Eircom the main internet provider in Ireland has plans to curb peoples use and enjoyment of the internet by filtering all content on the internet. This non government controlled filtering of the internet is to stop the illegally uploading and downloading of copyrighted material. IRMA (Irish Recorded Music Association ) which is controlled by the main record labels (EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner) are to supply Eircom with the IP addresses of all people they detect illegally uploading or downloading copyrighted materials. If you are found to be illegally downloading copyrighted materials you can be disconnected from the internet.

The filtering of the internet and the treat of disconnection is serving a commercial interest group and is not to the benefit to the people of Ireland. We do not condone piracy but we should never have censorship, surveillance and treat of disconnection from the internet. The internet has become a main part of Modern life people use it everyday for doing business, communicating with friends buying and selling goods, reading the news as well as many other reasons. There is over a billion people in the world that use the internet and half the world have mobile phones to disconnect people from the internet is ending there freedom to work and communicate with the world. Censorship, surveillance and disconnection of the internet for the benefit of music industry is ridiculous. How can a democratic nation allow a private industry association to dictate what information their population can/cannot read. The future of the internet is at stake if we let censorship of the internet start now we can never stop it.

can you please help me make this be known to the public or give me advice in how i should launch a campaign to stop it at the moment i am sending this email and asking people to forward it toThe following email addresses the minister for communication the irish media and eircom (please help forward to the following and to your friends)

eamon.ryan@oireachtas.ie, customer.services@eircom.net, sales@eircom.net

eircomadvertising@eircom.net, newsonline@rte.ie, info@tv3.ie

.

Thanks

Ger

Q: Do you believe porn is harmful to teens who stumble across it (or who, more often, willingly seek it out)? Is this belief based on any evidence?
A: Definitely not. As an ex-teen who willingly sought out porn myself, I don’t believe it caused me any harm.

Q: Do you agree that adults should have the right to view consensual sexual material that some may find offensive?
A: Yes!

Q: Do you feel that the way Australia approaches porn via other media (and through the OFLC) is reasonable?
A: Reasonable, I can accept. Ideal? No.

Q: Do you believe in free speech?
A: Yes!

“By all means, suggest that porn is inappropriate (as opposed to harmful) for children and teens – that’s why we have filter software. But make a distinction. Adults have the right to look at porn.

And there is no scientific evidence to suggest that looking at porn causes any harm.”

Exactly. I’m now an adult, and I still look at porn, and I don’t believe that it causes me harm. And of course I’m not looking at child porn or animal porn – only consenting adults.

Now, on to my own comments…

Regarding filtering in general, I work for an internet dating company that has many clients in the Middle East. Many of our sites – which are not adult dating sites, porn sites, whatever, just sites for adults to meet other adults for dating and marriage – are blocked by those governments. We have to advise people from those companies to use proxy servers, but occasionally even those get blocked. Naturally, I’m concerned that this could also happen to clients from Australia, which would obviously be bad for me.

Regarding the people on both sides of the debate in general, I find it very interesting that the “pro” commentators nearly always cite their sources for statistics, with references, and put them in context. But the “anti” commentators very rarely do. Looking at Bernadette McMenamin’s “super blog” (http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25010836-5013046,00.html), for example:

“Critics of this new scheme have argued that ISP filtering of child sexual abuse images simply will not work. However these filters are actually working very effectively in Scandinavian countries and in the UK as well as in recent trials in New Zealand.”

Compared with Mark Newton’s (http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25045088-5013038,00.html):

“In 2005 the New Zealand Government looked at this issue and concluded that the international deployments it was able to observe were impractical and not-fit-for-purpose, specifically noting that the UK system was only 10 – 15 per cent effective even when it was notionally working.”

And its Newton who provides a link, not McMenamin.

Regarding Clive Hamilton himself…Surely his scenario could have been prevented by adequate parental supervision? And isn’t most of what the boy saw in the scenario legal to view? How is the filter going to stop this scenario from happening? How much of what was described is going to be blocked? Personally, I have a problem with very little of what he listed, and have been known to view much of it at some point myself.

