ISPs will pay = ISPs will charge

ISPs will be required to pay for the installation and maintenance of filter hardware for a mandatory filter service, with the threat of $27,500 fines per day for non-compliance. The federal government plans to introduce legislative amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act requiring mandatory filtering in 2010, and "ISPs will be required to begin filtering within 12 months of the passage of the legislation," according to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

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The Crickey guide to writing to politicians.

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If your first instinct upon hearing about the Rudd-Conroy plan to censor the internet is to email Stephen Conroy, your local member and Labor senators from your state to protest, wait up.

Or, in fact, do it anyway, then read this.

Let me explain some facts about writing to ministers, drawn from my sordid, blood-soaked and adventure-filled time as a public servant.

Untangling the Net - The Scope of Content Caught by Mandatory Internet Filtering

The following report considers a number of key challenges the Australian Federal Government faces in designing the regulatory framework and the reach of its planned mandatory internet filter. Previous reports on the mandatory filtering scheme have concentrated on the filtering technologies, their efficacy, their cost and their likely impact on the broadband environment. This report focuses on the scope and the nature of content that is likely to be caught by the proposed filter and on identifying associated public policy implications.

We recognise that the Federal Government faces real challenges in balancing the risks posed by the online media environment with the opportunities that environment presents. In preparing this report, the authors acknowledge that the Federal Government is still considering the detail of how mandatory filtering will be implemented and how classification will work under the scheme. Our research is not intended to pre-empt those decisions but to offer constructive input, to highlight key public policy challenges and to inform public dialogue.

This report was prepared by three senior academics in the media studies field, Professor Catharine Lumby, Professor Lelia Green and Professor John Hartley. We have all published extensively on the issues of online media, media content regulation, young people and media consumption, and public policy. As members of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, we are currently collaborating on a large research project that considers the risks and opportunities for children in the online and mobile media era. The research on which this report is based was supported by the Internet Industry Association and we acknowledge their assistance. We would also like to acknowledge the input of Professor Stuart Cunningham, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at QUT, and the research assistance of Paul Taylor.

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Untangling the Net - The Scope of Content Caught by Mandatory Internet Filtering

Today's SMH Article

One of Australia's top communications experts says the Government's internet censorship trials were designed to succeed from the outset, presented no new information and are now being used by the Government to further its political agenda.

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I commented:

The only expert that Conroy will listen to is Jim Wallace with his instructions on how best to get to heaven. The moderate and cultural christians need to stand up and tell Wallace that they do not want this filter and that they want him to stop egging Conroy on. Talking to Conroy is talking to the puppet, not the puppeteer.

Gamblers 'may get a high' from web auctions

Australians with gambling problems have been warned they could become addicted to a global reverse auction website that last month launched its "fun" buying portal in Australia.

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Quick! Start a moral panic! People are buying something and having fun at the same time. Someone has to stop this before people start smiling at random all over the place.

BAAAANNNN IIIIT!!!!!!!!!!!

Sen. Lundy saying nothing

My response:

There is much talk about the gov being open to consultation. Yet the "open to ideas" link brings up a 404 error - "open to idea" cannot be found. How can people with so little understanding of the internet as to have a broken link above the fold on their lead page presume to tell anyone about the digital economy. You haven't lost any credibility with me as you never had any. I don't expect Sen. Lundy to respond, just another pacifying? double-speak from a staffer. Why bother.

Politicians!

The net shows the changeability of politicians. The make a statement and link to a wiki. You get to the wiki, run by the government, it's closed. You see a youtube statement by Conroy embedded so you click on it. It's been removed by the user. No wonder everything they say is written down in parliament. The next day they would be saying something different.

I suppose this is why we should not let them make decisions, why we need to tell them what to do, they have no idea what they should think of what they should be doing. They are a blank canvas.

ABC coverage

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This opens a page with the ABC's first reaction to Conroy's announcement that the filter had passed the test and was going ahead.

People surrender to rubbish like this because:

Google's view on the ISP level censorship

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 10:02 AM
At Google we are concerned by the Government's plans to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia, the first of its kind amongst western democracies. Our primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide.

