of a large proportion of the population. That will never be forgotten, and should be a sackable offence, not a justification for draconian lawmaking.
Conroy and ACMA give the impression of being barking mad, power-crazed paranoids who should be allowed no authority over anyone. The government is bringing itself into disrepute by allowing them to persist.
If the idea is to appeal to a critical fundie (ie Fielding) for support, then why bother? He’s demonstrated that this does not work, and is certainly not worth destroying democracy for.
Of course half the outrage is the surprise (at least from us clueless lefties) that this is coming from Rudd. If this had come from a Howard government I doubt any of us would have even blinked.
And they annoying thing is we can’t even debate this because as Conroy said “if you are against this you are for child porn.”
And being against child porn I choose to express my outrage as this.
…
End quote.
BTW does this mean the filters are now up and running?
“I’m prepared to switch my vote over this one issue. And to keep it switched until my net use is unfiltered.
So steve you’ll be voting Green next time?”
I voted for them last time. But I still preferenced Labor… that could change.
What use economic progressivism (such as Labor can manage) if we lose our basic political freedoms? Then again, if the Liberals don’t vow to rescind the censorship, then there’s not much point preferencing them either.
Bloody hell, what a woeful choice we get in this country. Thank god for third parties.
Well, I am still wondering if the Govt is trying to buy off Fielding with the filter trial. Not that there is any chance he will stay bought, and they ought to have figured that out by now.
Conroy is now threatening people with 10 years gaol if they distribute the list. I’m fucked.
So’s LP as its posted links to it. 
WTF! as a previous commentor above has shown, rather stupidly, if you try to acces URLs on the blaklist you get told its blacklisted. So the list, quite properly, is utterly useless for rockspiders and the like in Oz. Don’t know about overseas though. That is a bit of a worry.
For the record, Mr. Conroy, I haven’t tried to access any of the prohibited URLS. In the first place, I’m not interested – any kind of porn bores me shitless- I don’t want to get fined $!!00 – and in any case, the cancer medicine I’m on means I’ve got absolutely no libido, so, even if I was interested, I wouldn’t be interested anyway. If you get my drift.
Anonymous Lefty has a great post about how many people are screwed by this, including Kevin Bacon. essentially anyone who has ever linked to wikipedia is screwed.
Still, Australia started off as a prison colony, looks like we’re going back to our roots.
“I voted for them last time. But I still preferenced Labor… that could change.”
Indeed, me too, but as you suggest, there’d need to be more small ‘l’ liberalism in the Liberal camp for that to make sense. Turnbull? Are you listening?
Thought I’d add: I miss the Democrats.
I sent an email to the LP contact address after I posted links to where I mirrored the list suggesting it might be in their interests to remove them. I see they have so far decided to leave them.
I noticed that there is at least one variety of goat.cx in the list, and for that I find some small element of forgiveness for Conroy deep in my soul. I’ll grudgingly support the blacklist if it is limited to goatse.cx, tubgirl, ‘two girls, one cup’, and Rick Astley :- )
Paul Burns @ 51: “Conroy is now threatening people with 10 years gaol if they distribute the list. “
No longer just giving the appearance of barking madness?
Seriously: why are we still employing this silly and dangerous man?
Can’t we do a cultural exchange with Burma and swap him for Aung San Suu Kyi or someone? They’d both be happier…
Jeremy @ 49, klaus @ 53 and others: yes, I miss the Dems too, and cuss Cheryl and Meg forever for propelling Natasha into leadership too early and making them blow up. But in the meantime:
(i) Any Liberal government voted in in the next couple of years is hardly going to be long-lasting, or particularly damaging.
(ii) The ALP leadership would still be a strong opposition, and able to come back after a term even if a few senior heads rolled.
So until Conroy is demoted or sacked, I’d be quite happy to swallow my bile, depart from my usual “Greens 1, ALP 2″ pattern and vote much more threateningly. Just to get rid of him. Of course, I’ll explain to my local MP what I’m doing…
Sent a couple of scenarios to Get-Up for their anti-internet censorship campaign.
