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Filtered Results
Posted Thu 17 Dec 2009 at 01:06

It's sort of weird. While the Copenhagen talks occur and just before Christmas, the Australian government seem to be pushing out all the backlog they've been sitting on. Within a day (give or take hours) the discussion paper on An R18+ Classification for Computer Games was released by the Attorney-General's Department and the ISP Filtering Live Pilot Report was released. Obviously the filter report is getting more attention because I suppose there are more internet users than gamers.

While I would love to actually give the two issues thought and create a deep, well thought out treatment of each, I don't have the time. But if you are looking to do so, here's some of the quotes that may be useful.

But I think the political landscape will get shaken up next year. With G4C pushing forward, the Democrats rebuilding, a possible election purely based on Climate Change and the Sex Party and the Pirate Party challenging the status quo... it's going to be crazy.

I'll probably deal with the R18+ a little more in depth. But first, let's look at some of the views of those involved on the ISP filter...

The Libs want the results audited...
Quote:

Our concern with Labor’s proposed mandatory filtering plan has always been that it would be both unworkable and ineffective.

Quote:

..there should be an independent audit of the trial results released today. This audit should occur as soon as possible.

The Pirate Party thinks the ISP filter breaches Article 19...
Quote:

This policy ... will put the Australian Government in breach of Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This article states that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
1

Whilst the Greens think it's all a bit pointless
Quote:

"The pointless nature of this proposal is set out in the report itself, which admits that the filters will be circumvented by people seeking blocked material... "esting showed that the filters used for the ACMA blacklist only were more easily circumvented than other more complex filters used to cover a wider range and volume of material."

The Australian Democrats think it's all a bit of a waste of money
Quote:

The Australian Democrats remain opposed to the mandatory clean feed as a waste of tax payers money and a violation of their freedom, as well as establishing a bad precedent for Government control of information.

Quote:

"Those who have been able to access the report have been disappointed with page after page of jargon and graphs, the missing context of any assertions is horrifying. There's not even details of how many people participated in the trial, whether they requested to do so or really under what sort of conditions."

The Sex Party thinks that there's too much to do...
Quote:

Senator Conroy’s decision to create a black list of Refused Classification (RC) websites would mean that 95% of the world’s four million adult sites would need to be listed and blocked, according to the Australian Sex Party.

Quote:

Ms Patten said that the Minister was trying to sell the mandatory internet filter against child porn and sexual violence but in fact it would ban mostly depictions of legal sexual acts. ‘Senator Conroy also appears to have ignored the reality that a new classification scheme for classifying websites in Australia will be necessary to cope with the flood of adult website operators who will want to have their sites rated to ensure that they fall below the RC line”, she said. ‘The Classification Board are flat out coping with magazine and DVD submissions to worry about websites”.

Electronic Frontiers Australia points out that Labour haven't explained clearly what it's all for...
Quote:

“Successful technology isn’t necessarily successful policy. We’re yet to hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help, and why it is worth spending so much taxpayers’ money on.”

And Google Australia seems to have feel it's all a bit too much...
Quote:

Google, like many other Internet companies, has a global, all-product ban against child sexual abuse material and we filter out this content from our search results. But moving to a mandatory ISP filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.

In comparison, the Australian Christian Lobby think that it's not enough...
Quote:

It has also proven the technological principle that can be extended to deal with other harmful X zand R-rated material on the Iteret. This is now clearly feasible and we need a review in three years that might test this in practice, particularly usig third party providers of URLS

iiNet use some diplomatic language to insinuate that the filtering won't do what Labour think it will
Quote:

"iiNet has previously raised concerns with ISP level filtering which it believes is unlikely to have a significant effect on illegal activity. As the Government has decided to introduce legislation, iiNet wants to make sure any changes introduced are workable."

While Optus has released a statement stating that
Quote:

"Optus acknowledges that it is the government's responsibility to strike a balance between protecting Australians' desire for freedom of expression and access to information, with the need to improve online safety and limit access to illegal RC content," said Krishnapillai.

Anyway, just found that Gizmodo have put together Obligatory reading on the internet filter issue, covers most of the above, but has some extra stuff in it, so check it out.

I've probably forgotten lots of things, but I'm busy with... stuff... like work and stuff... tell you later...