Democracy and censorship By Margo Kingston

Here's a piece on the censorship debate Labor's shadow minister for the arts and information technology, Senator Kate Lundy, wrote for Webdiary. It's got resonance with Howard's refusal to tell us the truth about why he wanted to invade Iraq and what that momentous decision means for our foreign policy direction and our security in the region. What I like about the piece is that Kate is not afraid to discuss what democracy means, and to apply her concept of it to the case in hand. Isn't that what we'd love our pollies to do more of?

Link to 2003 article by the then communications shadow minister

Whirlpool discussion forum and wiki

The Filtering thread on the whirlpool discussion forum is still going strong.

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The wiki

Greens still oppose the filter

"We're very, very concerned that there's going to be a unnecessary clamp down on the internet and it has to be watched," Greens leader Bob Brown told the ABC today.

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The Greens insist that they still oppose the filter despite fielding Clive Hamilton, the co-writer of the report that set this whole mess into motion.

My post to the SMH article:

Conroy just said on ABC's Lateline: "it's important that all Australians, not just young children, be protected from this material". From RC and X rated material? Why are Australians special? If this stuff does so much harm why aren't the Americans all totally disabled by this material? Are the hospitals full of people broken by watching porn? Show me the numbers.

Are we talking about teenagers 'accidentally' finding porn? Come now? Teenage boys don't accidentally find porn. They use accidentally as an excuse. They went looking for it. Parents who can't teach their teenagers about sex and porn shouldn't have kids. Parents who can't see this as an opportunity aren't good parents.

How many little kids have ever accidentally found porn? The parents out there need to be honest and get a computer that is only for the kids so that the kids don't see what Mum and Dad looked at to get the bed sports moving the night before.

This is Conroy and co. trying to foist their anti-sex, religious views onto everyone. I don't see any problem with adults looking at porn. A lot of porn is being made with respect for the actors. This old chestnut about how all women in porn are victims is a nonsense.

I don't want to just talk about not filtering the net. I want to talk about dismantling the stupid complaints driven attitude of the law makers. A few noisy wheels can have anything banned. I want to talk about dismantling censorship in Australia all together. People who are in a moral panic about porn don't have to watch it just like I don't have to do what ever they are doing. Mind your own business.

Wander over and comment if it you can:

Compalints driven system.

Because this is to be a complaints driven system we can expect the internet to be reduced to the level of A Current Affair and Today Tonight moral panic. As Metamagician and the Hellfire Club blog mentions, remember the hysteria over Henson's photography? Also, Mr Illingworth's legal troubles over a video of the child of a circus family. I don't want unthinking, hysterical people determining where I surf when I am in the privacy of my own home. If they don't want to go to porn site, don't go. The absence of a filter doesn't mean you have to go to sites. If you have children, install a PC based filter. The kind of money we are talking about to roll this nonsense out could have bought every household a computer with a PC based net filter pre-installed. Who do people screeching for net filters pays for this bullshit? This is paid for by tax payers. It's not for free, people. This kind of money could be used to reduce surgery waiting lists or pay for more teachers. Something of use to society.

Metamagician and the Hellfire Club's post

Australia's federal government has decided to introduce legislation that will give it potentially sweeping control of information available to Australians via the Internet, using a system of technologically-based censorship. As announced, the legislation will require all ISPs to block material that has been refused classification in other countries (one might ask exactly which countries the government has in mind here). An "independent" body, so we are told, will determine which sites are rated as RC for "refused classification".

Continues:

Another petition

Say no to the net filter via this petition:

Brilliant blog post from Téa Brennan

In the name of MY children.

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I have a rule that if a Facebook status or Tweet is too long, it should go on the blog, so here goes:

You know, I wish that politicians would stop using MY children, and their so-called protection, as an excuse for pandering to the religious right. You know what? My kids surf Youtube. Unsupervised. Because I have TAUGHT THEM to have a fucking brain and know how to use the internet responsibly.

It's this little thing called parenting - you know, where you need to make HARD DECISIONS about morality. HARD DECISIONS about education. HARD DECISIONS about how to turn them into decent, sensible & functional human beings.

IT'S HARD.

That's why it's called parenting and not "sitting idly".

I am getting shitted off with this generation of parents - who paradoxically, on one hand, thrust their neurotically over-parented, micromanaged, over-extra-curricularised precocious little turds into society with no social skills, thinking that they are so much more important than other people, unable to do anything without it being part of a program, or a structured activity… where, these batshit crazy people have somehow become NORMAL in the name of "protecting the children".