Explain now, vote later. Ask the hard questions and provide references when making points. It’s makes a nice change to have your MP acknowledge that they’ve got the facts wrong, even if they won’t change their vote as a result.
My goal is to have as many local MPs as possible turn white and take an urgent toilet break when they see me coming.
one of the blocked sites was a Dutch transport company)
Day-yum. I was so looking forward to a Friday evening with a nice shiraz and some webstites featuring logistics and loading limits in the Netherlands.
The Dutch internet is always clogged, anyway.
gilmae, I can’t believe you’d deliberately deprive us IT Professionals of the pleasure of seeing the look of horror on some noob’s face when we’ve conned him into looking at goatse (or tubgirl). Shame on you!
So this issue is so big but nobody here is willing to act the dissident?
Have a look at the actual list (it is freely accessible at wikileaks despite what some here pretend) and see how much you really care that the sites on the Danish blacklist are on the Danish blacklist.)
Whether you think the internet should host illegal material or not (and I don’t merely coz I have a bit of a thing for consistency) it is hardly a cause for panic that sites promoting child abuse should be removed from public access.
But you’ll mount the ramparts if we close off child rape sites.
@wbb:
I haven’t tried to access wikileaks until today, so I don’t know whether it was available yesterday or not. But I can certainly find it today.
Wikileaks’ claim is” “Most of the sites on the Australian list have no obvious connection to child pornography. Some have changed owners while others were clearly always about other subjects.”
Abortion pictures? Poker sites? A nudist site? Euthanasia advocates? Perhaps these domain names are just masks for child porn sites, but we only have the minister’s word for that. As for all those YouTube links, I really hope that they also notified YouTube so that they can take those videos down, because they will do so when notified of illegal content such as child porn.
I do wonder how some domain registrations were allowed
throughto be created when their keywords obviously indicate child porn/incest porn/rape porn – that’s certainly another avenue of profit suppression to be investigated, given the SEO advantage to a domain name consisting of two or three memorable keywords.In any case, a secret list is abhorrent in principle. People need to be able to know if their site has been placed on the list so that they can appeal. Those engaged in illegal activities will logically not do so, so that won’t be a problem. Only those who’ve been censored despite their activities being legal will appeal, so why not have the list out in the open anyway?
Anybody who wants to go to one of these sites only has to click on one of the links in the spam they get everyday (you should see what any blogger gets in their comment spam daily). The proposed internet filter isn’t going to stop any of that spam.
I can’t believe encyclopediadramatica.com is on that list – one of my favourite sites!
At any rate, I have little doubt the censorship will actually make anything actually inaccessible – there’s just far too many ways of making content available via other means. But I’m seriously concerned about the performance hit it might cause.
But that’s what it is designed to do. If the illegal sites are not accessible then you can click on links to them all day long – but you won’t get to them.
@wbb:
Except that the proposed internet filter is still as I understand it rubbish technologically in that people can sign on to a proxy server in another country and then access all the sites they want. That’s what kids are already doing to get around the education department filters on school computers.
That is not an objection to blacklisting. That is a worry that it won’t be 100% effective.
Which is your real concern, tigtog?
wbb wrote:
As one of the mainstream papers pointed out, the 38th most popular site accessed from Australia is on the list (R e d t u b e). Yep, it’s a pr0n site but last time I looked pr0n wasn’t actually illegal in Australia.
Gambling isn’t illegal either. In liberal democracies, sometimes people do things that don’t fit other peoples personal morality. Those moralisers should either change our laws or get stuffed, not try to enforce morality via technology when that morality isn’t encoded in law first.
The kiddie pr0n bleating is a smokescreen that is counter productive. Driving those revolting perps further underground makes them harder to find. That the authorities know this, but persist with this idiocy makes everybody suspicious of the real motives behind our new moral guardians.
I’ve no concerns with blacklisting. As tigtog mentioned, it won’t be effective anyway. I can’t believe we have yet another communications minister who simply does not understand what the internet is and how it works.
