Aussie Internet Censorship Minister Censors Self 158
An anonymous reader writes "Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, the minister attempting to ram the great firewall of Oz down everyone's throat, has been removing all traces of the unpopular legislation from his main website with a JavaScript filter. From the article: 'It was revealed today a script within the minister's homepage deliberately removes references to internet filtering from the list. In the function that creates the list, or "tag cloud," there is a condition that if the words "ISP filtering" appear they should be skipped and not displayed.' Bear in mind, this is the same minister that tried to get the ISP of tech forum Whirlpool to pull the site after users there posted a response email from the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority)."
His department also self-censors their email. (Score:5, Interesting)
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It'd be funny if Conroy put his top secret plans in that static array. Of course accessing them would be illegal hacking by the definition currently used in government here.
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You're assuming he has an actual plan. Maybe he's using:
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You appear not to have any UID. I guess that makes your 31 first posts even more impressive?
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My/Our UID is actually 0
No Anonymous Coward is 666.
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Why so serious ? (Score:2)
huh ? so you gone nuts over javascript. is it ?
Not what we want (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not what we want (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, it's quite an admission on his part.... He has to censor himself to keep from appearing too arrogant and stupid.
Elections are coming up... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's federal elections later this year so I imagine the government will be wanting to keep this particular piece of extremely unpopular legislation on the down-low for the rest of the year so that they can do what they did last time and trot it back out after the elections with the statement that they received a mandate from the people to implement it, despite it not actually being a major part of their platform.
After all, no political party in a supposedly free country would want to start campaigning with something as undemocratic on their books as a secret censorship blacklist run by the government with no judicial oversight and no right of appeal which blocks 'undesireable' content as defined by the government's whim at that particular time of the day. Any competent opposition could make it into a very major issue.
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Just Conroy.
Re:Elections are coming up... (Score:5, Insightful)
And then I realised where all the funding and authorisation comes from. I just find it... disturbing... that we are all of a sudden getting massive spin coverage on the facebook trolls over death-pages. Again, until I realise that it's the perfect reason to "censor" the internet.
Re:Elections are coming up... (Score:5, Insightful)
all of a sudden getting massive spin coverage on the facebook trolls over death-pages.
The massive spin coverage of Facebook trolls is in the MURDOCH press. Why? Because news corp owns MySpace, the competition. Call me cynical, but it's pretty bloody obvious.
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Exactly. Problem-reaction-solution.
Re:Elections are coming up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any competent opposition could make it into a very major issue.
*sigh*..
Re:Elections are coming up... (Score:4, Insightful)
Any competent opposition could make it into a very major issue.
*sigh*..
Unfortunately the opposition would like to see an even stronger filter.
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Just not the one Labor is promoting, they want a completely similar filter created by a Liberal government.
As the GP said, sigh.
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Somebody who posted here a week ago the last time we had this article had asked this question of Abbott somewhere and got the answer that they favoured a stronger filtering scheme. I suppose I could dig it up but that was what I read anyway.
Re:Elections are coming up... (Score:5, Insightful)
The liberal party (the opposion in Australia) believe in non-manditory filtering should be available to those who want it, but not manditory.
It IS TRUE... they [shockseat.com] are very pro-filtering [slashdot.org], despite what their election promise^H lie machine may be trying to spin you.
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They can't hide their positions on the Internet Filtering Scheme [shockseat.com]
Some people are watching their promises.
Whether people vote for or against parties on the issue is another thing. The site can't tell them who to vote for, but what the party position is, the informed voters still have to make up their mind. The Australian Labor Party did actually make the Internet Filtering Scheme an election promise that they have not yet carried out but are in the process.
Re:Elections are coming up... (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, this won't happen. (Disclaimer: I have posted this before, but it's worth restating)
Tony Abbot (The head of the Liberal party- that's the guys NOT in power, for you Americans) visited humble Darwin city recently and it was there that I personally got to ask him, in his public question and answer time, the following question (roughly remembered):
"The Internet is an important part of the lives of many young Australians, as well as Australia as a whole in this modern age- what do you think of (the Prime Minister- Americans would say 'president') Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the Internet?"
His answer began:
"Well, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you..." and yes, unfortunately, he did.
Paraphrased his answer was: "Stopping child pornography is extremely important to me and the Liberal party and therefore, if we can prove the censorship plan doesn't work, we will oppose it; but only it. We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can. If the filter works, we will support it."
