Dale over at Defending Scoundrels posts that Communications Day, an Australian trade newsletter, has reported that Senator Conroy will reveal the details behind his mandatory filtering scheme on February 21. It says Mr Conroy will outline a full policy development strategy and quell hysteria over the plan.
But why not ‘quell’ it now Mr Conroy? Oh, what’s that I hear you mumble? You don’t actually have a plan yet apart from ‘I’m going to do it?’
Dale points out:
What Conroy describes as ‘hysteria’ has largely been the product of comments attributed to him and his spokespeople. A fair reading of those comments (e.g. ‘filtering’; protecting children; blocking ‘inappropriate’ or ‘offensive’ content; the very use of the term ‘clean feed’; etc) supports the inference that what Labor are proposing is a very wide-ranging filtering system based on content analysis of Internet material, rather than a more minimal solution such as a blacklist of confirmed child pornography. Indeed, the ability to ‘opt-out’ seems to be a key part of Labor’s scheme — and why on earth would they allow people to opt out of a blacklisting system that only targeted child pornography or other illegal content?
He also adds:
If what me, EFA, and the media have been saying is ‘hysteria’, then why doesn’t Conroy set the record straight now? If they know what they’re proposing, intending, or considering implementing, why wait six weeks to tell us?
Read his full post here.
Meanwhile, Stilgherrian writes in Crikey that Mr Conroy’s ISP filtering trial in Hobart will finish June 2008.
