Australian Internet Censorship

[Rhiyo]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm

Link ^ for those who don't know what it is, but its basicly a filter that all ISPs in asutralia are going to have I think.

I don't really care if it blocks porn, but knowing filters it will block other sites too, that has a bad word on it or something, what do you think?

[katt]

hmm seems like it should be a service that should be asked for (rather than being the default...)

Of course i plan on solving the problem by not having internet or television in my house when i have children. I would like them to be brought up without the influences of mass media

edit: of course dvds would be allowed :P and when they were older I would let them use the net. I don't want to sound like i would be against entertainment :P

[Smokey]

Censorship is always a tricky issue. Free speech versus morality.

I believe that any censorship of the internet should be entirely voluntary. Although, censoring anyone viewing material which is against the law in the country they are accessing it from seems fair. It would be unfair to censor anything which strictly speaking is legal if considered immoral.

[Twatybollocks]

The article says you can opt out so it's hardly and issue and people have found ways around any filter invented so far.

I think having some filters as standard is a good idea. Children can come across all sorts of porn and violent sites without even trying.

[Steak]

The whole point of the internet is that it's a forum for free speech. If people find certain aspects objectionable, then there is plenty of 3rd party software available to use on your pc.

Censorship by the state such as in China, Iran, Saudi etc is often very poorly implemented and when outsourced to filtering companies, websites are subject to blackmail in order to get themselves unblocked when they are blocked arbitrarily.

[Taekwon-joe]

I can understand having such censorship laws in place for schools and other public places where children can access inappropriate sites but I think in a home environment it should be up to the parents to control what the kids see online.

I agree with Smokey. I think that for everyone else of the appropriate age, that it should only apply to sites that are illegal by Australian law.

[Pilk Man]

I can understand having such censorship laws in place for schools and other public places where children can access inappropriate sites but I think in a home environment it should be up to the parents to control what the kids see online.
Agreed.

I think it's a great idea to have filters like this available for places like schools (especially if they actually work), but in the interests of avoiding a "nanny state" scenario, they should be optional and certainly people should be able to have unfiltered internet access at home if they want it.

[Twatybollocks]

Agreed.

I think it's a great idea to have filters like this available for places like schools (especially if they actually work), but in the interests of avoiding a "nanny state" scenario, they should be optional and certainly people should be able to have unfiltered internet access at home if they want it.

It is optional. You can opt out of it anytime.


I think it's good though that it's going to default to be on. People can then try it and if it sucks they can opt out. As long as the process to opt out is easy with little or no red tape then I don't see the issue.

I have a lad who's 5 years old and I'm more worried about what he'll see online at home than at school. When he does get connected to the internet (he has his own PC but I'm not letting him online yet) I can't watch him every second he's on there and the filters you can use at the moment are a bit of a joke. I can easily get past them, by the time he's using the internet he'll probably know more ways round them than I do!

If they develop decent filter software then I'm all for it.

[FuriousPanda]

Also with this you have the age old problem of "If it's illegal, people will want it more".

Eg. at school I spent hours devising new ways around the filtering system just because it was there. If it wasn't I would have probably done some work (or maybe not, but that's not the point).

Banning or hiding something only draws attention to it.

[Sewer Side Cafe]

at sixth form the admins have gone power crazy with the filters. it's rediculous. you can't get on the munich footy team website because of apparent sex references. it's not even a site anyone would want to go on, but my friend had to write a german report on the history of the team. They've even blocked right click on everything so you can't go into properties, but it just get's annoying when you tr to cut and paste because you forget every time.

[Sorcha]

I think it's good that it's going to be used in schools, because the teachers and staff are responsible for the students, and if they found anything of an unsavory nature it would be the school's fault, whereas if the children are at home it's their parents responsibility and choice whether to use the filter or not.

As far as private use goes, as long as it's easy to opt out, I think this is a good idea.

[argh]

It should be an opt-in rather than an opt out situation because it seems with opt-out they'd end up with some sort of regisrty of people who want the option of looking at porn.