Internet Censorship in Australia

joele · 03-18-2009, 04:01 AM

For all Australians I suggest you read these links and you may want to then sign the petition! Not a super new issue but the more people sign and write to their local members complaining about this move the better.

From Getup
"The Federal Government is planning to force all Australian servers to filter internet traffic and block any material the Government deems ‘inappropriate’. Under the plan, the Government can add any ‘unwanted’ site to a secret blacklist.

Testing has already begun on systems that will slow our internet by up to 87%, make it more expensive, miss the vast majority of inappropriate content and accidentally block up to 1 in 12 legitimate sites. Our children deserve better protection - and that won't be achieved by wasting millions on this deeply flawed system."

You can sign the petition here

It seems individual bureaucrats can ban what they like without conferring with the classification board! and they have begun threatening to fine ($11,000 per day) sites that dare to link to banned sites (though the law hasn't even passed yet).

Australia's Internet filter ruled by a single bureaucrat - ACMA, internet content filtering - Computerworld

I have also added this info to the front page of my website, you can sign the petition there also.. (linked below)..

KrisK10D · 03-18-2009, 04:33 AM

Signed

Thanks Joele, I hadn't heard anything about this.

*wwwmorrell* · 03-18-2009, 04:49 AM

Done.

Wal'

xjjohnno · 03-18-2009, 05:22 AM

Signed long ago, or a variant on that petition.

It's an absurd idea as anyone who's used filtering software at home or spam protection knows.

joele · 03-18-2009, 06:13 AM

Getup has a gaol of 105,000 signitures... at 98,151 as of now, so not too far off..

**roentarre** · 03-18-2009, 06:24 AM

Yeah, I signed in as well.

lithos · 03-18-2009, 07:20 AM

I think this little debacle of Conroy's far outweighs the middle finger he gave to Telstra.

Fortunately, the plan has stalled - for now.

user440 · 03-18-2009, 07:29 AM

You gotta be kidding me. What is the driver for this? Do they intend to block 'morally objectionable' sites or ones that allegedly pose more of a 'security' risk (i.e. make your own bomb with duct tape and fertilizer)? Did a particular event trigger this? AUS would be one of the last places on the planet I would expect something like this to come down.

*Wheatfield* · 03-18-2009, 07:48 AM

I'll sign too if someone would send me an Australian postal code to use...

This is a good read, though not being a Brit, the author could as easily be the English version of Alex Trebeck for all I know.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Stephen Fry: The internet and Me

ftpaddict · 03-18-2009, 08:23 AM

What a bunch of a-holes your government is made of. How can you sleep at night?

Gooshin · 03-18-2009, 08:41 AM

what is the catalyst for this?

although internet filtering has been around for awhile.. usually done on the side of the search engines.

*Wheatfield* · 03-18-2009, 09:14 AM

Originally Posted by Gooshin

what is the catalyst for this?

although internet filtering has been around for awhile.. usually done on the side of the search engines.

I expect it's all about government control over the masses.
Another case of government forgetting who owns them.

xjjohnno · 03-18-2009, 02:30 PM

Both major political parties here have been on their soap boxes for a few years about the evil internet and the need to protect young and not so young minds from the moral corruption that resides on the www. Similar noises have probably been made in just about every legislative body around the globe. The filtering side, which theoretically is meant to include opt outs is to protect the younguns from porn sites. The child porn industry is the other intended target which wouldn't exist online if global policing had their act together. As for other content they want to protect us from, that I really don't know and I doubt they know either but some conscientious bureaucrat will make that tough decision on their behalf.
Of course we know the reality will be an information superhighway running at the speed of porridge while the filters happily do their thing by blocking any vaguely suspicious content making it nigh on impossible to browse the internetz.

*RichardS* · 03-18-2009, 03:43 PM

Originally Posted by user440

You gotta be kidding me. What is the driver for this? Do they intend to block 'morally objectionable' sites or ones that allegedly pose more of a 'security' risk (i.e. make your own bomb with duct tape and fertilizer)? Did a particular event trigger this? AUS would be one of the last places on the planet I would expect something like this to come down.

The stated reason is to protect our children. The real reason? Control over the masses. And we would have no way of knowing what had been banned since the proposed legislation specifically addresses that. We have a left-wing government that went into the elections pretending they were just like the Liberals, only kinder, so it's par for the course.

xjjohnno · 03-18-2009, 07:37 PM

Left/Right, the current government here looks so similar to it's predecessors I'd hate to be calling them Left. As for net censorship, when the Bills are presented to Parliament look at who vote or don't vote for it. For it to have gotten to the stage it has I'd say there's been very strong bipartisan support.
One thing I would love to see here in Oz is a Bill Of Rights, something both major parties are never going to push as it will restrict their abilities to pass daft and unfair laws, whever in areas of censorship or national insecurity.