The Rudd government’s stupid web filter is yet another example of why Australia should have not voted Labor last year.
I am, of course, referring to this article in the Courier Mail which seems to have gotten very few people up in arms about Internet censorship.
Just recently, Australian ISP iiNet stepped forward to trial the filtering and, according to some reports, has decided to fall on its sword by proving why the filter won’t work.
You may wonder why a net filter is required – there are plenty of opt-in web filters available such as Net Nanny for people with young kids who are worried that their kids might be able to view inappropriate content.
I’m more interested in what the Rudd government is really concerned about. It starts with something like adult content, but who’s to say it stops there? The whole point of the Internet is an open free exchange of information, that’s the only way it works.
Senator Stephen Conroy (the genius behind this filter plan) has real guts stepping up in the face of certain incredulity, facing off against an entire industry (IT&T) which happens to also be his portfolio.
Packet sniffing didn’t work to combat copyright infringement, why does anyone think it’ll work for other content types? This is just going to slow down an Internet service which is already a bit of a joke by international standards.
Not to mention, who’s job is it to determine “appropriate” content? The government has no right to do so for the country as a whole.
This is on the back of the now-infamous “counter-terrorism” legislation brought about by Labor so that employers would be legally empowered to read their worker’s email and monitor their computer use.
Wake up Australia, this all sounds very Orwellian-Nineteen-Eighty-Four-esk, i.e. totalitarian.
