CyberBunk

If you’re an Australian who has been living in a bubble for the past few months, you may not be aware of the Federal Government’s plan to introduce a censorship filter on the country’s internet. Essentially any content deemed “harmful or inappropriate” for children will be blocked, as well as all sites pertaining to “illegal” activities. The proposal is seen opposition from ISP directors, State Governments and Media Censorship experts, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is insisting on pushing this proposal through.

There are many things wrong with the Minister’s, including technical feasibility, effectiveness and freedom of speech issues. Some of the technical issues include ¹:

• The filtering software will severely decrease the speed of legitimate web traffic, slowing internet access up to 80%
• The filters will create a huge number of false positives, resulting in the mistaken blocking of thousands of legitimate websites
• The filters only apply to illegal or objectional material delivered via web pages, ignoring all banned material that is distributed via other means, such as ftp or bittorrent.
• The filters are easily bypassed using Proxy’s or VPN systems by any determined individual, including children.

There are also freedom of speech concerns, including the definition of “illegal” or “harmful and inappropriate” material. Whilst euthanasia may be illegal in this country, discussing it or searching for information about it should not be illegal. How far will it go ? Whose morality will the filters conform to ? Letting this pass could open the floodgates for all kinds of speech suppression. Today its euthanasia, tomorrow it might be differing religious views, or political ideals.

The filters will be mandatory in every home and school in the country. Users will be able to “opt-out” of the “harmful and inappropriate” filter, but not the “illegal” filter. Nevertheless, the filters will still be in place, and will still negatively affect every single Australian internet user’s bandwidth. Forked out for high speed broadband internet ? Prepare to have up to 80% of your bandwidth taken away.

The protection of our children from “harmful and inappropriate” material should be the domain of the parents, not the government. Parents need to take an active interest in what their children are exposed to on the internet. Monitor their activity. Install a personal software filter on your PC, its cheaper, more reliable, more customisable, and doesn’t have massive repercussions on the rest of the country’s internet usage.

DON’T let the Government waste millions of dollars on ineffective and restrictive filtering systems which will cripple our nation’s internet.

For more information about the Australian Federal Government’s plan for censoring Australia’s Internet, visit nocleanfeed.com.

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