Government porn filter to slow down the internet

MontyB

MontyB

All-Blacks Supporter
AUSTRALIANS will be forced to contact their internet service provider to avoid having their access to the web restricted.
The restrictions are planned by the Federal Government to give greater protection to children from online pornography and violent websites.
Under the plan, all internet service providers will be required to provide a "clean" feed to households and schools, free of pornography and other inappropriate material.
Any internet users who want to "opt out" of the clean feed will have to contact their ISP.
Online civil libertarians yesterday warned the freedom of the internet was at stake, while internet providers are concerned the new measures could slow the internet in Australia down to a crawl.
But Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said everything possible had to be done to shield children from violent and pornographic online material.
"We have always argued more needs to be done to protect children," he said.
Senator Conroy said the clean feed, also known as mandatory ISP filtering, would prevent users accessing prohibited content.
"We will work with the industry to get the best policy. (But) Labor is committed to introducing mandatory ISP filtering."
Senator Conroy said the Australian Communications and Media Authority would prepare a blacklist of unsuitable sites.
The adoption of mandatory ISP filtering comes on top of the former government's offer of free internet filtering software for home computers.
Chair of the internet user group Electronic Frontiers Australia, Dale Clapperton, said mandatory ISP filtering eroded internet freedom and would not improve online safety for children.
"China, Burma and Saudi Arabia and those type of oppressive countries are the only ones that have seriously looked at doing something like this," he said.
"In Australia, which is supposedly a Liberal democracy, the government is saying that the internet is so full of this material that it must protect us from it by trying to block it."
Mr Clapperton feared that parents would be lulled into a false sense of security.
"Parents should not allow their children to use the internet unsupervised," he said.
"Stuff that should be blocked will inevitably get through."
Family First Senator Steve Fielding, who has campaigned for ISP filtering, said he would be watching the Government like a hawk on the issue.
"Australian families want more (internet protection) and deserve more than they are currently getting, and this is a real test for the Rudd Government," he said.
A report by the Australia Institute in 2003 showed 84 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls using the internet had experienced unwanted exposure to sexual material.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22989008-661,00.html

Kind of torn on this one, on one hand cleaning up the net wouldn't be a bad thing and on the other hand I don't like censorship or the precedent that this sets.
 
I think this is nonsense. This isn't going to stop kids from getting porn and it'll just make life harder for the rest of us. Kids are smarter than adults give credit for. They will have all kinds of ways to get access to contraband they want.
What I am in favor of though is a home filter that is password protected. It is far more reliable and won't mean adults ranging from age 18 to up until God knows how old will suffer from having crappier internet just because a bunch of idiots aged 10-18 (only 8 years mind you) want to see naked women.
I'm sure it'll be not too different from a virus scan software. Viruses will get in anyway at some point and all it does is slows down and messes up your computer.
Not to mention the precedent with the ban on the freedom of speech.
 
Anything to get people to take their eye off the ball for a short while.

Get us some reasonable speed at a fair price before slowing services even further.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
I think this is nonsense. This isn't going to stop kids from getting porn and it'll just make life harder for the rest of us. Kids are smarter than adults give credit for.
Click to expand...

Well said.

The government shouldn't be parenting anyways. The parents should be watching their kids online.
 
I am up to the ears of the "protect the children" excuse. Its becoming so that the big-brother of public opinion is observing every facet of public life.

We see it in the media, in various forms of entertainment, and now on the internet.

I AM AN ADULT, NOT A CHILD, AND I REFUSE TO BE TREATED LIKE ONE!

Its the parents responisbilty to protect their children. Not the TV, not these various "MORALITY" groups, and certainly not the government.

But this has nothing to do with protecting children, it has to do with controlling society.
 
mmarsh said:
Its the parents responisbilty to protect their children. Not the TV, not these various "MORALITY" groups, and certainly not the government.

But this has nothing to do with protecting children, it has to do with controlling society.
Click to expand...

I'm no wowser, but I find that I must disagree.

Responsible governments do have an obligation to safeguard minors from irresponsibly posted unsuitable material, just as they do from paedophiles.

Unfortunately all laws lessen our freedoms in some small way. It is the price that we pay for stability and a degree of law and order.

I would love to have the right to make all of my own decisions too, but if it were the case, the world would soon descend into anarchy.
 
senojekips said:
I'm no wowser, but I find that I must disagree.

Responsible governments do have an obligation to safeguard minors from irresponsibly posted unsuitable material, just as they do from paedophiles.

Unfortunately all laws lessen our freedoms in some small way. It is the price that we pay for stability and a degree of law and order.

I would love to have the right to make all of my own decisions too, but if it were the case, the world would soon descend into anarchy.
Click to expand...

I would agree but in this case wouldn't the best option be to legislate that browsers must contain configurable filters and leave it up to the parents to implement the level of filtering they see fit?
 
Sorry Guys I don't agree.

I don't want the government involved in the raising of my kids unless I am being abusive or negligent in my role as parent.

Do you know in most cases involving Paedophilia on the internet its usually because the PARENT wasn't supervising their children. The sickos look for this when look for victims, they go for the loners. So again whose fault is that?
 
The government is already involved in the raising of our kids, there is almost nothing that we do in relation to raising our children that is not regulated or overseen by the government in some way shape or form.

As for supervising our children, most of us only see our children for a few hours a day 100% supervision is physically impossible, and the very fact that they are children means that they will experiment and push all the boundaries at some stage or another, some do it all the time.

