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.
“But think of the children” 😛
thats it i’m outta here!
so let it be known – intelligent motivated ex-australian looking for work – anywhere but here!
A taste of what’s to come here in the US with Internet 2.0.
GOD(win)DAMMIT! 🙂
jk JCD…Adam Curry asked once upon a time on the Daily Source Code, what happened to the real English blokes? Same is true for our friends down under. Have the real tough blokes gone (six feet) under or is there someone there to fight the good fight?
check this out.
We are the nanny state.
This banana one allergy one is the last straw.
WTF is the world coming to?
Sorry gotta go there’s someone knocking at the door. I guess I know who it is.
What’s this got to do with Hitler?
Doesn’t China do this already? Why not a pic of Chairman Mao?
This isn’t a bad policy. It ensures that companies deliver the web pages that customers want.
Always a question of degree/judgment isn’t it? I don’t want uncensored web access to everything AND I don’t want a Fascist Government Propaganda Machine. There must be a comfortable middle somewhere on the continuum.
I’ll must bet there is.
[“I’ll must bet there is.” ? – ed.]
Whilst this is a really poor direction, please note it hasn’t been “approved” in Australia. The status is that the Minister for Communication has announced plans to introduce the legislation.
That said like many Australians I am very concerned about this direction, and hope that many other Australians join in to voice their concerns to their Members of Parliament.
This is what happens when you have unrepresentative family values nutjobs holding the balance of power in the senate and a Government that will sacrifice freedom of speech for their own political convenience.
Hopefully the Greens will get the balance next election and tear the Government a new one. The government will probably get this legislation through with the help of a typically gutless opposition. I cant see the Greens voting for it.
Who’s that guy in the picture with the cool haircut and stylish uniform? Does he not like the internet? Is he holding his hand out to try to stop it?
#11 Dodd
Uhuh.
Thanks for your latest bit of paranoid lunacy from the religious right, Dr Dodd. The blog wouldn’t be the same without perspectives from both sides of the fence, no matter how ridiculous.
#12-honeyman-paranoid lunacy from the religious right…
Nice slide of hand. You do realize that the Green Party is a lefty religion that worships the Earth? Better known as environmentalism.
Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
#6
“This isn’t a bad policy. It ensures that companies deliver the web pages that customers want.”
If people don’t want it, then the web sites will go away. It’s called freedom of choice. Granted, personal choice is becoming more scarce thanks to the “family values” gangs and the other nanny state pundits. Your statement suggests that you want the government to tell companies what content we want. This means that they will truly and openly control the stuff that dumbs everyone down, makes them comply with THEIR personal values (or else), and reduces democracy to something that is whispered in bars over a glass of gin. THAT’S why Hitler is in the picture. It’s not just a matter of censorship, it’s a matter of what happens when people openly control information.
What’s rather ironic here is that the devil is in the details.
#13 Dodd
I’ve always found the earth worshippers to have a better sense of humour and camaraderie (not to mention priorities) than the folks that worship that dead Jew on a stick. Sure the greenies are being swindled by Al Gore and his merry band of corporate thieves, but no ones perfect 😉
The sad part is that all our guns were taken away years ago.
I guess we’ll just have to do it the old fashioned way. Pitchforks and torches. And maybe a guillotine or 5.
#16-honeyman-Sure the greenies are being swindled by Al Gore…
It “would” take a sense of humor for greenies to continue worshiping at the altar of Al’s big swindle, especially knowing it’s a swindle… guess that speaks for itself.
Normally I could care less what you worship, but since the greenies feel the need to tax everyone’s energy and non-approved green lifestyle to the point of oppression it behooves me and others to complain – more than little.
Well this was bound to happen since they only have one company that provides internet service to all of Australia. This is why monopolies are bad, m’kay?
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#6 MikeN
“This isn’t a bad policy. It ensures that companies deliver the web pages that customers want.”
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Umm people already CAN access the websites they want. But you said a KEY word there, customers. So as long as you have money to buy useless crap on the web, you should be able to go to all the shopping sites you want to. Nevermind other sites that don’t sell anything.
Laws aren’t written to ALLOW you do do something (unless it’s to undo a law to make something illegal). Laws simply LIMIT things you can do while they spin bullshit about it being freedom.
Heinrich Heine: “Where books are burned in the end people will burn.”
#20-pedro-Are you gonna keep losing your time with that troll nutjob?
Other than complaining at every opportunity and maybe in some small way help stop the higher taxes the greenies want to inflict on the rest of us I find it interesting and wonder why people would want to worship the earth.
It’s the old as time religion of worshiping the creation instead of the Creator.
Since I don’t get it, what better way to gather a different perspective than to converse with someone that views hugging a tree as a spiritual experience.
Its sad to see the Australia slide into a police state where information must pass government muster before the subjects can access it. I guess they are too foolish to make such decisions on their own and the strong arm of big brother will filter out the bad for them. Maybe they should start shooting politicians? Oh weren’t they disarmed already? Well that’s that.
WOA SLOW DOWN! Take a look at the associated poll! Currently only 3% of people agree that this is a good idea!
Crazy governments doing their own thing..
What was the picture for this? Here in Oz, they’ve redacted the image.
Sounds like a conservative movement in Australia.
We do this “to protect the children”. Heard that shit before.
Suuure it’s gonna stop with the “illegal” shit. After all governments always ends programs where they say they will…. right?
This seems to be similar to the “Great Firewall of China”. I read once that some of the filtering software was written by a startup California company founded by a Chinese or Taiwanese national, and that the same company also wrote software for internet blocking in Saudi Arabia.
My question is: Does this blocking work on sites outside Australia, inside australia or both?
OLD NEWS..
They have been trying to Censor the net for over 8 years..and its ALL FAILED.
Last time they tried, Hackers beat the protections in <2hours, and the WHOLE system BROKE DOWN.
Gotta watch out for those Queensland dentists.
http://pirateparty.org.au/
They can’t ban every proxy in existence, and smart, motivated people will always find ways to access a banned website, so what’s the point?