Basically the message I got from his reply is that Tony Abbot believes that the filter will work "well enough" and is too much of a hot potato to oppose politically. The subtext I personally divined from his answer was a little more chilling; that the filter didn't go far *enough* for his tastes, and that he'd personally rather a complete whitelist than a blacklist. Therefore, speaking as a card-carrying Liberal... if you think that voting for the Liberal party in the next election will make the filter go away, you are sadly mistaken.
On a side note, the fact that he himself is an extremely religious man probably doesn't help a great deal, since it seems that too many politicians tend to "trust God about these things" when it's abundantly clear that God knows sweet F-A about the Tubes and how they work.
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You don't have to worry. Tony Abbott is just the liberal opposition mouthpiece until the labour party sends the country broke after the next election. After which the personable, intelligent and well spoken Joe Hockey will take over leadership and with his down-to-earth style and an armload of "labour can't manage money" will convince the beer drinking, bbq loving majority that he's the right man for the job.
Then he'll make some nasty international agreements and raise the GST rate to pay off the 300 billio
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by Anonymous Coward writes:
You're from Adelaide, are you ;-)
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Hey, at least you got a good straight answer out of him. A politician that will answer a question, even at the expense of disappointing his audience, has my respect.
Not my vote, of course, since he disappointed me too. Actually, you need to have some expectations to be disappointed, so I guess he didn't even do that.
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We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can.
= oh, he is about 240 years too late.
Re:Elections are coming up... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the polls that have been performed so far seem to indicate that the 'clean feed' idea behind the legislation goes over very well with the average Aussie voter, and they're not getting the 'geek rage' message that it won't work and will slow down the internet.
There needs to be a whole load of education to the masses to get across the reality of what they're proposing, and how it can be used in future to censor anything the pollies don't want the public to know about, before there's any real chance of this not going through.
And don't depend on Mr Abbott and friends to stop it. The Churches are all for it, in fact there's a strong indication that the Clean Feed is a deliberate play to the right-wing church lobby groups.
Our only hope is the Greens (and the Sex party and Pirate party*) who are the only 'major' political party who have definitely come out against this.
(* who should definitely join forces to form the Sexy Pirate party)
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The Clean Feed isn't just a play to right-wing church groups, it was basically invented by these religious fundamentalists.
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They would get totally p0wned by the Nude Ninja Party
Re:Elections are coming up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite a few of them have, actually, and managed to paint their opponents as supporters of child porn / terrorism / boogeyman of the day. And many people, even here on Slashdot, have cheered them on, happy to ensure their children won't be exposed to any material they disagree with.
I figure we're in for a new dark age. With China rising on the outside and politicians, businessmen and hysterical parents on the inside, all those hard-won freedoms and human rights are going to erode away. It won't last forever, of course: given enough time, the pendulum will swing back and humanity will reclaim what it's losing now; but I doubt any of us will see it.
Re:Elections are coming up... (Score:4, Funny)
This just popped into my head reading this thread, but I'm wondering how much child porn goes on these days. I have to say, I've been around some fucking weird corners of the net, but the only time I hear about kiddie porn is when politicians talk about it. Paging Dr. Freud?
Put another way, I'd love to hear someone ask these guys "can you prove that this is a social problem and not some weird fixation on your part?"
There's just something inherently distasteful about a middle aged man, not involved with law enforcement, getting worked into a lather over naked children. It's creepy.
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There's just something inherently distasteful about a middle aged man, not involved with law enforcement, getting worked into a lather over naked children. It's creepy.
You reminded me of this article: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/07/05/the_nature_of_temptation/ [boston.com] which indeed validates your theory
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Thanks, that was an interesting article.
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There is a new global political shift, as the left shifted to centre right, it left a major opening for the Green Party. There are not that many people who are interested in the far right and it's singular exposed focus on making the rich richer and the middle class into the working poor. This opportunity is allowing the Green Party to take up the centre left position, leaving the pseudo labour parties stuck sharing the right with the far right, where they will likely do a lot of damage to each, creating t
What more proof do you need? (Score:5, Interesting)
They can't be trusted to not use it for political ends. You wont ever hear the words "We've legislated against the filter being used to block political material."
We're already got the ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) attempting to file its members into the classification board by applying for positions to put their own slant on approvals or most likely disapprovals.
