Stilgherrian’s latest article in Crikey explains why Child Wise’s Bernadette McMenamin got hammered for her comments in The Australian: Geeks get angry when their knowledge isn’t respected. Too right. There’s a little more to it though as Stil explains:

  • Two completely different problems are conflated. One, preventing distribution of already-illegal child pornography to anyone. Two, preventing children from viewing undefined ‘inappropriate’ material, but allowing access to others in the same home. Different problems need different solutions, but they?re jumbled together for political purposes. Naughty naughty, Senators Conroy and Fielding.
  • Technical illiterates are demanding specific answers: Those in the know are already several pages ahead in this story, and know filters won?t work. Geeks get angry when their knowledge isn’t respected ? even when it isn?t understood (or understandable).

Spot on. You can read the entire Crikey article on Stil’s blog.

I suggest you also read EFA’s response to the ALP’s mandatory filtering plan. The report is over 16 pages, but damn I tell you: every last one of them does a good job of explaining exactly why filtering won’t do what the Government says it will. Print it for the train ride home.

– Mike