Australian Senator Wants to Censor the Net 588
Paul writes "An Australian Senator wants Australians' internet connections to be automatically filtered by ISPs. Anyone who wants to view pornography or 'other adult material' (details not specified) must apply to their ISP to be given access to it. Another step towards becoming a nanny state."
WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)
Internet != Web (Score:5, Insightful)
The article talks about the Internet but my bet is that they are talking about content filtering on http traffic.
Peer to peer is much harder to filter and readily available to the porn industry.
Nasties on the net (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, I have a much better suggestion - supervision your children while they use the internet!
Nanny-ness of this isn't important compared to (Score:5, Insightful)
Does someone have a list of names? (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
Does someone have a list of names of these idiots, so our Australian friends know who to rail against and vote out of office ASAP?
Re:mmmhmm (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just the opinion of one right-wing senator. It's not going to happen. You have a lot more neo-con nut jobs in your senate or lobbying it who propose the same or worse.
Re:Not a nanny (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok. So you want the ISP to filter for you to keep the "baddies" of the internet away from your children.
Great. Who decides what sites the ISP should filter? What is the criteria? Who develops the criteria? Who oversees that the ISP are filtering only to the criteria mandated? And so on...and so on...
Yes, ISPs can filter. It won't work. Some "bad" sites will get through the filter and many perfectly legitimate sites will get blocked. The current market of PC-based filtering software clearly proves this.
Here's an idea. Supervise your children when they are on the internet instead of relying on your ISP or (god forbid) the government to do it for you.
These people should censor themselves.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Those filters will not be effective by any stretch of the imagination. It's unlikely that pornography can be statistically "filtered out" the way spam is. Also, those who actually have a vested interest in the Australian market for pornography will just start signing up for hosting that's based in another country, like the United States. So the Australian government gets weepy and blows through a large supply of tax money EVERY YEAR on a solution with barely any chance of success and no redeemable returns even if it is a success.
Do these people even stop to think before they open their mouths to speak?
Where do you get this stuff? (Score:4, Insightful)
Far be it from me to tell the people of another country how to run their own show... I'm just grateful for the contrast. Every time I see another "we must filter porn to protect the children from carnal knowledge" or "me must outlaw cameras at school sports events to protect kids from the evil paedophiles" stories it reminds me just how much more fucked up things really could be here in the US.
Alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the system should default automatically in favor of protecting our rights as adults before we start considering the children.
Big difference...
The adults who wish to protect the children in their custody can then opt-in (and pay for) whatever safe haven/playpen schemes they wish to create.
Getting Sick of This (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay by me... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Or, even better, tell me why it's immoral.)
More seriously:
There are some fine lines between art and porn...stuff like: http://konzababy.tripod.com/photography.htm [tripod.com]
(?Not?Safe?For?work?) Click the tiny image to enlarge. -- Is this art or porn? (I say art 100%)
Even closer still are things like http://www.domai.com [domai.com] (Not Safe For Work)
See this interview [domai.com] (Not Safe For Work) on domai.com for an interesting dialog about nudes/art/porn. -- Is Domai Porn? Difficult to say (I lean more toward yes, but I have reservations)
Any thoughts? What makes porn
What the heck is going on down there? (Score:3, Insightful)
What the heck is going on down there?
Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't think they actually comprehend that! (Score:5, Insightful)
Filters, bah (Score:2, Insightful)
The system is slow, useless, stupid, retarded, limited, programmed by monkies and those are it's good points!
List of stupid thinks these filters do
Breast Cancer research = fail, students might see some tits, oh noes!
Any reasearch relation to sex = fail, can't let our kids know about sex!
Image searches = fail, sorry we can't filter out just the porn so we'll just block it all!
Yep, just what I want for my kids if I had any, a internet connect that couldn't be used for legit research!
Re:Not a nanny (Score:3, Insightful)
Are they required to do so by law? Or do they choose to?
Exactly -- don't call it a "nanny state." (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we dump the /. rhetoric? (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I'm tired of seeing comments like this in stories of this sort:
You know what? Every democracy on the planet will have some representative somewhere who decides to take up some kooky cause. One of the strengths of a democracy is that the majority can prevent such idiotic ideas from becoming a reality.
Should we be educated about when some moronic public representative decides to take up such a cause? Yes. But do we have to assume that just because one elected/appointed representative professes a bad idea that the entire state is about to go downhill?
Last I checked, Austraila is a democracy, and there is a process that must be followed to go from an idea to a legislative act. The idea, however, is not the act.
If and when an idea gets past the first step of legislation, then is when you have to worry, as it usually means that other elected representatives support the idea. But one bad idea hardly means the downfall of society -- chances are very good that this effort will go into the dustbin of history, like a variety of bad ideas elected officials have professed and later dropped due to lack of support.