Every little interest group that wants the particular vice that they're against is already lining up to whisper in the Senator's ear. He's ethically corrupt and making dubious shady decisions. $250 Million for the free to air channels around Australia with no strings attached. I wonder why there is little to no coverage in the main stream press now days?
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Every little interest group that wants the particular vice that they're against added to the filter is already lining up to whisper in the Senator's ear.
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Don't forget the cosy ski trip Conroy had in the US with Kerry Stokes, owner of channel 7, just before the $250 million handout. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26718780-953,00.html [news.com.au]
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I wonder why there is little to no coverage in the main stream press now days?
It's filtered?
National Disgrace (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:National Disgrace (Score:5, Funny)
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When you get a letter sent from Australia with writing covered by black marker, you'll know its the "No Problem" reply from us.
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That's "No worries, mate" to you!
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Just recently I visited New Zealand as an American (first time overseas). I spent the whole trip couchsurfing and meeting locals and generally trying out bad ideas with good people. It was one of the best experiences of my life. However, throughout the exploits, I was constantly engaged in conversation with various Kiwis regarding everything from American politics to Grey's Anatomy and Baseball. No matter what the political topic that was bein
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FWIW, I'm embarrassed to be a New Zealander right today... They passed [nzherald.co.nz] The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill, so 3 strikes and we're out of pocket $15,000 and kicked offline.
New times, same as the old times. (Score:2)
Is Conroy's Behaviour Evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
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He's the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy hiding his unpopular policies in an election year. It's disgraceful.
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In fact, it doesn't seem to be evil at all. So what's the fuss?
I don't recall anybody calling it evil, where did you see that? I would say it could be called funny, ironic, or fitting.
I'm also not seeing a "fuss," unless you call a slashdot article a fuss.
Public opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Somebody rings you up or corners you in the street and asks you if you support internet filtering and you say yes so you don't look like a creep but when you get into the polling booth it might be an entirely different situation.
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Somebody rings you up or corners you in the street and asks you if you support internet filtering and you say yes so you don't look like a creep but when you get into the polling booth it might be an entirely different situation.
Might be.
But probably won't be.
This how the issues were framed by an ABC poll:
The exact questions asked of the 1,000 people [in a telephone poll] were:
Would you say you are in favour or not in favour of having a mandatory Government Internet filter that would automatically block al
Quite a change (Score:3, Insightful)
from when I was down there (USN) in 1976 -- folks were pretty much left to act like adults and be responsible for themselves. Now the whole country seems more farked up than the U.S., or even Britain!
Maybe they should start referring to him as Kim Jong Conroy?
So much for the concepts of "Freedom" and "Democracy" for Oz...
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Re:Quite a change (Score:5, Informative)
Don't worry ... we are still like that. Don't confuse a few fringe Senators' ideas with the status quo. Slashdot really gives you a warped view on anything that involves privacy/censorship and countries outside the US. Remember, this 'great filter':
- Is currently nothing more than a proposal. Not legislation, and not even an actual Bill that's been introduced formally into the House or Senate; ... it's not subversively being shoved down anyone's throat, despite what one or two loony Senators would like; ... and failing pretty badly. The Liberal opposition and the Greens are almost certain to prevent it ever passing the Senate;
- Is clearly being discussed and is a major topic in the news here. People are informed about it and forming their own opinions on it
- Is being attempted to be introduced via the normal democratic process
- And finally, even if it gets implemented, it is nothing more than a simple HTTP URL blacklist. Circumvented in about 5 seconds and doesn't do jack to P2P/usenet/IRC/any other protocol.
This is not to say that the filter is nothing to worry about and shouldn't be fought - it absolutely should be! But drawing comparisons to China or North Korea is a bit of a stretch.
Australia is still an open and free country, and probably still the country out there that's most similar to the US, culturally and ideologically. Sure there are those that would wish to reduce those freedoms ... but those kind of people exist in the US as well. But both countries have strong, independent legal systems and proper democratic process by which to challenge such things.
I'm a dual US/AU citizen and travel regularly between the two countries every year. I'm pretty familiar with the news and issues in both countries. Slashdot definitely puts a slant on most of these kind of stories, making things outside the US seem worse than they are. Same applies to their reporting on the UK and other European nations, to an extent.