What is the supporting argument for porn on the Internet?

Home filters are a joke, most reasonably astute 10 year olds merely see them as a challenge, and not a great one at that.
 
I like my porn and I will fight to keep access to it.

It's up to the parents not the state on what is right and wrong for a minor to see. I think that currant laws are enough. Child Porn is a crime... go after those that harm children. 18 year old or older laws for access to porn is fine by me also. But that's not really going to stop children from getting it.

Before the day of the internet, getting porn was just as easy. It's called a magazine. I remember being 12-13 years old and getting them all the time. Porn and children are a normal thing though also. The Human Body becomes sexually active far before the age of 18-21. I believe that limiting it's access to minors is okay but going after a 16 year old male or female is a waste of time and resources. Teenagers will look at porn. Simple as that.

As an adult. I enjoy adult entertainment. When I was in a relationship my partner enjoyed it also. We were both adults. She watched and viewed as much adult material as I did.

Parents should have filters on their personal computers. It should not be a state mandated program.
 
Parents can manage their computer access at home by giving the computers passwords or internet access passwords. The kid can ask permission to use the internet.
Keep the computer with internet access in the living room.
These steps are FAR more effective than a general filter.
Any time home filtering hasn't worked was because the parents weren't motivated enough.
And I'll go with 5.56 here. I watch porn and I've done far worse things than that before (Marines + Chicks + Beer = XXX).
Home filters are effective.
 
Obviously both 5.56 and 13th Redneck have not got kids nor understand how devious the seemingly "best behaved" children can be.

All of the above are absolutely useless if the kids go to public access Internet sites, or just go to the homes of friends who don't actively supervise their kids. Or their associates download it and give it to them.

I work about 12 - 15 hours a week helping people with home computer problems. The things that I find loaded on computers would astound you. The latest instance was only three days ago when a local businessman asked about popup advertising that had started to appear on two networked computers in his home. At present I have loaded some software of my own and will be returning early next week (while the kids are not at home) to show the parents where their kids are going, (8 and 11). Depending on what I find the parents will then be asked to have a talk with the kids and I will re check in a week to note any changes in their activity, this will tell me how determined the kids are and allow a path of action to be worked out.

e.g. what do you do with a kid who downloads his own diagnostics and hacks your tracking software, carefully hidden in what appears to be a nondescript file in one of their own games. I have found that generally the kids who are most at risk, are also the most computer savvy.

Most parents do not have the knowledge to let them properly set up a home filter. My filter blacklist contains 38 filters and a site list that slows down the operation of any computer to the point where it is virtually useless when activated.

14 year olds are the most devious, but I have found a 10 year old girl who has almost no difficulty in bypassing nearly everything I have tried, short of having her parents physically disable the computer.

As for those of us who say that they will watch their kids at all times, all I can say is, "In your dreams baby, In your dreams" I think every parent that I've spoken to has tried it. It works well for two days, then it is found to be absolutely impractical.

For those of you who have got kids, try installing a key logger for a week, I'm sure that you'll be amazed.
 
That''s not the idea. The secret is that the kids don't know that the keylogger is installed, nor can they find or read the output.

It's like being able to look over their shoulder. It doesn't stop them going to sites that you disapprove of, but you can see if they are disobeying you, and where they've been, then stop their privileges. One father I know in this town takes the monitor from the home computer to work with him, locked in the trunk of his car, this should not have to be the case.
 
senojekips said:
That''s not the idea. The secret is that the kids don't know that the keylogger is installed, nor can they find or read the output.

It's like being able to look over their shoulder. It doesn't stop them going to sites that you disapprove of, but you can see if they are disobeying you, and where they've been, then stop their privileges. One father I know in this town takes the monitor from the home computer to work with him, locked in the trunk of his car, this should not have to be the case.
Click to expand...

So is it the governments job to fix a situation where a father clearly cannot trust his kids?

My over all stance on this one remains that it is the responsibility of parents to educate and safe guard their children it is the governments responsibility to allow parents the tools to do the job.
 
MontyB said:
So is it the governments job to fix a situation where a father clearly cannot trust his kids?

My over all stance on this one remains that it is the responsibility of parents to educate and safe guard their children it is the governments responsibility to allow parents the tools to do the job.
Click to expand...

Yep, pretty much so. The Government's actions won't cure it, but they can certainly make it very hard. Just as they do if the kids are trying to commit some other socially irresponsible act. Like the kid in our town about 7 years ago who tried to set fire to a loaded fuel tanker (carrying 60,000 litres of Diesel) when asked why, his answer was, "I wanted to see what would happen" The kid was thought to be in bed, and the tanker was locked in a fuel depot with a razor wire topped chainlink fence.

The fact of the matter being that many parents "trust" their kids merely because they have little idea of what they actually get up to. Not all, but enough to cause a lot of mayhem. How many times do you read in the paper where some young driver comes adrift on the road and hits a telegraph pole six feet off the ground (obviously flying) and when the parents are interviewed they say, "Little Johnny was such a good kid, he always obeyed the law and did what he was told".

Kids, being kids like to push the boundaries, so someone has to make sure that the boundaries are strong and well defined, as some kids just won't take "no" for an answer.

I've got my own views on parental responsibility, however the government have already emasculated parents in the raising of their children, so now it is up to them to help offset the effects of their actions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top