Yaz.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting, as I've always felt that porn helps people relax and release tension. Like anything else, it can be addictive and too much can probably hurt you (though, like most things, too mcuh is dependant on the indivdual). It's also certainly good for couples when it's watched together (and is something both enjoy watching).
There is also the old reality/VR argument. Like video games, there is a significant difference between porn and reality. The problem comes when people can't differentiate between the two. In porn's case I'd argue that the lack of sex ed in schools probably contributes to that, as people develope their ideas about sex from pornos without having been taught anything about the reality of it (the "you mean all gals arent completely shaven, enjoy teh buttsecks, and like facials and giving blowjobs?!?!?!?" type mentality).
Porn is at its basic sense fantasy, and can actually sometimes be really funny if you understand that. Hell, my girlfriend and I spent a couple hours laughing at/critiquing some rather unrealistic and amusing porn this past weekend.
To bring this back on topic, regardless of one's views towards porn, filtering it is both impossible and a dangerous move to attempt. This is an area of parental responsibility, it should not be censored by the govt for us.
Re:Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Law will have OPPOSITE effect (Score:5, Insightful)
The only, repeat only way to police what kids see on the net is to have a human in the loop in real time, for every kid. And we could be waiting a while for that to happen.
Well, I guess the developers of Freenet [freenetproject.org], I2P [i2p.net] and other anonymising networks will be grateful, as support, userbase and donations surge.
Re: Um ok (Score:4, Insightful)
If it appeals to the voters in his district, the rest is irrelevant.
Re:Nasties on the net (Score:2, Insightful)
It is not hard to configure computers these days to only access the net through a proxy and then implement filtering on the proxy. If you have one of those kids who can get around stuff like that(and actually, they aren't as common as the hypsters like to say), then you can bet they'll get around any government mandated ISP filter. If you're a parent who isn't technically savvy enough to do that, but you have the money to put computers and internet connections into all your kids rooms, then you have the money to hire a consultant to set a proxy up for you.
-A Parent
Re:You don't think they actually comprehend that! (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who would seriously think of filtering the internet obviously has no idea of what it is.
I guess you've never heard of the Great Firewall of China. I'm sure people have found ways around the firewall, but my guess is it's largely effective at limiting the content that the Chinese people can receive.
Re:Does someone have a list of names? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two interesting points in the quote you presented that I think you missed. First, that the content is deemed inappropriate. That's a hard one to judge because the Internet is still very new and we are still hashing out exactly where it fits in our lives. Puting porn mags in with childrens comics in a news agent is inappropriate. I don't think the analogy holds for the Internet which is mostly aimed at adults (porn, shopping, news etc). Therefore it's difficult to argue that there is a social norm that is being broken making adult material on the web inappropriate.
Secondly, the idea of opting in at the ISP level being the same as opting in to other media is a fundamentally flawed analogy. Most (but I admit not all) porn sites require registration which is the equivalent to opting in to other media. Opting in at the ISP level is like opting in to walk down some streets in the local town. Best keept that last bit quiet - before we know it someone will try and implement the idea.
I wonder how much this has to actually do with protecting the children. It feels more like a ploy to get a list of everyone that views "inappropriate" content. Pound to a penny the law will be formulated such that the ISP has to surrender records of subscribers that requested the block be removed for practically any reason.
Re:From the horse's mouth. (Score:3, Insightful)
Could one assume then, that 93% of parents are therefore using some form of filtering currently available to achieve that goal?
They have a way around it... (Score:3, Insightful)
People care way to much about what others think of them. If you enjoy something, fuck what others think.
Re:Nasties on the net (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people don't understand the technology, but think they are qualified to make decisions about laws governing that technology. Some People are idiots.
I worry about my child and the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
--Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Re:Nasties on the net (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Rule #1 (Score:2, Insightful)
You know whats really hurting the children?
OTHER children! It's not so much as our parenting, as it is the parenting of OTHERS that is influencing our children! This is wrong!
We should be able to protect our own without having our work, our CHILDREN(!) influenced by the work of others!
Yet the problems we are facing today, the interweb, the violence TV, all of these were there in different forms before!
Yes! We are having the same problems all parents before us have had! How do I know this??
Why its simple!
If there ever was a time when it was good to raise kids, and there werent bad people and things happening around us, well, we would have had PERFECT kids then! Then those children would have become perfect parents, raised perfect children and today we would have NO problems!
Imagine!
World war 2 wouldn't have happened!
Everyone would be polite and well mannered!
Each and everyone of us, would be so much better than what we are now! No one would have been mean or hurt us, no children would be taken advantage of. There would be no pervs, NOTHING! Can you imagine!?
But it DIDN'T HAPPEN! That means its never been possible to do so!
We need to change this. I say we need to put controls on the internet so our children can be safe. But will that stop it?
NO!