Some come down and visit again some time. We won't bite :P
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Haha I got modded funny? What the ... :)
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Don't worry ... we are still like that. Don't confuse a few fringe Senators' ideas with the status quo. Slashdot really gives you a warWe won't bite :P
Our wildlife might though :P
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We won't bite :P
But everything else down there will. And, poison you. Or, sting. I'm happy right here where the most dangerous animal is the "killer" slug, that in a fit of rage might go so far as to eat your lettuce.
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It was slowly lifted until the early 1990's.
Then it was locked down again via movie cuts and bans.
Books on the Iraq war where also destroyed in suburbia.
Now faith based groups have their people in or are very close to power on both sides of politics and can revert Australia back to the dark ages again.
LIES! (Score:3, Informative)
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, the minister attempting to ram the great firewall of Oz down everyone's throat has been removing all traces of the unpopular legislation from his main website with a javascript filter.
The summary of this article is a ball-faced lie. The JavaScript in question removes the term "ISP filter" from the tag cloud on the home page of the site, nothing more.
There are still plenty of pages on the site that mention "ISP Filtering" such as the following:
Media Release - Measures to improve safety of the internet for families [dbcde.gov.au]
Measures to improve safety of the internet for families [dbcde.gov.au]
Media Release - Optus to participate in ISP filtering pilot [dbcde.gov.au]
Media Release - Pilot to assess technical feasibility of ISP filtering [dbcde.gov.au]
PS: I still think Conroy is an ass-hat. It's a very small minority of Australian citizens who want internet censorship - Kevin Rudd and his government need to remember that they were voted in by the majority. Say "NO" to Kevin in 11!
Re:LIES! (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's what the tag cloud looks like with and without the censorship
http://i46.tinypic.com/v79v7c.png [tinypic.com]
When you click the link for "ISP Filtering" it takes you to a "power by google" search
http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/search?q=ISP Filtering [dbcde.gov.au]
The fact that a Senator is trying to hide his filtering advocacy from his constituents should tell you all you need to know about the proposal. Most Senators (at least in the USA) go out of their way to trumpet their initiatives and achievements.
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Thanks TubeSteak, this is +5 informative. Of course this is a self preservation defense you are doing since your name will be on the blacklist, lol. But none the less puts things in the right perspective and illustrates what concerns are on people's minds. Even if only 10% of your constituents are passionate about something, a "good" or just politician (yea I know..) should tread lightly and try to do it right. Treading lightly is not the same in this case and trying to tip toe to not be seen.
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Hungry Beast (http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/) did a cross-sectional survey of Australians about the internet censorship. I don't remember the figures exactly, but it was something along the lines of -
80% of people want at least some form of internet censorship.
93% of people are worried that about the fact that the blacklist will be secret, and that the current or future government could abuse this.
So your comment of "It's a very small minority of Australian citizens who want internet censorship" is misinfor
Re:LIES! (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed - but the surveyed people are naturally assuming that the filter would actually work. They are giving their opinions on a magical hypothetical filter that would block 100% of illegal content, block 0% of legitmate content, resulted in no slowdown of internet access speeds, and that could not be abused or misused by future governments.
If such a filter existed, then hell, even ~I~ would tentatively support it. So when a non-technical person is simply asked "would you like illegal websites blocked", then no wonder 80% of people say yes. But in the ~real world~, that can't be done without other negative effects and potential risks.
humor? (Score:2)
When I read the headline, I thought the summary would be about how the internet censorship minister accidentally blocked himself from seeing things he wanted to see. Yes, that would be sweet justice and deserving of the "humor" tag. But, the article speaks of something far more nefarious. It should probably be tagged "scary", not "humor". Except that it's kinda funny in a we're fucked kind of way.
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Actually it could be a sign that perhaps the Department is preparing to quietly let this matter slip into the background ... i.e. give up on it. Rationally, this filter was never going to get off the ground. The Government's own report says it is a waste of money and won't work. It doesn't do anything other than block a handful of URLs, which is pretty pointless considering most of the traffic they are interested in stopping would be via P2P, usenet, IRC and other such channels, which are not filtered at al
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At least it wasn't tagged humour, someone might have though it was a joke.
what an idiot (Score:1)
How about some alternatives people (Score:2, Insightful)
The biggest problem I have with this whole debate is that, while there are plenty of people that are flat against the blacklist (for plenty of good reasons), nobody is offering any decent alternatives or trying to find a middle ground.
