Australia to censor the internet?!

[feather]

This is kinda disturbing.

Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy says new measures are being put in place to provide greater protection to children from online pornography and violent websites.
Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.
Online civil libertarians have warned the freedom of the internet is at stake, but Senator Conroy says that is nonsense.
He says the scheme will better protect children from pornography and violent websites.
"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road," he said.
"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."
Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service.
He says the Government will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet.
"There are people who are going to make all sorts of statements about the impact on the [internet] speed," he said.
"The internet hasn't ground to a halt in the UK, it hasn't ground to a halt in Scandinavian countries and it's not grinding the internet to a halt in Europe.
"But that is why we are engaged constructively with the sector, engaging in trials to find a way to implement this in the best possible way and to work with the sector."

So Australia's joining China in their Great Firewalls

[unkownartist]

Re: Australia to censor the internet?!

makes sense to me, first thing i did when i was @ school and got on the internet for the first time was type in the word porn

[AntonyM]

Re: Australia to censor the internet?!

Yeah, once they get a foothold on content control
it is gonna get worse.

[unkownartist]

Re: Australia to censor the internet?!

its already started happening, my isp wont allow me to upload to and places like MU or rapidshare and i cant connect to torrents and other p2p networks but i found that if u complain to the isp directly they will "usually" dypass the filters for ur connection, all u have to do is threaten them with the fact that they have breached the contract u signed when u signed up with them, sometimes it works like a charm

[DIDI]

Re: Australia to censor the internet?!

We are hoping it's not going to happen. Some of us are going to lobby our mps. The stupid thing is they don't really work that well, and you lose things you shouldn't.

[feather]

Re: Australia to censor the internet?!

From the sounds of it, it will be mandatory with an opt-out option. But opting-out comes with its own implications, and what's to say the government won't think you're acting suspect by opting-out. I'm also wondering if they're just 'saying' it and this, if implemented, won't be actively enforced or updated. Creating such a ban list will definitely have effect on your access speed, imagine having to match your daily websites with a filterlist of thousands of banned IPs, that's one helluva bottleneck. Hope they're only 'doing this' to make it look like they're delivering on their campaign promise, cos I just don't see how this is a practical solution. And if a household is lazy enough to depend on the government to censor the net for them, it should migrate to Singapore!

[DIDI]

Re: Australia to censor the internet?!

^^^ Hoping your right.!! at the migrating to singapore.!! Btw Stephen Conroy is Labor's Tony Abbot but not quite as mad: