Somebody Think Of The Children

I also thought it was bizarre how he kept referring to the blacklist as being in place for 9 years and not bringing the internet down in that time. You can’t equate the existing blacklist legislation with the filter. The blacklist doesn’t stop anyone viewing this stuff. It doesn’t stop the distribution, or slow the internet, or even fight back against the people who publish it. All ACMA can do is stop Australian websites from linking to the sites on the blacklist, and that’s only if someone complains. So of COURSE it hasn’t been a problem so far, because it’s toothless. He also kept harping on about how political material would not be included, and then did NOT address the abortion site when it was brought up.

By Ilaeria on Mar 27, 2009

I was in the Audience. The audience were really knowledgeable people, and most of them had come just for the censorship issue. If we would have been able to ask more questions, and follow ups, we would have decimated him. Unfortunately, the format really doesn’t allow in-depth coverage of the issue, and any question deemed a bit too technical (such as VPN) was off the agenda.

Having 4 conservatives in a panel of 5 really was hard to deal with at times.

By Aryan on Mar 27, 2009

The big problem here is that no one on the panel seemed to have any relevant working knowledge of what was being discussed. Conroy seemed to be the most informed person in the whole room, and so of course he was going to come across as nice and reasonable. He totally controlled the thread of the debate. The whole way censorship works in this country is confusing anyway – no one really seemed to have much idea of what the ACB is and what ACMA is and what their different roles are. No one really knew how the blacklist works or what it’s currently there for. One example: at one stage Conroy stated in response to a question whether a member of the audience who admitted accessing sites on the list would be subsequently arrested, that blacklisted content was not illegal to look at, just to link to and publicize. Why didn’t anyone pick up on the bleeding obvious then? If blacklisted sites are not currently illegal to access, what’s the point of a stupid blacklist in the first bloody place? It made no sense (unless you realize the blacklist is there for people using current filtering software, but no one picked up on that). (And does this mean that once a filter is in place it will or will not be illegal to bypass the filter and access the blocked content by using a VPN for example?) He kept going on about the fact that a Labor government has no interest banning political content. Once again, why didn’t anyone ask him then to clarify the phrase “unwanted content”? But then you had Bolt whining about moral seriousness, Greg Hunt basically sitting there saying nothing and Susan Carland asking Conroy to explain just how it all works in the first place. Jesus Christ. Conroy could basically say what he wanted and get away with it.
And once again the whole debate became one about morals and ethics and whether we ought to be allowing access to child porn or not. None of the technical concerns were raised at all, like the fact that any 12 year old who knows what a VPN is will be able to bypass a filter (which is why the guy saying Orwell’s 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint, came across as rather silly – an internet filter ultimately won’t censor anything for those who don’t want their content censored), the threat of a filter to the technical integrity of the internet in Oz, whether or not the filter would monitor https:// and encrypted stuff sent over the net and the implications for internet banking and e-commerce and so on. Conroy was allowed to get away with keening on about vile pornography when once again, this isn’t about illegal porn. If it’s all about classification and ratings, why didn’t anyone ask how either ACMA or the OFLC is going to cope with classifying the billions of webpages out there. Ridiculous. This isn’t about the threat to public morality, this is about stupidly and stubbornly wasting 42 million dollars of taxpayers money on a piece of technology that will fail dismally when we could be spending it on effective and efficient ways to tackle the dodgy stuff out there on the net. Once again, Conroy won the argument simply by confusing everyone and relying on the fact that very few people really seem to comprehend what the fuss is all about and how this whole filtering proposal and the current blacklist all work. Very disappointing to watch.

By Daniel on Mar 27, 2009

not to mention that currently, the blacklist only prohibits linking to SPECIFIC PAGES on a website, but linking to any other page on the website (unless that page is blacklisted too, or possibly if the top page is on the blacklist) is perfectly fine.

By alphamone on Mar 27, 2009

I almost pity Conroy on the amount of opposition to his plans on the show. Q&A isn’t a very effective way of discussing these issues as members on the panel can either outright lie or make untrue claims without knowing any better and this distorts the issue and makes it harder for the general public unaware of this issue to comprehend.

I really wanted to hear Conroys explanation for the abortion site being on the blacklist, this is where the blog Conroy started back in Nov/Dec 08 could be useful.

The whole scheme lacked transparency from the beginning and it still is today. I believe illegal content should be dealt with by the police the govt have no business in this area. The mandatory filter is just a poor attempt at dealing with the problem.

Labor can be commended for everything else in the cyber-safety plan. They should scrap the filtering idea and give what’s left of the $42M to the federal police to dealt with this illegal content more effectively.

Andrew Bolt turned this into more of a moral arguement even though it has been clearly shown that a mandatory filter isn’t an effective way to stop child porn being created and distributed.

The Russian mob hacking that dentists site to distribute questionable material is believable, but the dentist should have been contacted and it should have been made clear to him that his website was on the blacklist.

By Jarrod on Mar 27, 2009

Thanks for the insights Aryan. You didn’t get to ask a question? That was the impression I got watching at home too – far too few questions were able to be asked and Conroy could go off on a tangent and repeat himself and avoid the really serious questions.

By Ilaeria on Mar 27, 2009

Something I don’t understand.

How can a porn between two consenting adults be illegal? Even more, how can be illegal to link or publicize such content but it is legal to engage in such acts?

By Snoopy on Mar 27, 2009

I was appalled at how Conroy never directly answered most the questions. He would start going off on a long winded rant, as if he were explaining something to an audience that didn’t understand, but then he would never get to the main points of the questions!

I think you comment about Conroy not addressing the issue of so called R rated material was spot on. It is the blocking of so called R rated material which really concerns me.

He says political discussion won’t be blocked, but what he means if what HE CONSIDERS political discussion. R rated themes which include adult topics, drug usage and euthanasia, obviously aren’t included in his definition of political speech.

For example, I run a forum which advocates the legalization of opiate drugs. It has a harm minimization focus, and people frequently discuss their drug experiences. This is an Australian forum but I had to host it overseas because already the criteria for hosting websites in Australia is so strict, I would seriously risk my forum being taken down if I hosted it in Australia. I even contacted the ACMA about hosting my website in Australia and was told I should hire a lawyer. Well I can’t afford a lawyer just to defend my hosting of a discussion forum. The situation is disgraceful.

By Michael Smith on Mar 27, 2009

Hi Ilaeria. No, I didn’t get to ask my question, even though I had been picked before the program as one of the 12 people with questions to ask (some of us did, some didn’t, that’s alright).

Fact is, Q&A had 30 minutes to devote to this issue, and their audience are obviously ignorant of all the subtle technical lies and inaccuracies that Conroy spreads around. Q&A simply needed to “dumb it down” to make it accessible to the general public. I guess that’s my issue with TV in general anyway.

By Aryan on Mar 28, 2009

It wouldn’t be that bad if they just filter porn, illegal sites and sites dealing with promoting violence and such.

Anything over that is too much.

By Joey B on Mar 29, 2009