Mark Pesce sums up in a neat article what much of the web communities views on mandatory filtering have been over the last two weeks.

He had some great points of his own to add:

Last May, Wang Guoqing, Vice Minister of the State Council of Information, the man who oversees the Great Firewall of China, was quoted as saying: “It has been repeatedly proved that information blocking is like walking into a dead end.” In essence, Wang was declaring the failure of the Chinese attempts to filter the Internet; the Chinese are now moving toward a policy, which reminds Chinese netizens that the state is watching them – and that they should surf the web appropriately.

Mark also reconfirms a point I’ve been making a lot on this blog:

No child pornographer has been detected or caught through filtered network traffic. These rings are cracked because some law enforcement agency has broken into the human network of individuals who trade in these images. Filtering has not, nor will ever stop the distribution of any child pornography. Hence, Australia’s net filter will not do anything to stop or even slow down child pornography. It’s an emotional argument that has zero practical value.

Meanwhile, Paul Syvret over at The Courier Mail says wowsers may soon run out of things to ban. After they get rid of alcohol on planes, long fringes on blokes, and the Internet in 2008, what will they turn to next? Paul offers some suggestions.