These idiots purchase devices like wipe warmers, designer organic t-shirts for $200 and Mensa tests for their 2 year olds (who, by virtue of learning to sit up a whole month early, is the next Albert fucking Einstein)…

And then, on the other hand, also fail to do the basic stuff like, you know, teaching their kids manners, self respect and basic protective behaviours.

Because parenting is more than just veneers, gimmicks & products. It actually takes effort.

And our politicians have co-opted this idea in order to push through policies that pander to the smallest percentage of God bothering, anti-woman, anti-sex religious zealots whose immediate impulse is to kill anything they don't understand, all the while slashing the real child protection funding and funding for domestic violence programs, you know the stuff where kids ACTUALLY GET RAPED & BEATEN ON A DAILY BASIS… putting greater and greater burdens on the teaching profession, the health department & the police force who deal with actual, real harm to children on a daily basis.

Ask any welfare worker how long their case queues are. In busy Department for Community centres, there are children that are at risk every day that have been queued for other children, who are at more immediate risk, because the Department can't keep up with its caseload.

And then they use the protection of children as an argument for the filter? Are you fucking KIDDING me? I parent my children. I nurture my children. I love them. But you don't trust me enough to make the right decisions for my children's upbringing?

The internet filter is just more cotton wool for a generation of professional overparenting cunts, who use "for the children" as a catch-all excuse to police other people. It's just another gadget, another smokescreen, to distract the dumb consumer yuppies from the real harm that this government does to children every day from it's inaction and lack of funding.

ACL already wants to extent the list

IT Wire article:

Internet censorship plan gets the green light

The Federal Government has announced it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the internet after Government-commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet.

SMH:

Conroy must explain why Christian lobby gets net filtering trial update: Greens

The Australian Greens are calling on the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to explain who else besides the Christian Lobby will be given a background briefing on the net filtering proposal.

"The head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, met with communications minister Senator Conroy late last week," Greens Spokesperson on Communications, Senator Scott Ludlam said today.

"Mr Wallace says he has not received any information on the trial results, but is reported to have told the Christian Lobby's national conference that he had "found out" enough on the ISP-level filtering trial to believe that ISP-level filtering worked."

Link to Greens site:

People like this think net filteringis a great idea:

CANBERRA - PARLIAMENT HOUSE GETS A MASS EXORCISM

Conroy must explain why Christian lobby gets net filtering trial update: Greens

The Australian Greens are calling on the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to explain who else besides the Christian Lobby will be given a background briefing on the net filtering proposal.

"The head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, met with communications minister Senator Conroy late last week," Greens Spokesperson on Communications, Senator Scott Ludlam said today.

"Mr Wallace says he has not received any information on the trial results, but is reported to have told the Christian Lobby's national conference that he had "found out" enough on the ISP-level filtering trial to believe that ISP-level filtering worked."

Story Continues:

How does Sen. Conroy honestly expect us to believe that this is not just legislating religion if Mr Wallace is privy to inside information before the general public?

Crikey blogged about it:

The whirlpool forum is buzzing:

I particularly liked this comment:

An Onymous Lefty discusses Clive Hamilton's candidature for the Greens and how, despite his masterminding of the whole netfilter fiasco, the Greens are still our best chance at no net filter.

When blocking sites starts, it'shard to know when to stop.

Indianapolis Schools Block Atheist Sites

"Sites that promote and provide information on religions such as Wicca, Witchcraft or Satanism. Occult practices, atheistic views, vodoo rituals or any form of mysticism are represented here. Includes sites that endorse or offer methods, means of instruction, or other resources to affect or influence real events through the use of spells, incantations, curses and magic powers. This category includes sites which discuss or deal with paranormal or unexplained events."

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Real police work - not a filter.

Spy software, then police, swoop on child porn file sharers.

POLICE have secretly identified thousands of suspects who are allegedly trading child pornography images through online networks. Detectives expect to make hundreds of arrests, having used a breakthrough software program to spy on files held in private computers.

Designed in the US to pinpoint computers holding known child pornographic images, the software has been used in Queensland for six months.

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Is Conroy's filter going to stop the police from being able to find and act on this information.