© 2007 - 2011 Allan Cockerill All Rights Reserved
Readers from other countries may be wondering what the present brouhaha about internet access and pornography in Australia has to do with them.
In one sense, not much! On a wider scale though, it has a great deal to do with them.
What a government gets away with in one place will soon be copied elsewhere, whether it works or not.
In an earlier post, I linked to a News.com.au article which reports on the British experience in this area.
The article points out that:
- The CleanFeed system can be circumvented
- The filter reality never matches hype
- That most porn filters are ‘too expensive’
The article also reports that after testing a number of filters, internet speed was affected by between 18 and 78%.
This is because each request for a site has to be matched with a blacklist.
Some sites still slip past the filter due to the sheer number of porn sites!
As Tim Dunlop points out, ‘Senator Conroy has already gone the path of demonisation with his odious comments implying that the only people who would object to such censorship are those who want to watch child porn…’
ABC News Report: Conroy 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.”
This is where the problem starts.
Conroy’s words seem to state that people who oppose the legislation on the grounds of freedom of speech are pornographers.
I don’t want pornography in my house, nor on my computer.
That doesn’t mean that I should accept a ‘Nanny State’ solution, with Big Brother constantly looking over my shoulder.
Tim Dunlop says that other problems including who decides how ‘appropriate material’ is to be understood, and that a law enacted to deal with a specific problem is easily extended to other areas.
As for blogger Damian TOAST O’Neil from Exploding Toast, I guess that it would have been far easier to simply make his point, without enlarging on Mr Conroy’s comments about opponents and pornography.
Then again, he certainly turned the heat up on the situation just a tad…
Jon Seymour came up with some interesting alternative ideas.
Jon also reminded me that this has apparently been ALP policy for some time. Please accept my apologies for not checking.
One last point: I have made an effort to safeguard my children regarding internet safety with range of solutions.
At the end of the day, I have to trust my kids to do the right thing, and while remaining vigilant, trust my own judgment.
Doesn’t Mr Conroy see fit to extend that trust to his fellow Australians?
© 2007 - 2011 Allan Cockerill All Rights Reserved
