The Internet is a monster loose in suburbia
When it comes to reporting news about the Internet, the media hasn’t progressed very far from the days of gloomy Time magazine covers and articles on how your child is building bombs using lemons and baking soda. Tonight’s 7:30 Report on Australia’s Clean Feed proposal might suggest the ABC hasn’t moved at all. It used...
Aus Broadband Survey: 73% disagree with ISP content filtering
Whirlpool has released the results of their 2007 Australian Broadband Survey. The survey was completed and verified 17,881 times. In response to the question do you support the government’s policy for mandatory ISP-level content filtering (opt-out), around three quarters of respondents disagreed with the decision to filter internet content, with more than half strongly disagreeing....
Regulation makes me sleep easy at night
Psychologist and social researcher, Hugh Mackay, writes in his new book Advance Australia…Where? that if we make it appear we have solved a problem through regulation, we ease the burden of personal moral responsibility. Mackay uses the example of a woman who wanted environmentally unfriendly cleaning products banned from supermarket shelves so she wouldn’t have...
ACMA agrees education as effective as filtering
Just like most of us have been saying since day one: education is the key to helping protect children from the dangers they face when accessing the web. Stephen Conroy’s own department practically agrees. The ACMA’s latest report says education about online safety would be just as effective as internet filtering to prevent children from...
Australia will filter Internet
Senator Conroy has given the green-light to ISP filtering, acknowledging it could affect internet speeds. In his speech to the Internet Industry Association last evening, he confirmed that the Rudd Government?s election commitment to introduce ISP level filtering would go ahead.Secure Computing Magazine reports: ?Labor has never argued that ISP filtering is a silver bullet...
Brisbane Times: Fear mongering at its finest
Brisbane Times has a ripper of a headline this morning: Net a ‘supermarket’ for pedophiles. That’s what QLD Detective John Rous had to say about social networking sites like Facebook, and the Brissy Times lapped it up. You can’t buy headlines that good! Sure they could have gone with something along the lines of ‘Detective...
Libertus.net Guide to Australia’s net censorship plan
Irene Graham now has on her website a complete run down of Labor’s mandatory filtering plan: The Australian Federal Labor Government, which was elected on 24 November 2007, has a “plan” to force all Australian ISPs to implement server-based filtering systems to block access to “child pornography”, “X-rated material”, “violence” and other “inappropriate” material on...
Just 800 websites on filtering trial blacklist
The most important news from today’s Senate estimates hearings was that the Tasmanian trial of ISP level filtering is using a blacklist containing just 800 URLs (the current ACMA blacklist). This is a miniscule number when you consider Senator Conroy expects his cleanfeed to blacklist not only illegal material, but also a large percentage of...
Senate Estimates Coverage: Conroy confirms commitment to mandatory filtering
Live coverage of the Senate Standing Committee (watch here): Senate Standing Committee update 1: Senator Conroy at 8:30PM (ACT Local Time) confirmed he is committed to introducing mandatory filtering at an ISP level. ISP filtering trials in Tasmania will end before June 30th and a ‘live trial’ will follow. Senate Standing Committee update 2: 8:48PM...
Pray for Stephen Conroy and Internet censorship
Those lovable oddballs at the Australian Prayer Network have a request: Pray for Stephen Conroy and pray his plans for Intenet censorship are a success. It’s a three step process and the APN make it easy with this short guide. Here’s what you need to pray for: Pray for Senator Conroy as he liaises with...
Clean feed harebrained and ill-conceived: Libs
Opposition communications spokesman Bruce Billson says Rudd and Conroy’s mandatory clean feed plan is an ill-conceived measure by a government that believes only it has the authority to decide what’s appropriate or inappropriate content for computer users. He labeled it a “Harebrained, half-baked policy dreamt up in the lead-up to an election”. Billson was responding...
Dark Sector banned, too violent for Australians
The censors have Refused Classification on the PS3 and Xbox 360 game Dark Sector, saying it’s violence ‘exceeds strong’ and therefore cannot be rated MA15+. Gaming website IGN says the Classification Board report calls it a violent and sometimes gruesome game with a sinister storyline and ominous outcome. “The violence and aggression inflicted upon the...