From what I understand, the main role of this filter is help parents police their kid's activities on the internet, which in principle, I'm all for. There's the secondary goal of preventing kiddie porn and other unsavory content from appearing too, but blocking it won't make i
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If you are a concerned parent, use private options. You can afford a several hundred dollar computer, and Internet every month, but not Net-Nanny? Please... Governments should not be censoring anything! (Why should the public pay for it as well, or waste dollars overseeing it?) If they feel they have to, then they are treating a symptom, not the disease! And in that case, probably just making things worse!
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What you have described is the status quo. ISPs are required to offer a client-side filter at cost price.
Under the old NetAlert system you could get a filter for free.
Take-up rates were absurdly low when it was free and remain so today.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Javascript DRM (Score:2)
The biggest joke here that he's trying to censor himself using client-side scripts.
But it does show how the "content-control" people think. They're the ones who try to block right-clicking and text selection. In their ideal world, the "content provider" controls the information right up to the moment it enters the "consumer's" eyeballs, and beyond. The digital age and lossless reproduction of information is their greatest nightmare.
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"The Internet interprets censorship as damage
and routes around it." -- John Gilmore
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There is no free speech, just the agreement by both parties not to mess around too much after you publish when in power.
Write truth about the Iraq war, you will have a morning raid and get to watch you computer be reduced to small parts.
The rest is really controlled by movie/import import bans.
As for internet use, all passes via a local deep sniffer for the intelligence networks.
Legally they do and say nothing unless its terror related as not to tip their hand, then
Straw Man (Score:2)
Once again we see child porn trotted out as a straw man in an argument which is really about getting the ability to arbitrarily censor any material which offends the moral majority or threatens the political power of those currently holding it. Child porn should be as familiar a straw man as terrorism, and it affects about as many people as terrorism.
If 82% of all children are molested by friends and family then you can rule out the internet and all it's filth in at least 82% of all cases.
"Oh won't somebody
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In french, ACL means Affichage à Cristaux Liquide (Liquid Crystal Display).
Re:Puppet (Score:4, Insightful)
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ACL also refers to:
Access Control List,
Anterior Cruciate Ligament,
Agent Communication Language,
American Classical League,
Audit Command Language,
Access Control Level,
Automotive Components Limited,
Ace, Ltd.,
Association for Community Living,
Allowable Cabin Load,
Allowable Cargo Load,
Australian Current Law,
Active Current Loop,
Authentic Christian Living,
CSX Transportation Incorporated,
Average Call Length,
Anterior Clavicular Line,
Aircraft Cabin Load,
Keyboard Accelerator,
A Changed Life,
Aliasing Controlling Language
Re:Not helpful (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm getting tired of endlessly debating the filter with those who dont understand the wider ethical, moral and technical reasons on why its a bad idea. The center piece of their argument is "it stops you downloading childporn from www.kiddytown.com". If you're against that then you're as bad as a child molester. Around and around the argument goes and no matter how many well based points, researched articles or IT professional blogs you gently push them towards, it just comes down to "gotta protect them kids."
We're tried being nice and polite, no one listens. Either way no one is listening. I'm looking forward to running in the street laughing once the general populace work out what they've signed up for. A big fat "I told you so" from the entire IT industry would be in order.
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Indeed, it's been going on since the 90's, still no filter and IMHO there never will be. OTOH if I hear you laughing in the streets I will grab my picthfork and join you.
Re:Not helpful (Score:5, Interesting)
When I get involved in these arguments, I like to point out that in fact the vast majority of child abuse in this country has been carried out by members of the clergy, particularly the Catholic church, and that statistically the most effective way of reducing child abuse in this country would be to close all church-run orphanages and missions.
This would eliminate something like 99% of all child abuse, and wouldn't affect the everyday lives of anyone else. While implementing the Conroy Filter will create a burden on the rest of the country but will not stop a single child being abused.
Needless to say, this doesn't go over particularly well
Re:Not helpful (Score:5, Interesting)
Dunno if it made the news down there, but well over a decade ago Sinead O'Connor tore up a picture of the pope on live television in the USA and said "Fight the real enemy" as she did it. She was hugely censured for it and although it did not kill her career as a musician it probably forever kept her off the pop charts here.
The thing about her protest that most people didn't even realize, was that she had just finished singing a version of the classic reggae song "War" in which the lyrics were repurposed to be about stopping child abuse. Her message was drowned out by all the media outrage - for a few weeks we learned that everybody in America was catholic, but nothing else really came out of the incident.
