Australia Waters Down, Delays Internet Filter Policy 122
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Australia's government is running a bit scared of a population enraged by its controversial mandatory filtering project. The Government today announced a suite of measures designed to provide controls around the filter project, including independent oversight and a review of content which would be included. In addition, some Australian ISPs will voluntarily censor any child pornography URLs. But the whole project is still going ahead — it's just been delayed and slightly modified."
It's voluntary filtering (Score:2, Informative)
But customer of both Optus and Telstra will be unable to opt-out.
All this filtering... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's voluntary filtering (Score:3, Informative)
True but there are many other ISPs. So your 'opt out' in that situation is churning to another ISP. Plenty of ISPs wholesale Telstra services, so if you can get Telstra you can get service through another ISP ... one exception to that is the Telstra and Optus HFC (cable) networks I suppose. But that will eventually become redundant anyway as the NBN rolls out and you will be able to choose any ISP in any location in Australia.
Protect the Children! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Don't be fooled (Score:3, Informative)
The changes announced today seem to be little more than a delaying tactic to remove the issue of mandatory Internet censorship from the agenda ahead of the election that is expected to be announced any day now.
I view it more as a strategic backdown while trying to save whatever dignity they have left. I think most people in the industry knew it was flawed from the start and would never come off.
I don't think the government can be trusted not to bring it back in a essentially unmodified form after the next election. Vote accordingly.
You can be sure I will. Unfortunately there are other issues at stake that trump internet access.
Greens aren't the only alternative (Score:5, Informative)
For those like me who aren't so sure we want to vote Green there is at least one other viable alternative:
The Australian Sex Party are contesting senate seats for the first time this coming election http://www.sexparty.org.au/ [sexparty.org.au]
One of their policies is to oppose compulsory internet censorship.
Re:Next election will be crucial (Score:3, Informative)
Yes [aph.gov.au]. His term expires in June 2011, so the next election will be the last one before his term expires and therefore he is up for the vote.
Re:The problem, I suspect, is Scope Creep (Score:3, Informative)
1. No, presumably because they are not actually censoring very much. When a Wikipedia page got onto the list, the performance went to hell.
2. Yes. I believe this has happened.
3. Hard to say. Presumably the cost is that of the filtering hardware, plus the cost of the people who maintain the list. All of it seems to be paid for by the ISPs themselves.
4. It can't be. There can't be many kiddie porn websites, given that they are illegal everywhere, so if there's any real trade in that sort of stuff it will be underground, so unaffected by the censors. My guess is that it's main effect is to allow half-a-dozen or so perverts to spend their working days looking at stuff that secretly turns them on, without any fear of reprisal. And, of course, the filtering hardware is all there ready for the day when the government decides that we shouldn't be allowed to see whatever it is that they are going to ban next.
Re:Next election will be crucial (Score:5, Informative)
Oh their policy is "different."
Abbott was at an event a couple of months ago where he said he disagreed with the Krudd/Conroy filtering plans. Sounds good? During the handshaking afterwards a friend of mine asked him to clarify his position. He said, "You'll probably be disappointed, but.." and went on to say that he felt Conroy was wasting too much time consulting with biased parties and that the filtering list didn't go far enough in blocking things that no Australian wanted on their computers.
Still, a few hundred people left that meeting thinking that a vote for Liberal was a vote against internet filtering. It's not Abbott's fault they misinterpreted him, is it.
Re:Don't be fooled (Score:3, Informative)
See http://filter-conroy.org/ [filter-conroy.org] for more info