I’d just like some open and transparent rules about which type of sites are banned and the exact reason why. I also have problems with the people doing the banning being employed, not appointed or elected. There is absolutely no community input into selecting the people making the decisions.
I can imagine the selection criteria:
“Proven experience in being a moral guardian for a nation of more than 20 million people.”
“Must be conversant with all state and federal laws with respect to censorship and have proven experience in interpreting high court decisions regarding freedom of expression”
Public Service pay level 5 applies. Salary 42K.
The issues as I understand them:
1. Censorship is wrong
I’m comfortable with restriction of access to kiddie porn, instructions for making an atomic bomb in your garage, etc. Obviously drawing the line is the difficulty, but I agree with some censorship.
2. Fining sites for linking to banned sites is draconian
I saw a comment on a blog that said:
If that’s true, I don’t see a problem with it.
3. There has to be an effective appeal mechanism for banned sites
Yes.
@wbb:
My real concern is, and always has been, that the proposed policy is utterly ineffective in achieving its stated goals and the lack of transparency is hugely problematic: stigmatising consenting adults engaged in legal activities. With no explanation and no appeal. This is a recipe for abuse – Thailand’s blacklist, introduced as a tool against child pornography, contains a preponderance of sites that criticise the Thai royal family instead. What guarantee do we have that Conroy’s filter won’t be similarly abused when there is no transparent oversight?
This blacklist will do precisely nothing to stop child pornography. So why waste time and money on it when that time and money could be dedicated to proper investigation and suppression of child pornographers?
slightly offtopic (and there are other examples where putting detailed how-to instructions is a very bad idea) but most aspects of building a basic atomic bomb are in the public domain these days, and, furthermore, would be of bugger-all help in actually building one.
Yay for wbb! I’m against child rape but my concerns about the filter are
-slowing down net access (I need fast access for business and academic purposes. Quite frankly for home use I’m not as fussed.)
-the listing of sites for political gain. (I’m not a big fan of the Coalition but I really really object to political sites I don’t like being blocked. Even more so than say having people I agree with blocked.)
-misidentified links (like that dentist)
As for looking at the list…well I haven’t wbb because despite not getting any sense from Conroy my gut feel is that the list is the real deal and while it seems hard to work out whether veiwing the list is illegal I’ve decided to err on the side of caution.
But the arguement that aynone agaist the filter is for child porn? Stupid argument lacking any real thought or merit. But surprisingly effective. I’d keep hammering that arguement over and over. My question is why not wait until Rudd is dismissed then push for it when the Coalition is back in. (Also, what stopped Howard doing this back in the day? It really would have helped the Coalition.)
Gambling without the appropriate licences is indeed illegal, David Rubie. (Interactive Gambling Act 2001.)
As for the need for speed, a blacklist filter will not slow network access to the end user. This often heard story is based on confusion about the different types of filtering methods. A static list of URLs which comprise a blacklist which is what is being discussed here, cannot effect your network speed. The list is cached in memory, indexed, distributed to all access nodes etc. This is an argument of convenience that has now become urban myth.
Obviously.
The argument I make is that some who get agitated about internet blacklisting haven’t stopped to look at what is actually proposed but launch off into wild claims that the internet is the last bastion of freedom. It is absolutist nonsense. There is very little to be lost and much to be gained from applying the law online as it is offline.
wbb, it’s certainly true that a blacklist could be implemented in such a way that didn’t affect performance – after all, every time you visit a site, the domain has to be looked up in a list to determine the IP address. So if the blacklist was integrated into existing DNS lookup tables, it wouldn’t have performance impacts. But from what I’ve read elsewhere, the current plan for how to implement it does impact performance, and measurably did so on trials done with various ISPs.
Ultimately though the blacklist isn’t going to protect anybody from anything. People who are depraved enough to want to view child pornography are still easily going to be able to find it, and are now going to use means to distribute it that are harder to crack down on.