People will find a way around it! YES! The deviants will! WE NEED to control the deviants too! We need to find EVERYONE who has the least chance of being a deviant, ANY KIND of deviant, and ISOLATE them. Economically, emotionally, in evey which way possible! GET RID OF the deviants!
But no, this is not enough either! Some deviants will always escape!
Some may get born in further generations!
WE NEED TO CONTROL EVERYTHING!
You cant just try controlling the internet, the point is to PROTECT our children. To keep them SAFE from harm. And hard can come in MANY forms! WE NEED TO CONTROL EVERYTHING! LETS SAVE THE CHILDREN!
Control EVERYTHING.
WE need to make sure everyone follows the SAME path, EVERYDAY. Only state sponsored holidays on BIOLOGICALLY suitable days. WORK on those days that people are most productive, those days that you cant you can take a break! And you can go to something GOOD for you! Maybe a state sponsored gym class! Maybe the opera. AND DEFINITELY NO MORE CIGARETTE BREAKS!
Just like that, no more trouble! You go when we tell you, where we tell you and how we tell you. No more unhealthy past times. No more unhealthy food. No more rude children. WIth everyone being shining examples all our children will grow up to be well adjusted and capable of contributing to society.
Yet, even this my friends, is an utopia.
Yes, even this little dream is not to be. Because we cling too hard to moderate steps. IF we want to protect the children we must protect them from EVERYTHING. EVEN OURSELVES.
I say this is not enough. Deviants can form even in that utopia! I say we must do MORE. MUCH MUCH MORE! And today , we have the tools to do so.
Genetic engineering. WE must remove the genes for creativity and intelligence. ALL PEOPLE WITH AN IQ ABOVE 80 MUST BE REMOVED From the gene pool! That way, there will NEVER be any technological change that will allow deviants to spy and PERVERT our children!
Remove the need for dominance! Make it so that EVERYONE born LOOKS EXACTLY the same! No skin color differences, no hieght, no body shape, NOTHING. No one will EVER be insecure about their looks again!
Remove the gene for violence all together! EVERYONE WILL BE DOCILE! NO ONE WILL feel the urge to go out and hit someone ever!
But then how will we eat? WIll we be able to defend ourselves? YES! We can make robots whose ONLY duty is to kill all the predators.
KILL EVERY BEAR, TIGER, HYENA, LION! EVERY predator which may prey on us. While we are at it, lets kill ALL the mosquitos as well. matter of fact, all land insects should die. Sharks too. That way our docile herds of children will be safe.
At this point food bec
Re:WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)
Those with a conspiratorial mind may see other uses for this. It's a first step towards general content control. Even though this almost certainly is not the intent, there will always be people who feel that such a great tool can always be used for many more things. Next step might perhaps be blocking (without the opt-out, of course) child pornography. That's not likely to garner much opposition. After that they'll go for snuff, or prostitution. After awhile they'll start finding things that aren't really illegal, just morally reprehensible (to most people). Pretty soon, censoring yet another thing won't be such a big deal.
There are times when censorship might seem like a good idea. However, anything that might lead to a less free society is not a good solution. It might sound callous, but I'd rather have a few children messed up by seeing pornography accidentally (if that really is such a trauma) than live with a perpetual censoring filter, just waiting to be abused. Parents, find another way to protect your kids, please.
Re:From the horse's mouth. (Score:3, Insightful)
Nyh
Re:WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)
Install Net Nanny or something like that, or as an even more outstanding idea just watch what your kids are doing.
Re:Nasties on the net (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm with you on your response. I can't believe the criticisms people come up with, and the alternatives they propose.
Are we supposed to set up a dedicated computer room instead of [having computers in] their bedrooms?
No. We're supposed to forbid free access to all of the adults in a country and force them to register their "perversions" with the government.
[M]ake sure there is a full time watcher [of children in the househould]?
No. Why should parents watch their children? Let government watch full-grown adults.
Kids over 13 or so can stay home alone. Do we lock up the computer room when the adults are out?
No. Lock up the Internet, and make the adults of a country live under one, giant child-proof cap.
Please pardon the sarcasm, but it really is sad how some people think. I'm sorry, but children are overwhelmingly the primary responsibility of their parents -- even though that can prove to be "inconvenient" to parents at times.
Encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
Then the content doesnt matter.
Re:WTF! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course this is in France where you can buy porn in any newsstand (and even see the covers!) and see actual boobies on prime time tv.
What a bunch of perverts we are.
Re:Nasties on the net (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, porn existed well before the internet did. If you block it out from the net, kids will just go back to those avenues. Maybe its hard for you to admit as a parent, but looking at porn is a staple of growing up for most teen boys.
Its not evil, its natural. I remember finding a mag when I was about 13... It was like I stumbled upon the holy grail.
