Australian Government Delays Internet Filter Legislation 255
An anonymous reader writes "It seems the Australian federal government is being forced to delay the introduction of its proposed and much-hated, much-maligned Internet filter. It will not be introduced in the next two sittings of parliament, which realistically delays it until after the next election. News on withdrawing the filter, which was a promise from the previous election, has disappointed lobbying groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby."
Promises, Promises (Score:5, Insightful)
GOOD! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not actually an election promise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Promises, Promises (Score:1, Insightful)
This is why I'm thinking: "Too little, too late" for them to count on my vote
Too little - because they didn't dropped it, simply postponed it
Too late - I've already made my mind on the matter - won't trust them
PS. in the context, nice CAPTCHA - is extort
no fair australia (Score:3, Insightful)
the usa has long been a world leader in hypocritical simplistic moralizing "christians"
don't be nosing in on our turf and our monopoly now
Re:Won't somebody please think of the children!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
A brazilian writer told once that the problem with humanity started when stupid people realized they were the majority...
The sad thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:3, Insightful)
4)It will cost a fuckton of money which will ultimately be passed on to the voting customers that already pay a fuckton of money for sub-par internet.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Stephen Conroy is spot on when he says the internet shouldn't be treated any different to any other forms of media. It isn't a magical beast, it's just another form of media (albeit more accessible and chaotic).
So there's nothing fundamentally wrong with filtering it. I mean hell, it's already illegal to *host* this sort of content in Australia.
Nope, Internet is not quite like other media, at the extent that all the other media require a physical support for the information. Thus, any censorship of other media will result in somebody, not affiliated with the government, in Australia knowing about the censorship: in extreme, the censorship of that item may be made public and, possibly, debated if necessary.
By contrast, Conroy's scheme assumes censoring the Internet without anyone's knowledge (at least no one affiliated with the gov, or law enforcement), letting you defenseless in the matter of exercising your control over the power. Not that the power one simply citizen would be quite remarkable, but if you give it away - so small as it would be - you remain with what?
The above letting aside that I take pride of being able to take care of what I'm doing or suffer the consequences. I don't need my own mother to take care anymore of my actions, why should I trust the government to do nanny me???
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The filter is not restricted to illegal material - RC material is not ilelgal in itself, no matter how many times Senator Conroy repeats the line "including material such as child pornography".
2. It is certain to be abused. Even before the filter has been created, the blacklist is intrinsically abusive in its abandonment of due process and legal recourse.
3. Ineffective laws are bad laws. If everyone breaks the law, everyone is a criminal. Is that what you want?
The filter is an abomination of human rights. Everyone should be opposed to it. If you're not, you're wrong.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a tooth and nail fight against a specific proposal put forward by the current government.
Every variation of the filtering plan that has been put forward in the media has been savaged by opponents, who are entirely correct in their criticisms. What Conroy has failed to do is provide a convincing counter-argument. In media interviews, when grilled, he often struggles with defining just exactly what it is he is proposing.
One moment it's a URL blacklist to protect children from accidental porn; another moment it's to prevent access to abhorrent material which is currently RC content. Conroy has not listened to one iota of the overwhelming feedback from members of the public; and is utterly clueless as to how to move forward from here.
I absolutely cannot tolerate such a waste of time and money on an unworkable solution driven forward by an individual who does not listen to reason for entirely political purposes.
Brushing this off as "filtering is ok in theory" is a red herring: the currently publicised intentions of the government are not ok; and all efforts by Conroy to implement such should be fiercely resisted.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Stephen Conroy is spot on when he says the internet shouldn't be treated any different to any other forms of media. It isn't a magical beast, it's just another form of media (albeit more accessible and chaotic).
No, I see one crucial difference in the way these two mediums are being treated that I haven't seen brought up anywhere else yet.
In other forms of media the censoring applies to the creator of the media. What the filter proposes to do is censor the audience, not the creator.
Now I'm of the opinion that total freedom of speech isn't necessarily a right I feel everyone needs. The greater good of our society trumps the rights of the individual when it comes to banning things such as child pornography, hate speech (at its most extreme), and shouting fire in a crowded cinema. I have no problem with these things being illegal, and the authorities coming down on those responsible for such things.