A decade later and the news media finally pick up on the abuses perpetrated by the catholic church - even the 'discovery' of an official super-duper-secret document detailing how to deny any molestation accusations and denigrate the accusers written by the guy who is now pope from back in the 70s - but not one of those people who took O'Connor to task for telling people the truth back then has come forward to apologize and say, "Sorry, guess you were right and we should have listened to you."
So yeah, it doesn't go over very well when you tell them and they sure aren't willing to give you credit when they can no longer avoid the facts either.
Re:Not helpful (Score:4, Insightful)
Those people aren't going to come forward and apologise because they still believe they're right, and that Sinead O'Connor is evil.
Religious fundamentalists are bad news no matter what religion they're from.
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Then only thing you can know is truth will always come out and political deals by big parties with faith based groups will blow back too
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Yeah, I've heard that complaint too.
What that argument ignores is that she's a singer. That's what she does, that's the only reason she even had a platform to tell anyone anything in the first place. Do you think SNL would have given her national air time to do anything BUT perform? Of course not. Look at Bono - he's got all kinds of causes that he raises money for by "going through channels" - do you know even one of them?
And as for your giving the pope a pass, bullshit. The policy of the church was t
Chip on your shoulder (Score:1, Informative)
Wow I'd like to see where you are getting your stats from but the majority of child abuse is from family and friends (82% according to a quick wiki search)
Maybe show some references and I'll take you seriously but at the moment you are coming across as nothing more than a bigot.
Kactus
Re:Not helpful (Score:4, Insightful)
This is hyperbole a bit but it has a grain of truth (OK an entire wheat feild of truth) but it's not that high.
The vast majority of child sex attacks in Australia are carried out by people who were close to the victim, had authority over the victim and/or were trusted by the victim (cant remember the actual numbers but it was +80%). This is what makes it so hard for actual investigators to get convictions, the victim has a vested interest in protecting the attacker. So the attacker is likely to be a family member, close friend or other authority figure such as orphanage directors, religious or educational authorities yet the only one of these that goes through any kind of police check or has any kind of real investigation against them are the teachers.
If you were to suggest we fix the problem by preventing the church from accessing children you would be crucified. Meanwhile the politicians get to ruin the internet for everyone and pretend they are not making the problem worse by burying the real causes.
Citation Needed - and Essential (Score:2)
I like to point out that in fact the vast majority of child abuse in this country has been carried out by members of the clergy, particularly the Catholic church.
I am not willing to let this one fly on by without a show of proof.
Most child abuse occurs within the family. Risk factors include parental depression or other mental health issues, a parental history of childhood abuse, and domestic violence. Child neglect and mistreatment is also more common in families living in poverty and among parents who a
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and that statistically the most effective way of reducing child abuse in this country would be to close all church-run orphanages and missions.....This would eliminate something like 99% of all child abuse,...
Citation needed.
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I'm getting tired of endlessly debating the filter with those who dont understand the wider ethical, moral and technical reasons on why its a bad idea.
I find it interesting that you seem to think that the reason people disagree with you stems from a lack of understanding. Have you stopped to think that perhaps a lot of people have stopped to consider the implications, particularly on an issue that is important to them? Perhaps they simply believe attempting to stop the ability of people to access child pornography is just more important than keeping the internet free. Maybe they are aware they aren't going to be able to stop everyone, but perhaps they
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I find it interesting that you seem to think that the reason people disagree with you stems from a lack of understanding. Have you stopped to think that perhaps a lot of people have stopped to consider the implications, particularly on an issue that is important to them?
Yeah, that seems extremely unlikely.
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A big fat "I told you so" from the entire IT industry would be in order.
LOL THOAS DUMB NERDS, I BET THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY KIDS, LOL! GIT SUM PUSSY!
(Note: Though I agree with you, this is the likely response. I'm convinced the only thing a human being truly understands, in this type of situation, is violence.)
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Tell them the Conroy is going to take their youtube away.
Make it personal to them. Tell them the truth about the reality of packet inspection at your average Australian isp.
Narus they are not.
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Wise beard man. His words are wise, his face is beard.
Words can never hurt me (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that 'geeks', 'gamers' and 'youths' generally can't seem to understand that when you complain rudely, the powers-that-be aren't going to listen.
Many of us hear on /. feel that all complaints are ignored by politicians unless they are complaints linked to an politician's income source. Whether the complaint is kindly worded or not makes absolutely no difference. Rational discussion appears to have little place in modern politics.