'Australia to implement mandatory internet censorship'

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Ross

Ross

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AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government. The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy.

The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.

The plan was first created as a way to combat child pronography and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.

Communications minister Stephen Conroy revealed the mandatory censorship to the Senate estimates committee as the Global Network Initiative, bringing together leading companies, human rights organisations, academics and investors, committed the technology firms to "protect the freedom of expression and privacy rights of their users".

Mr Conroy said trials were yet to be carried out, but "we are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material."

The net nanny proposal was originally going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option of contacting their internet service provider to be excluded from the service.
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I encourage you to cut through the "tinfoil hat" dismissal and read, and click the link http://www.infowars.com/?p=5619 in this article, which show how this is not an isolated case. All governments are seriously looking into this, all under the guise of combating "terrorism" or protecting children or whatever boogeyman they know will bolster its push-through.
 
Scary -- whether censorship comes from governments of the left or the right, whether the intentions start out good or not, it is an insidious thing, very hard to stop once started.
 
:eek: Why have I not heard about this?!!! (internet censorship, that is... not Ross's porn habits :D).

Ugh... it's pretty typical though. Our whole country is being turned into a nanny soverign :mad: Seems you can't do anything these days without the correct application form and appropriate government consent :(

OK, so I can see why they may want to restrict access to certain types of information, but if people want to find it, they will. Just like if they want to top themselves - or someone else - they'll find a way. All this type of censorship achieves is to drive these elements underground making them harder to find and making the everyday honest citizen's life more difficult in the process :(

George Orwell may not have had the year spot on with 1984.. but maybe 2084 may find us in the same scenario..!
 
internet censorship is not foolproof, if someone wants to find something, they'll surely
find it. ross's porn for example. here in china the government has a staff of around
40,000 volunteer censors (from what i've heard, that's the number, and many are
college students) who flag certain sites, words, or topics as off-limits. try to go
there and you get a time-out, or site not found. go too many times within a short
time span, and your service starts to slow down....or so i've heard.

you can always get there through circumventor sites. so they're not trying to make
it impossible, just inconvenient. most people will just go to the approved sites to
avoid the hassle. no problem finding porn here either, or sites with 'sensative'
subjects.

even the self-installed filters don't work well. back in texasland, our local librarian
told me she had a new filter installed to protect the children. i laughed, told her how
easy it was to get around filters. within five minutes we were downloading midget
porn.
 
abbanabba said:
:eek: Why have I not heard about this?!!! (internet censorship, that is... not Ross's porn habits :D).

Ugh... it's pretty typical though. Our whole country is being turned into a nanny soverign :mad: Seems you can't do anything these days without the correct application form and appropriate government consent :(

OK, so I can see why they may want to restrict access to certain types of information, but if people want to find it, they will. Just like if they want to top themselves - or someone else - they'll find a way. All this type of censorship achieves is to drive these elements underground making them harder to find and making the everyday honest citizen's life more difficult in the process :(

George Orwell may not have had the year spot on with 1984.. but maybe 2084 may find us in the same scenario..!
Click to expand...

me too...
I havent heard a thing about this...maybe it will be on tonights news if it passes the censor!
 
Ross said:
What you talkin bout? I have no problem finding porn. :D
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Duff Man said:
hahahahahaha! My wife has no problem finding what I found too. :eek:
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hahahaha Google and others have no problems finding what you, Ross, find, and finding what your wife, Duff, found after you!!---by the way, what was it?:D:D:D

It was either on 50 minutes or 20/20 that anything we do on our computers is registered, including what we delete.:) So, behave yourselves, guys!
 
I'll bet the people who wrote the Global Network Initiative never thought they would have to use its principles in Austrailia!

(For those who haven't heard about the GNI, it "aims to produce a set of principles guiding company behavior when faced with laws, regulations and policies that interfere with the achievement of human rights.")
 
I haven't heard of this either, but it doesn't surprise me, the government treats us all like mushrooms...keep us in the dark and feeding us bulls..t

About ten years ago i remember girly photos being readily accessible on the computer but to get to the real porn a credit card was need. One of my boys then 14 and 11 accessed a site that instead of credit cards they were redirected through an international phone number that charged by the minute at a huge tariff. A couple of days later our phone bill arrived with a $300 plus international call, when I contacted the phone provider the girl on the other end of the phone told me what it was and that the computer user wasn't even made aware that they were being transferred to an international number. We quickly put an ban on the phone so only local calls could be made ( the phone line was a dedicated computer line ). We considered ourselves lucky because we heard of many parents being hit with phone bills of over $2000. To this day neither boy will fess up to it and they are now 24 and 21.

Mary
 
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