But of course, I’m not against the filter just because it might restrict my access to porn…I’m against it because I don’t believe it will be affective, because I disagree with the process being so opaque, because I disagree with the Government deciding what I can and can’t view, because I don’t want my internet service to decline, and many other reasons. I don’t understand how this proposal was even possible in what is supposed to be a “free and democratic society”.

Whew, sorry for the novel!

We ask the Government to restrict our liberties when we have laws that prohibit things like defamation, jaywalking, intellectual property theft, indecent exposure and countless others. We ask the Government to restrict our liberties when we have police and courts that enforce those laws.

Laws, manners and social standards are how a society regulates itself. They are an inevitable result of civilised society. The alternative is anarchy.

we have laws banning Australian ISPs from hosting the kinds of pornographic imagery I have described above

How can a modern, free and democratic country even have a law like this?

“Pointing out that he is failing to address legitimate concerns and ignoring facts is required on our behalf.”

True, but its better from an anti-filter (or pro-free speech) point of view that he ignores the facts. I doubt Clive is going to change his position after taking such a strong public stance. If Clive comes up with a strong argument for the filter it will give him two weapons (influence without the need for a strong argument as well as a strong argument).

I very much doubt he can come up with a strong argument for filtering, but if he were to do this it would make it much more difficult to prevent the implementation of a filter.

So… questions:

Do you believe porn is harmful to teens who stumble across it (or who, more often, willingly seek it out)? Is this belief based on any evidence?

Do you agree that adults should have the right to view consensual sexual material that some may find offensive?

Do you feel that the way Australia approaches porn via other media (and through the OFLC) is reasonable?

Do you believe in free speech?

Because that’s what it comes down to. You may find porn offensive but it has just as much right to exist as the most vitriolic anti-abortion site.

I’m not “off topic” here. This is a point that the pro-filter people will want to pursue because it’s easy to take a high moral ground stance about porn and people will be too embarrassed to speak out. We need to be firm on this point.

By all means, suggest that porn is inappropriate (as opposed to harmful) for children and teens – that’s why we have filter software. But make a distinction. Adults have the right to look at porn.

And there is no scientific evidence to suggest that looking at porn causes any harm.

Indeed, as I wrote in my second unpublished reply:
The FBI has actually found that the incidence of rape has DECLINED in the last ten years. That’s the last ten years during which internet porn has become readily accessible.

This researcher says he believes that net porn does not encourage rape but rather prevents it:
http://www.toddkendall.net/internetcrime.pdf

Yes, I AM an extreme libertarian.

This isn’t day 1 of the debate. The same tired, unrealistic hypothetical scenarios have been beaten around for months now. People are tired of simply engaging, “social conservatives”, at whatever level they deem appropriate.

No one is dismissing Clive Hamilton out of hand; they’ve heard what he and others have had to say. They’ve indulged this narrative and explained well and truly why what Hamilton, Wallace, McMenamin, etc are arguing is irrelevant – but they’ve been ignored.

It’s clear at this point that Hamilton (amongst others) aren’t interested in actually debating this. Rather, they’re spewing forth the same tired, refuted nonesence in the hope that if they repeat themselves loudly and often enough, they’re going to be taken seriously.

The appropriate response to this, in part is ridicule. Obviously, the exclusive ridicule of a point of view is no more honest or constructive than what Hamilton is doing but simply extending to these people the same courtesies over and over again is extending to them an undeserved level of respect, unbefitting of their conduct.

It needs to be made clear that we are not amused by emotional arguments and slight-of-hand, else bystanders are going to witness this argument and mistakenly think that both sides are arguing at the same level. We’re not. The most prominent advocates of this filter have demonstrated that they’re not above wallowing in the mud and we need to laugh at them for that.

I’ve tried to comment twice on Aust IT’s “Superblogging”, debate. My comments were respectful and well-reasoned yet neither were published.

The only explanation I can think of is they don’t like essays for comments. Both my attempted contributions, like yours, were quite long and responding to quite a few claims. Most of what gets published seems to be limited to one or two paragraphs.