Australia announces controversial Internet filter, China-style
Posted on December 15, 2009 by by thedude
“Australia said Tuesday it would push ahead with a mandatory China-style plan to filter the Internet, despite widespread criticism that it will strangle free speech and is doomed to fail.” (AFP)
“Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said new laws would be introduced to ban access to “refused classification” (RC) sites featuring criminal content such as child sex abuse, bestiality, rape and detailed drug use.”
Read complete article at (AFP)
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6 Comments to “Australia announces controversial Internet filter, China-style”
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I agree on filtering this type of content for sure “child sex abuse, bestiality, rape” there is no place for that.
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If only that were true, valeri. I expect the experience will be like spam filters on your email: most of the stuff is trapped, but the clever spam still gets through. As good as the filters might be, there will be even smarter people out there pushing the nasty content onto you. Sorry to sound pessimistic.
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You are right sayitlikeitis, the clever spams will still get through.
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The Canberra Times may be worth checking out. See Myles Peterson’s column Switched On in the Techno section in today’s issue. If you haven’t got it, I’ll quote his last few sentences. Amongst other things, he’s talking about government moves to get an Internet Filter up and running.
“…refused classification games are to be temporarily made exempt from the proposed filter. This is ether an acknowledgement that change needs to happen to the ratings system or that without the exemption Amazon, Playasia, Wikipedia and a host of other websites will end up on the blacklist.
Censorship is not a trifling issue, certainly not something to be tossed to the pre-Christmas news-cycle. The debate deserves better and so do we.”
I think Wikipedia is a great site, and because of that I would never consider buying an encyclopaedia. It covers every topic I can think of, and if it doesn’t then I can add one. But oops – it also covers pornography. I know this because I’ve just had a look. I’ve never purchased anything from Amazon, but I might want to in the future. I don’t know if they sell anything on erotica but if they hold stocks, does that mean Australian’s access to Amazon will be filtered and any attempt to buy in subject areas such as ethics and fair play will be denied. Have you ever bought anything on ebay? Its days in Australia may be numbered as no doubt someone’s sensibilities will be trampled by what someone, somewhere in the world might decide to put up for sale.
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it sounds like this filter will become a real pain in the “filter” for everybody.
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Further comments on the Internet Filter by Senator Kate Lundy http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/12/21/further-thoughts-on-the-filter/
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