But don't persecute the audience. (with the exception of child pornography, where there is a clear link between the creator and the consumer)
Freedom to listen is a much more important right than freedom of speech
Re:Promises, Promises (Score:3, Insightful)
and lets not forget the explosion in boat people heading for australia, which the Rudd government has failed to do anything about beside let a bunch of them escape.
this is what happens when you get a new generation of voters i guess. they forget the lessons of past labor governments and get all caught up in this change the world bullshit.
Re:Perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
TFA is published by a Murdoch newspaper, so you can imagine where the bias is.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming your answer is, "I don't!!", then your position is essentially that there should be no censorship in any form of media.
I don't and indeed I'm on the position that there should be no censorship on any form of media. That's because I don't know (more precisely, I don't admit as valid the existence) any kind of media that can cause harm by itself. Either:
For me, censorship is like the government/law enforcement bodies coming to me with the lame excuse that "I cannot do anything to protect you if you don't allow me to censor you - as well as anybody - the way I think and this without your knowledge, much less your approval". Of course, my non-acceptance of being nanny-ed by the gov would have the logical consequence of me replying to them "Did I ever asked you to protect me from information published on media? Let this be my responsibility, mate, I'm mature enough to handle it!"
Please note that I'm referring to "information published in/on media" and not about personal information - I still consider the right to privacy as fundamental, even if neither the Australian constitution nor the Universal Declaration of Human Right mention something about its protection.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:5, Insightful)
The point to walk away from this with is not that internet filtering is alright in principle, but rather that state filtering is wrong in principle in ALL forms of media.
Re:Looking slightly dangerous for Rudd (Score:3, Insightful)
We had twelve years of rule by the "ultra" conservatives until three years ago, of which time that "hyper religous nutbar" as you describe him (a boringly mainstream catholic in reality, do you describe the Prime Minister or NSW premier in the same manner given that they both hold the same position on most moral issues and attend church every Sunday as well?) was a senior minister and one of John Howards closest advisors. Under that "ultra" conservative government the closest we ever got to a mandatory filter was a law requiring ISPs to offer Net Nanny as a free download to their customers. Under the oh-so scary "ultra conservative" ideal that it's wrong for the government to force censorship on the electorate and that these decisions are best handled by parents in the privacy of their family homes (private homes - another scary "ultra conservative" ideal).
Then after just one year of labor rule we were assaulted by all manner of authoritarian legislation and yet somehow, bizarrely in your world it's the "ultra conservatives" who didn't ever implement such legislation even when they controlled two branches of government who "scare" you.
And I hate to tell you this, but if the "ultra conservatives" scare you, why not the Greens? They have *plenty* of their own "scary" authoritarian ideals.
You really are a product of the pop media aren't you?
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:3, Insightful)
1. No. I object to any government filtering the Internet in any way. I also object to the lie that the proposed filter only blocks illegal material.
2. Yes, the blacklist is almost certain to be leaked. No, this is not any kind of excuse for infringing upon the human rights of all Australians.
3. If the rule of law is ineffective, if everyone breaks the law, then everyone is a criminal, and everyone is under threat of random prosecution - or persecution - making the people the enemy of the state. The way you reach that kind of dystopia is through passing bad laws. This is a bad law. It's a very bad law.
I think you have cause and effect reversed there.
You object to the filter blocking information on euthanasia. You should object to it on that basis, because the government has no right to criminalise such discussions. The thing is, the government has no right to criminalise any discussion, only actions.
Freedom of speech is the guarantor of all other freedoms, and that's why it must always be defended against petty tyrants like Kevin Rudd and Stephen Conroy.
Re:The sad thing is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why on earth is this being framed as the creation of religious people?
The Labor party are the secular, technocratic left wing party in Australia, the Liberals are the "religious conservatives". Yet it is Labor, not the Liberals (who had power for twelve years and never spoke about it) that are trying to ram this down the country's throat.
And to prove it the leaked blacklist had *anti* abortion websites banned. Hardly something that would make the religious people happy!
