Somebody Think of the Children
Safety and Education

Fielding beats Ludlam to a seat on Cyber-Safety Committee

Update 17 March 2010: Here’s some interesting news. Ludlam has now won the seat, previously reported as being awarded to Senator Fielding. Senator Fielding – 35 votes, Senator Ludlam – 37 votes. Was this a revote? Family First Senator Steve Fielding has won a seat reserved for minor party and independent senators on the Joint...

Safer Internet Day 2009 is February 10

School students across the country (anyone know if all school’s participate?) will again take part in Safer Internet Day this year. Organised by ACMA in Australia, Safer Internet Day (SID) is an International event to promote safe and responsible use of the Internet, and unlike some of the Government’s other so called ‘cyber-safety’ initiatives this...

Filtering and online safety reports: Brooklyn Law School and Harvard

Two reports worth reading: 1) ‘Filtering in Oz: Australia’s Foray Into Internet Censorship‘ by Derek Bambauer at the Brooklyn Law School in New York argues Australia represents a shift by Western democracies towards legitimating Internet filtering and away from robust consideration of the alternatives available to combat undesirable information. Bambauer writes: Australia’s decision to censor...

Fast broadband network will increase bad behaviour: Conroy

Senator Conroy may not be Santa Claus, but he knows when you’ve been bad! According to our favourite babysitter in Canberra, his planned national broadband network will mean we’ll see an increase in cyber-bullying and other bad behaviour online: “With the development and roll-out of Labor’s national broadband scheme, we expect that there will be...

Cyber-Safety budget report card: Children lose

Even if you support Senator Conroy’s plan to introduce mandatory ISP filtering in Australia, you have to admit it has little to do with ‘cyber-safety’. Actually, Conroy’s entire cyber-safety initiative may have little do with safety or protecting children. Irene Graham writes: The Federal Government’s ‘Cyber-safety Plan’ Budget 2008-2012, announced on 14 May 2008, allocates...

Conroy’s cyber-saftey party in full swing, but only one dance allowed?

Senator Conroy has announced those who will assist the Government as part of his Cyber-Safety Consultative Working Group, but has the group been designed from the get-go to be in favour of mandatory ISP filtering. When you consider people like Anthony Pillion, manager of filtered Australian ISP Webshield, and Child Wise CEO Bernadette McMenamin are...

Budget: Conroy’s Cyber Safety plan nets $126M, filtering included

Update May 12, 2009: Click here for information on filtering in the 2009-10 Budget. Labor will spend $126 million over four years on their Cyber-Safety plan which Senator Conroy says will create a safer online environment for Australian children. That’d be nice if Mr Conroy’s idea of cyber safety didn’t include mandatory ISP filtering for...

Internet Industry Association releases draft code of practice

Just briefly, the Internet Industry Association of Australia (IIA) has released a draft code of practice for internet content providers for public comment. The deadline for responses is 15 May 2008. You can download the draft code here as a PDF. Details of how to respond here.

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...

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...

Tuesday is International Safer Internet Day

Australian school children will today participate in International Safer Internet Day, a campaign aimed at educating kids about cybersafety. ACMA Chairman Chris Chapman is coordinating the Aussie part of the event: ?Safer Internet Day is a fun and effective way to raise awareness of issues affecting children online? he said. ‘Cybersafety education is critical in...