Compulsory Australian Net Censorship Trials Beginning

[Rensa]

Man, my country does not have a good track record when it comes to civil liberties right now. Last month it came to light that a proposed 'opt-out' ISP-level Internet filter ostensibly designed to protect kids from child pornography would, in fact, be compulsory for all Australians (http://www.efa.org.au/2008/10/16/efa-alarmed-at-creeping-clean-feed/). Now it turns out that it will not only filter child porn but would encompass 'the ACMA blacklist of prohibited internet content, which is mostly child pornography, as well as filtering of other unwanted content' (http://www.efa.org.au/2008/11/15/filtering-pilot-and-acma-blacklist-not-just-illegal-material/).

In addition to this, reports a few weeks ago came in that an Aussie ISP was leaned on by the office of the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (who is advocating the filter) after one of their employees sent a letter (http://users.on.net/~newton/ellis-2008-10-20.pdf) (PDF, 89 kB) criticising the scheme (and it's a very good rebuttal too; I recommend giving it a quick read).

I'm starting to regret voting in Labour. Several commentators have compared this scheme to the censorship going in China and Iran. Looking at the description of the blacklist (http://www.efa.org.au/2008/11/15/filtering-pilot-and-acma-blacklist-not-just-illegal-material/) I can't help but agree - our net's already slower than most countries without filtering (which, it is claimed, affects by network speeds by 30-80%), and I don't want to have to go through a proxy or VPN just to access stuff I'm interested in.

This issue really snuck up on me; I can't believe the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is already looking for ISPs to trial it. It's a real sick in the gut feeling.

[Monkeylord]

Mate, you just know theat they'll eventually make the use of proxies illegal too.

This is horrible, and I really feel for you.

[HGW XX/7]

Uh-oh. Australia is turning into China.

[Rensa]

Mate, you just know theat they'll eventually make the use of proxies illegal too.

This is horrible, and I really feel for you.
Not if I have anything to do with it :mad:

Actually, if things ever got really bad (like serious fearing-for-the-safety-of-dissenters) I'd move to somewhere like the UK. Although I love this place, it's te values more than the national identity that I care about.

[Monkeylord]

Hope it doesn't come to that, matey.

[Lizzaroni]

The UK is overrated. Come to the USA - we have more letters.

[Monkeylord]

The UK is overrated. Come to the USA - we have more letters.

Pffft... he'd have to jump through hoops for that. His dad is a British Citizen, and that gives him a home already.

[Lucas]

Ugh, my desire to visit Australia diminishes a little more each week. Sad, because it seems like such a fun place to visit.

[Blinger101]

Hell, just move to Canada. We've got some of the best uncensored internet you can find. :)

[Tanooki]

^He has a point there, and then you can visit here whenever you feel like getting in the car basically.

That's horrible they're pulling some nazi era like agenda of subversion and mass manipulation to get some horrible agenda pushed that's going to ultimately help nearly no one but one senatorial douchebags career (if it doesn't end up tanking it, which one could hope for and then a reversal.)

[Smokey]

Ugh, my desire to visit Australia diminishes a little more each week. Sad, because it seems like such a fun place to visit.

Ditto. And I thought our gov't was a mess.

[Rensa]

Hehe, thanks guys. I think the trouble lies partly in our national character (insofar as any country can be said to have one). A lot of Aussies pride themselves on being laidback, but I think the negative side of this is that we have a bit of a false sense of political security. We have a bit of a giggle at the problems other countries have and are too lax to notice that our own freedoms come under serious threat on occasion.

It's a part of our culture I'm not very proud of. Americans might have voted in a bad president with Bush, but at least they care enough about their country to fix the problem. I feel like we tend to just go, "she'll be right, mate" and assume that we're still freer than most countries, even though that seems to be less and less the case each week.

[Idol Australian]

They are going to filter our internet (side effect is slowing to down from 10% - 80%) and not be able to block all of the sites they want to...and it will block some legit sites as well.

All I can say is that I didn't vote for this government (and that doesn't mean I voted for the old government either).

[Rensa]

I did o_O

I was drunk - not so funny now - but even if I'd been sober it would have been a Labour/Greens weighted vote. If they had the election now instead my vote would be totally different, even if this whole fiasco come up.

[Rensa]

Thought I'd give everyone an update on this: it looks like the plan's starting to fall apart, as the largest telcos in the country have either refused to take part in field tests or ensured that the actual customers won't be involved (which, of course, begs the question of what the point is in the first place). The Minister's total inability to actually answer a single freaking question regarding the policy during Question Time has everyone skeptical, and incident yesterday (http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/wikipedia-added-to-child-pornography-blacklist/2008/12/08/1228584723764.html) in which the blacklisting of an image on Wikipedia by British ISPs (on advice from a central agency) led to 95% of British users locked out from article editing is helping illustrate some of the negative effects of ISP-level filtering.

With any luck, this policy will just be a bad memory soon :)

[Smokey]

Good to hear. Looks like you won't have to flee the country after all.:P