US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter 169
daria42 writes "Tensions between the US Government and its counterpart in Australia appear to be rising over Australia's proposal to filter the internet for objectionable content. The US government has raised its concerns over what it sees as potential censorship directly with the Australian Government. However, last night, Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy denied he had had any approach from US State Department officials."
diode effect? (Score:3, Insightful)
"We can censor you but you can not censor us, we can hide info to you but you can not hide info to us." --United States of America
Filters... What About ACTA (Score:5, Insightful)
One branch is expressing concerns about our lovely Internet filter while the other is trying to ram ACTA down our throats.
BOTH will have an effect on free speech... neither of them we want.
Both of them are missing the point entirely (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thank You USA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thank You USA (Score:2, Insightful)
...except that they haven't done anything at all. There are just a few mumbles of 'concern' over something their voter-base is likely to disapprove of. I don't see that making a difference any-time soon.
True... we need a larger, more official push. If we get that, then the Australian government will cave as it always does e.g. FTA (Free Trade Agreement) between the USA and Australia.
Remarkable... (Score:4, Insightful)
These people... (Score:3, Insightful)
Today in The Age: Government goes to war with Google over net censorship [theage.com.au]
Senator Conroy has conceded that greater transparency is needed in terms of how content ends up on the blacklist, but last night he again refused to make the blacklist itself public, saying it would provide people instant access to the banned material.
Okay Stephen here is how it works: every time an Australian hits the black list they post the URL on a wiki somewhere so if anybody needs some porn or the libaral party website or whatever they just follow the link from there and access it through a russian VPN? Simple? Okay.
Australia needs your support on this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FYI almost NO ONE here wants this here (Score:4, Insightful)
Since he would seek to push ahead despite this he should be sacked. I have no idea if there's a legal provision for it in the Australian constitution (and I doubt there is) but there ought to be.
I don't know if you are an Aussie but it seems to me that the Government is being pushed in this direction by the owners of media companies. This could be because of thoughts like "the internet competes with TV so it should have the same ratings system" or "first we block child porn, then those torrents of Neighbours and Blue Heelers" or "more people would watch A Current Affair if they weren't browsing 4chan one handed".
In any event it is doomed to failure and I am reminded of a science museum years ago which set up a termian (VT220 or similar) for kids to play on. It accumulated a lot of rude words so somebody wrote a black list but there had to be a command to print the black list out and some young geek found the key combination...
Re:Since every other story is Australian... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, shove these Aussie stories up your ass. We're fucking sick of the sight of them. Go beg for attention elsewhere.
This is slashdot.org, not slashdot.org.us
Re:Invasion needed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:diode effect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Australia jeopardizes all of this by possibly starting a trend that spreads to other countries, in effect, legitimizing filtering.
The problem is, EVERYONE keeps saying its impossible (which isn't a problem for those who don't want a filter).
First the ISPs joined the test-run specifically to prove the idea is infeasible.
Then Stephen Conroy kept pushing for it, so the company whose filters they were going to use stepped up and said "It won't work. Our filters are for small networks such as at a high-school. They won't work on a nation-wide scale."
A company, who the government wanted to throw money at, said "Don't give us money. We can't sell you this product because it won't do what you want it to do." They did this. PUBLICLY! That degree of honesty is just staggering and shocking. And if that company is sacrificing the chance to make so much money, the filter simply can't be done.
So no matter how much Stephen Conroy might want a filter, it won't happen unless he gets some technicians from China to help us out.
Re:I come from the land down under (Score:0, Insightful)
The Australian girls do pretty good. Among the best when it comes to drinking and dirty talking, but they have some learning to do when it comes to fighting for their rights.
Norwegian women is total pain in the .... for the Norwegian men! That is how we like them! :-)
US girls has been pushed down for a long time.
Re:The Cultural Exception: Preventing US Toxic Was (Score:4, Insightful)
Against all my instincts, I find myself for the right of governments to filter, as long as they are 'legitimate' governments.
The issue is that while you might be quite happy for a legitimate government to filter, they can quickly become an illegitimate government, perhaps especially because they control the filters and will filter any evidence of their illegitimacy from the public at large.
The biggest issue governments have is that there's no heirarchy to the internet - they can't speak to the owner of the internet like they could with newspapers or TV networks or radio networks - and that lack of a single point, or even a limited set of points of control freaks most governments out. Spin is awful hard to get out there when you need to spin hundreds instead of a handful.
Re:FYI almost NO ONE here wants this here (Score:3, Insightful)
"Hi folks, here's the poll! If you are for the filtering of indecent images of children and violent sexual acts, dial this number! If you believe that everyone should have access to indecent images of children and violent sexual acts, dial the second number."
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Filtering does not solve the problem of child abuse: It just takes it out of the public eye.
Re:diode effect? (Score:5, Insightful)
What most people don't realise it the the great firewall of China does not work either ... it is only mostly effective because of the consequences of trying to get around it ...
If it was implemented anywhere in "the west" then most citizens would find ways around it, or bypass it completely ....
Re:diode effect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except the US doesn't block them, you can get to those gambling sites and play them just fine within the US. Of course you might be breaking the law and will probably have problems transferring money due to those laws but that has nothing to do with internet filtering.