the great firewall of oz

[pixel]

this is on the register, as much as my morals cause colorful debate on here, i do not believe in censorship, i prefer people to make their own choices be them right or wrong...

The battle is now on for the soul of the Australian internet. The outcome could have enormous repercussions for the future of the internet in the UK.

Regular readers will be aware of the Australian Government’s plans to clamp down on the internet down under. These, the brainchild of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, have been bubbling away since last year, and began, as so many half-baked government schemes do, with the plea that someone "think of the children".

The scheme would put in place a server-level content filtering system, to block material unsuitable for children. The cat was put well and truly amongst the pigeons with the recent claim by Internode network engineer Mark Newton that there will be no opt-out from filtering for parents.

Rather, there will be a blacklist that parents can opt into to "protect their children".

But failing to opt into that list would merely switch users to an alternative filtering system, trapping content deemed unsuitable for adults.

According to Newton: "That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring that some kind of internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/05/aussie_internet/

[Carl]

They wont do this, the median age of "gamers" in australia is like 30.

[giga191]

More internet is good

[Micky]

They wont do this, the median age of "gamers" in australia is like 30.

Oh they will.

[Carl]

I look at it this way.
The average age of gamers in australia is almost 30, which is "kinda old".
as in they arnt "little kids" and thus can vote and have as a demographic, considerable influence on things like campaign donations and such.

On top of this, I do not thing this will happen, because it did not happen in singapore.

Singapore has I believe 3 internet providers, Singtel, Starhub and M1. all of whom are under Temasek Holdings, which is a private and wholly owned subsidiary of the Ministry of Finance, thus all 3 are owned and operated by the Singaporean government, putting them in a much better position in regards to being told what to allow and what not to allow.
But back to Australia, Australia has multiple ISPs, all of which could be easily considered to operate on a freemarket economy and their practices be held accountable to government legislation, rather than hopeful policy making.
The singaporean government is in a much better position to either pass a federal level law against stuff like pr0n or use their majority shareholder position in all of the ISPs currently operating in singapore to pass corporate policy, however they have not done so.
With this in mind, I think something will happen in Australia which to my belief is polarized between very liberal and very conservative demographics, so some sort compromise will be achieved between doing something like forcibly censoring the net or leaving it alone.

If we look at recent car and alchohol/night club legislation we can see a trend of excessively conservative knee jerk legislation which is rescinded and followed by "more reasonable" liberal legislation.
Thats just my take on it.

if they do it, would there be anyway around it? through like a proxy server thing or something?

[pixel]

proxies allow you to get through the great firewall of china, same with vpns

[Carl]

Sweet, im on the same page as you on about censorship.
I think that mistakes are the way we learn things, based on difference and all that stuff I said last week, so im down with letting people learn their own way.

I mean, you can tell people what is wrong and right and put in material constraints to keep them on track with what your vision of "society" or whatever is. But at the end of the day I think its better to "understand" something rather than just "knowing" something.
That sort of rope learning system has never sat well with me and am pretty grateful that I wasnt involved in it.

But in this case, for me, its mostly about my own personal status quo and (piracy, web tv and prawn). Also, the Australian Government has gladly supplied me with a list of things I am not allowed to do and I honestly dont see myself tolerating anymore additions to that list.
The new ones are worse than the last ones.

[vampire]

If you click your heels 3 times youll go trough the vpn tunnel....

[pixel]

well Carl, time for a revolution then surely? although i agree with the fact that most of the content on the web is unsuitable for looking at by normal people...