Internet Censorship Plan Approved In Australia | Stephen Conroy — This is the lead-up to political site blocking.
The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said today he would introduce legislation just before next year’s elections to force ISPs to block a blacklist of “refused classification” (RC) websites for all Australian internet users. The blacklist, featuring material such as child sex abuse, sexual violence and instructions on crime, would be compiled using a public complaints mechanism, Government censors and URLs provided by international agencies.
Senator Conroy also released results from a pilot trial of ISP-level internet filters, conducted by Enex Testlab, which he said found that blocking banned material “can be done with 100 per cent accuracy and negligible impact on internet speed”.
“Most Australians acknowledge that there is some internet material which is not acceptable in any civilised society,” he said.
He said about 15 western countries had encouraged or enforced internet filtering, and there was no reason why Australians should not have similar protection. It is not clear how – or if – the filters will distinguish between illegal RC material and that which is perfectly legal to view. An earlier version of the Government’s top-secret list of banned sites was leaked on to the web in March, revealing the scope of the filtering could extend significantly beyond child porn.
About half of the sites on the list were not related to child porn and included a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.
A favorite trick by governing parties in a Parliamentary system is to introduce a bill shortly before Parliament is dissolved for an election. The bill dies, BUT the government party can use that as “proof” they tried to do something.
When the bill shows itself to be too unpopular, the government can just let it die.
This is still a long way from being a fact, contrary to JCD’s headline.
#35 Fusion
Yes this maybe what’s happening, but no doubt the Labor Party will use the issue as a wedge against the opposition, knowing they will not take the political risk of opposing an bill that is traditionally in the conservative domain.
there is only 1 way to PROTECT your people from THINGS you cant control.
LIMIT ACCESS.
the only way to do this, is to CHOP OFF THE CABLE connecting to the rest of the world.
Only way then, for ANY business to give access to the Aussies, would be to have a SITE on the island.
Memongo, that was a joke. People on this site and elsewhere use the same logic with government bans and regulations of cars.
I would rather see them cutting off the wienies of child pornographers and, thereby, saving the kids. But that’s not gonna happen ’cause the pornographer might be in Burma! And if you managed, some (unlikely) how to keep it off the internet, the kids will still suffer because people will go back to passing photographs around. I think the only solution is to outlaw children!
#39, Animby,
I don’t know. Outlawing children might cause a backlash. How about we just ban them?
#40 – Mr Fusion. I didn’t mean to imply that children are bad. I think they are very good. Especially on holidays with a maple syrup glaze.
I agree. Child porn, sex abuse and instructions on crime should be banned completely. There’s no common sense here.
#41, Animby,
I understand. Sliced thing and wrapped in bacon …
😉