Having said that, if I was completely sure that a blacklist would reliably contain only URLs with clearly illegal content, and was implemented in a performance-neutral fashion, then I wouldn’t have a major isssue with it. But there are far too many reasons to suppose that such an outcome is unlikely.
@wizofaus:
This. Nutshell.
Firstly, transparency of process. At the very least there should be a Board set up along the lines of the Censorship board with reports, accountability, and a clearly defined appeals process.
Secondly, all tests so far have shown performance slowdowns. As wbb says, this is not an inevitable outcome of blacklists in theory, it’s just that the people tasked with implementation are Doin’ It Rong. Because Conroy is an idiot and he’s chosen idiots to do this.
It can’t be anything but a feeble and idiotic exercise if only one country, that as far as we know is not yet a totalitarian regime tries to censor the internet. Child pron is I’d imagine illegal pretty much everywhere, so it would make far more sense if there were unilateral efforts to eradicate it.
I went to the wiki site via Jeremy’s but I was too chicken-shit to hit any of the links, not for fear of prosecution, more for fear of the risk of clapping eyes on something I would prefer not enter my unconscious. Obviously there are braver, younger souls than I who wouldn’t have any such trepidations so making a list of violent sites available to the public is problematic. However as tigtog suggests taking the time to investigate every one of those sites and from where they originate makes a lot more sense and is a far more responsible/humane response than a blanket ban on them in Australia. Snuff sites and child violence/pron sites should be tracked down and banned wherever they arise and because of the very nature of the WWW a global approach is the only one that makes any sense.
Thanks wbb. I was worried but now I feel reassured.
The last URL (medical-system.info/?q=protonix) on the list won’t damage your unconscious any, but it might bring on a fit of the WTFs. Unless the content of the page has changed since the list was compiled, and then leaked, this Google search should probably be blacklisted too,
*cough* By all means, wbb, have a list containing child porn sites and practically anything else anyone wishes to complain about. But then post it publicly, gazette every addition (daily or weekly) and be responsive to counter claims (same day) about the validity of entries. The government has no excuse for not meeting the simple requirement of not being Kafkaesque; they’ve had 15 months to change the status quo. I don’t think we should refrain from blocking at the DNS lookup level just because it isn’t 100% effective; after all, I support the distribution of condoms despite it only being ~90% effective.
DNS lookup can be near- or actually instantaneous. But they didn’t just suggest a blacklist filter. They’re proposing keyword searching and content filtering; that’s the Clean Feed bit. That’s not even remotely cheap, it’s not even remotely effective and I refuse to bear a scarlet letter just so I can search wikipedia for Dick Clark. I will go to the ramparts for that.
@gilmae:
Yep. They have yet to demonstrate that their proposed content filter doesn’t fall prey to all the usual manifestations of the Scunthorpe Problem for a start. I don’t want sites about breast cancer or advice for queer teens about coming out to be blocked just to make an ineffectual grand gesture against illegal child porn.
I got reflux, I take Omeprazole for it. When I first got it I thought I was having a heart attack. I was in Intensive Care for a week, had so many blood tests my arms were so bruised I looked like I was some kind of desperate junkie, had to take a stress test that nearly did for me because of my COPD. (Was nice having my own TV and having sandwiches brought me from the canteen though. You don’t get that in the medical ward.) Shit, Conroy’s internet censorship might kill me!
P.S. the single easiest method for parents to monitor what link their kids click on computers is this – don’t put the computer in the kids’ bedrooms. Keep it out in the family room where other people are constantly walking past.
If they require respite from the TV that everyone else is watching, invest in headphones for them. Make sure that you do get up and wander past what they are working on regularly.
A kid that will click on a porn link while surrounded by their family who could look over their shoulder at any moment is a kid who is going to do it no matter what. Most kids won’t do that. You’ll learn very quickly whether your kid will or won’t chase after porn, and then you deal with the fallout if need be.
Agree with tigtog @ 84 totally. Parents should parent their kids, rather than relying on the gummit to do it. And gummits should not be in the business of micromanaging the day-to-day behaviour of all their
kidssubjectsopponentscitizens.