It's not religion that's the problem here, it's authoritarianism, which the current Labor party unfortunately (since I voted for them) have in spades.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:3, Insightful)
Filters do treat the internet different from other media.
Can the government order that distribution of a newspaper cease? Not in any democracy - they would need to go to court and prove that the newspaper breaks the law. A judge or jury would decide the case in public.
Filters allow the government to order distribution of websites to cease without having to prove in court that they broke the law - and usually with no judicial oversight, and in secret.
Britain slightly different as there it a self appointed bunch of do-gooders who decide what people are allowed to read.
Re:The sad thing is... (Score:3, Insightful)
> I think it is completely stupid, since anyone can arbitrarily get around it.
Well, this is one of the great fears about it. Since people will be able to trivially bypass it, people most certainly will. Not only will they do it, they will make software and publish articles about how to do it. And then out of severe embarrassment, the government will react with new laws that make it illegal to own, sell, or distribute material about how to bypass the filter. Now suddenly whole classes of software and speech will be regulated. It's a downward spiral into total lockdown control of the internet.
Re:Looking slightly dangerous for Rudd (Score:3, Insightful)
lower wages = more hours worked in order to pay bills. This means higher unemployment as a side effect as companies would be getting more work for less money, with no new work incoming there is no need to retain unnecessary workers.
Apart from managing to restart foreign investment in mining, which is most of our economy. Labor kickstarted the economy with investment into government infrastructure after the GFC. This alone got the economy restarted quickly. Many companies survived on this money when their other clients implemented spending freezes, now that this is waning we are in a better position then if those companies died and we have new infrastructure to boot. Certainly in Perth when all the mining giants stopped spending and cancelled new developments, all many small firms had were government contracts.
Things could have been a lot worse, Rudd's economic policies were pretty much the same as Howards with the exception that Rudd is building infrastructure that was sorely neglected under Howard (school's and hospitals). This is an investment as we need to keep our workforce from being outsourced and the best way to do this is to provide companies with a superior product (better educated workforce). I disagree with the Stimulus package ($900 a piece) but that is a small amount of what was borrowed and education needed a boost when I left school 10 years ago.
Rudd may not have been a perfect government but given the fact we've stayed well and truly afloat you cant say they were terrible. But neither side should be given an absolute rule IMHO.
Re:The sad thing is... (Score:2, Insightful)
I expect the next step will be passing a law that makes circumvention of the filter illegal. And then p2p will be blocked country wide. Because this has nothing to do with protecting children, but everything with protecting profits for the media consortiums.
Re:Won't somebody please think of the children!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are a Christian and oppose to this maybe you should apologize and then fight it. That or leave the religion.
That doesn't make any sense, the filter is not mandated by any Christian doctrine or authority. I understand the apologise bit because our Government apologised to the Indigenous people, but the problem is that although I support such an apology there is no reason for me personally to apologise since I personally did nothing wrong. Consider a Muslim who lives in New York, should he apologise for the WTC attacks just because they are of the same faith? If you don't support someone's actions who has similar beliefs as you, you don't need to apologise for their actions.
Please note the difference between similar beliefs and the same beliefs.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:4, Insightful)
There are several things wrong with this comment. Most of them have already been pointed out, so I'll just add this. There are two other communications media that the internet is similar to: mail and telephone. Yet we don't see these media censored the same way that Conroy is proposing to censor the internet.
The filter already is abusive. The distinction between the filter and its application isn't relevant to this argument. Stuff is filtered or it is not.
Apparently the government has no such incentive at all. They're delaying this, after all. Whether they admit it or not, they actually have a strong incentive to simply drop this idea. They will certainly lose votes over this. The question is how many, and it occurs to me that this may well be one of the main reasons for putting this off.
It's hard to take this seriously; it's as if you haven't read or understood the real objections:
It's not just a waste of time and money. It's a breach of faith on several fronts.
One very important thought (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be wise to remember that the same people who would stop you from viewing an adult film may be back next year to complain about a book, or even a TV program. If you can be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you can be told what to say or think. Defend your constitutionally protected rights. No one else will do it for you. Thank you.