The Minister for Communications, Stephen Conroy, wants to make the internet safe for the kiddies. Conroy argues that unlike in 2005, when then Liberal Party Communications Minister Helen Coonan was laughed down with her proposal to filter the internet, it is now possible to filter inappropriate content over 82% of the time.
Naturally, I reckon Conroy’s claim is laughable. Any one with the right couple of Firefox plugins can circumvent any filter. I quite like a little tool called SwitchProxy.
The question that needs to be asked is, why do they want to filter the internet at all? The notion that the internet can be made “safe” for children by a piece of technology is absurd. Nothing will stop perverts stalking chat rooms, sending “shock site” links or mass mailing scams. Net users themselves can made the decision not to send personal information to randoms they meet online, not to click random spam links in their email addresses, and not to believe that some dude in Nigeria wants to send them a million dollars, for just a small fee…
Proposals to filter the internet constitute undue interference in communication. It is as absurd as a proposal to “filter” speech in newspapers, or on the street between people.
For more information about the proposed “clean feed”, check out No Clean Feed, for more on moral panic inspired censorship, check out Somebody Think Of The Children.
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on Aug 23rd, 2008 at 6:48 pm
This is something I’ve blogged about a few times. http://publicpolity.wordpress.com/tag/internet-filtering/
It would be really nice to see the Australian Greens taking the government and opposition to task over their complete failure to understand modern technology. The internet is one example, another is an R rating on video games.
on Aug 23rd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Do we have much of a policy on the issue? It could be something that blogger-members of the Greens could look into drafting a position on…
on Aug 23rd, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I don’t know if we do; the media certainly hasn’t been publishing any Greens’ opinions on it. Blogger-Greens should definitely get involved with this. Perhaps trawling the Australian gaming websites and Whirlpool forums would lead to some substantive opinions.
on Aug 23rd, 2008 at 10:27 pm
It is inevitable that compulsory filtering WILL be used to political ends - and you will never find out because the information they don’t want you to see will have already been filtered out
Well if it is good enough for China …
on Aug 24th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Determining what is and what is not appropriate is an inherently political act.
This absolutely cannot be allowed to happen, I am having trouble summoning the words to describe just how wrong on every level Stephen Conroy’s proposal is.
on Aug 24th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
http://www.torproject.org/
For those who are worried about this kind of thing. TOR is a software project that allows you to use the internet with greater anonymity, by encrypting and routing your traffic through a randomly chosen series of 3 nodes. By doing this, it’s MUCH harder for your ISP/the government to monitor your net traffic or tell where it’s going, or for the website/computer you’re connecting to tell where you’re coming from. Of course, it won’t protect you from entering your personal information on unsecured websites - but what will? There’s also a noticeable speed trade-off.
on Aug 24th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Tor’s good, and the more who use it the better. What Tor really needs is more volunteers who are prepared to setup their machines for use by tor when they’re not using them.
on Aug 25th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Indeed - with the internet connection I have now (50mbps downstream private line ADSL - mwahahaha! not symmetrical though, sadly) I do plan on running a TOR relay, although probably not an exit node, since Japan is bureaucratic hell, and I really don’t need any legal entanglements.
on Oct 25th, 2008 at 10:16 am
[...] 25 October, 2008 by Tobias Ziegler As if Stephen Conroy’s grand plan to protect us from the Internets wasn’t bad enough. Now his office has taken to attempting to stifle [...]