The problem is, politicians use the "...but what about the children" bit to win elections, and we idiots keep falling for it. We all turned up fine, so will they
Re:WTF! (Score:3, Insightful)
>pornoghapic content.
There does not _have_ to be control. Some countries have more or less censorship af television.
I am more worried about children getting exposed to Scientology and coke-snorting fashion models with eating disorders.
Can I get a filter so that you have to sign up for Scientology, Fashion etc to access it on the internet.
Re:WTF! (Score:4, Insightful)
Like web browsers that support https?
Re:WTF! (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Do you have 'net access at home?; and
2. If you do, have you installed a filter?
If 'No' to 1, or 'Yes' to both, what's your problem? If 'Yes' to 1 and 'No' to 2 how about you pull your finger out and take charge of your own situation rather than expect the Government to mandate a default solution of restricted access to any user in Australia: I don't want to jump through hoops to access information I deem fit to just because you can't be fucked implementing a solution for your own specific situation.
With the current political climate in this country (Australia) shadowing neo-conservativism elsewhere, you can be damn sure pron won't be the only item of censure and restriction on the agenda.
Re:WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where do you get this stuff? (Score:2, Insightful)
What we do, see, is just ignore the law altogether - we did it with the copyright on videos - there is no "fair use" in the australian copyright laws - timeshifting is illegal. But does anybody pay any attention? No. In fact, we get our public figures - or a certain segment of our public figures pretty much advocating civil disobedience. Back then, it was Simon Townsend [abc.net.au] who stood up on the ABC and said (and this is a quote) "the law is an ass", during a show he had for a season or two Friday nights (because most Doctor Who stories around the time were four chapters which took up Monday to Thursday), when he gave this rather impassioned speech about copyright laws in Australia and how it was illegal to tape show for watching later. He was practically exhorting us to go out and breach these (quote) "foolish" laws. Those of you who don't remember Simon, he was a bit like Mr Rogers, only with more giggling. There was also a bloodhound [news.com.au] involved.
With a comment from an earlier poster about the passing of Australia's version of the new anti-terror and sedition laws in mind, there was recently a show [greenleft.org.au] put together by Andrew Denton and Wendy Harmer, chock-full and brimming over with fine black Australian satire, sedition and treason. Deliberately so, as the show was intended as a protest [abc.net.au] against the new laws.
Here's an interesting bunch of comments [smh.com.au] to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald. See how many people are ready to put up their hands and say "Here we are, breaking the law. Whatcha gunna do?"
Remember the filtering measures [slashdot.org] that are already supposed to be in place, courtesy of Senator Richard Alston? What happened to them?
And finally, there's those rabble-rousing commie lefties right where they always have been - there at the helm of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation [abc.net.au]. Believe it or not, it was our very own comrade Rampaging Roy Slaven [labor.net.au] who gave this year's post-prandial wallopping [abc.net.au] at that glittering industry shindig, the annual Andrew Ollie Media Lecture. Towards the end of his speech - it's a cracking good one too, go and have a read of it, it's really long - he pointed out that...
And the head of the ABC agreed with him! Said that the ABC's job was to cause discomfort to the comfortable, or some such seditious nonsense. There's already
Re:This is the least of our worries... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nasties on the net (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not? I had unsupervised internet access at a younger age than that (yay for 2400 baud modems). I have read studies that show that a parent's influence on their child has dropped to almost zero by around the age of 12 in most cases. You have two choices:
- Either educate your children by the age of twelve such that they are able to police their own behaviour, or
- Use draconian measures to try to enforce behaviour after that.
If you teach your children about what to expect on the 'net, and what kind of things they can do safely, then they will. Will they download porn? Almost certainly, for as long as society keeps insisting on making it seem slightly illicit, and therefore interesting to a teenage mind. Will it damage them? I very much doubt it, other than perhaps inducing boredom - sex really doesn't make a good spectator sport...Re:WTF! (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was 14 I was doing some religion study homework (catholic highschool, it didn't stick) with a team, one of guys asked if we wanted to watch a bootleg porn tape, someone from the AV club had made him a copy. We said yes, off course.
I could have done without the hardcore scripted shit, I just wanted to see nekkid wimmin, the money shots were weird and pointless.
The lesson is: If you want to protect the children, STOP LUMPING HARDCORE PORN AND BOOBIES TOGETHER. And stop trying to stop 14 year olds from seeing boobies, it's doing much more harm than good.
Definition (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
no, he wasn't socialist. the Nazis were fascist (the exact opposite end of the political spectrum) if anything, he was anti-socialist/anti-communist. communists were basically one of the other things on his list of "things to eliminate to make a perfect world" in addition to jews and the physically/mentally disabled.
Re:They have a way around it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They have a way around it... (Score:2, Insightful)
All right thinking people know that it's *bad* for kids to see naked people, but *good* for them to see dead/dying/killing people, because it shows them what the *real world* is like.