Australia moving forward with internet filtering plan
Ars Technica – Australia’s internet filter: could legal content get banned too?
Although the party responsible for pushing the filter forward, the “Family First” party, has good intentions – filtering internet at the ISP level is not a sound way to achieve an agenda in a (supposedly) free society. However, since guns are banned in Australia, it is not very suprising.
The filter would mandate blockage of all illegal content, including drug related sites and child pornography. The filter could also optionally block all pornography.
The problem seems to be that lawmakers can’t decide on what is “illegal”, since some of the content that would be blocked is currently legal to view in Australia.
I’m know that the Family First party in Australia has good intentions, but they ought to take a hint from the U.S. that beaurocracy can never achieve anything with the same level of efficiency as the private sector. Why make the internet 20-75% slower and have a mandated filter, rather than buying a $50 piece of software that can do the same thing?
Someone needs to tell Steve Fielding about Net Nanny.
I’m sure that the government could even issue vouchers to get the software for every citizen and it would still be cheaper (especially in the long run) than implementing a government mandated, ISP level internet filter.
Tags: Australia, beaurocracy, free market, internet, Net Nanny, private sector, Steve Fielding
October 29th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
The Australian government already does offer free filtering software. But nobody knows it exists – very few have downloaded it, and ask the average person if it exists and they won’t have a clue.
Hence an opt-in program – the point is, the stuff will still be accessible, you just have to opt in to it as an adult, rather than having to opt children out of content that’s illegal to be shown to them. Makes rather a lot of sense to me, actually.
October 30th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
The impression I got was that the 1st tier of filtering filtered out “illegal” content with no opt-in or opt-out choice. The 2nd tier is what you can opt into.
My point is, that filtering it at ISP level is going to be very costly and annoying for internet users in Australia, because the extra processing involved will undoubtedly slow the network down (perhaps minimally, but also perhaps significantly). The “illegal” content that the initiative seeks to block (mandated) is legal to view offline in Australia, so why block it online (unless they make it illegal offline as well)? It doesn’t make much sense to me.
November 1st, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I have downloaded the free filter from Netalert website and it works fine. I don’t see any reason for ISP level filtering and slowing down the internet. If the minister’s reason for filter is protecting children, then he has definitely got it wrong or misleading the public.
The government’s excuse is that not many families have downloaded the free filters but if they are not advertising it then how anyone would know about them.
November 1st, 2008 at 10:11 pm
If Maxine is right then everyone should go and download a free filter from Netalert website.