Shadow Comms Minister Nick Minchin has a well-crafted opinion piece about Rudd’s filter plan in SMH today. Minchin writes:
There is no technological substitute for adult supervision and it’s irresponsible and misleading to infer otherwise. Mandating a so-called “clean feed” has the potential to create a dangerous false sense of security, leading parents to believe ongoing supervision and vigilance is no longer needed.
The minister must start listening to the experts, who have repeatedly made the point that most predatory risks to children lurk in those areas of the online world this kind of filtering will do little to combat. Technical advice suggests chat rooms, email and peer-to-peer networks are the most dangerous. Law enforcement agencies around the world have revealed that pedophiles use peer-to-peer networks to exchange explicit videos and images outside the world wide web.
No decent Australian would argue against the broad aim of making the online world as safe as possible. But Labor’s fixation with compulsory, centralised filtering – which tells parents they are incapable of protecting their children – is not the answer.
Minchin can’t ease off. The Liberal party pussy footed around the issue towards the end of last year until they were sure which side they needed to be on. Now they know how many people are against the plan Minchin needs to move in hard. Scott Ludlam can’t do this by himself.
6 comments
Eddie says:
Jan 22, 2009
If anyone missed it in today’s SMH, you can read it here:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/big-brother-filter-plan-insults-parents/2009/01/21/1232471392459.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Mike says:
Jan 23, 2009
Oops, cheers Eddie. Can’t believe I forgot the link.
Simon says:
Jan 23, 2009
Not to mention that the prevalence of actual pedophiles chatting to children over the internet isn’t anywhere near what the scaremongers lead us to believe, and the family members who would be monitoring children’s internet usage are statistically much more likely to abuse those children themselves.
Brian Houston says:
Jan 23, 2009
You spelt ‘piece’ incorrectly.
Mike says:
Jan 25, 2009
I did. Cheers Brian.
Bob Bain says:
Jan 25, 2009
From the United States..
http://www.pcworld.com/article/158131/copa_childporn_law_killed.html
COPA Child-Porn Law Killed
Scott Nichols
Jan 23, 2009 3:00 am
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme court announced its refusal to hear appeals against the banning of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), effectively killing the bill. The American Civil Liberties Union called it “a clear victory for free speech,” having fought the bill for ten years claiming it infringed on a website’s freedom of speech.
COPA was first passed in 1998, and made it illegal to display any pornographic material on a Web site without an access code or proof of age message. However, state courts began challenging the bill immediately, claiming it was unconstitutional and violated the First Amendment. Instead, it was ruled that parental controls should be used by individual families to block unwanted content, rather than the government determining what can and cannot be seen by all.
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and a personal opinion from the author
“I’ve always advocated that it is the responsibility of parents to monitor their children’s online activity. There are a ton of Web filtering and parental control applications available, many for free such as Blue Coat’s K9 Web Protection. Especially with the country in the shape it’s in now, my personal opinion is that the government has more pressing issues to attend to than babysitting children online.”