Proposed internet censorship in Australia - Modern Warfare 2 Forum: Free Call of Duty MW2 Community

**Voodoo** · 03-24-2010, 03:16 AM

Some of you may have heard that the Australian Government is pushing for an internet filter to ban access to things like child porn, drugs and other illegal things.

I am opposed the the whole thing. Even though it won't affect me at all bar slowing down my internet speed, ~~therefore all my completely legal downloads and porn.~~ Despite it not affecting me past the aforementioned I am fundamentally opposed to it.

Some concerns of mine (aside from objecting the whole cunting thing and certainly not all of them)

It doesn't complete it's objective of blocking illegal content. The primary method of distribution for child porn is P2P and a filter at the ISP level can't stop this. The filter actually prevents police from apprehending these people as they would no longer be able to track individuals accessing these sites due to the filter and therefore the actually hinders the police.

The internet filter will make Australias already subpar (1st world) internet even slower. The blacklist was leaked onto wikileaks but now 404s when I try to access it. On it were legal straight and gay porn sites, URLs to youtube links, poker sites and even a dentist in Queensland.

The term unwanted content has been used by the senator in charge of this project but there has been no definition of what unwanted content is. Meaning that it is solely up to the governments discretion about what is to be banned.

Concerns are that while the filter may start mild, there is the possibility as it is already in place, that it could turn into something like China.

The increased cost of running this will be payed by the end user, the public, so now I am paying more a service that provides me less and at a slower speed.

Because the filter is more broken than MW2 it will occasionally block business websites. A site that is blocked will lose money in revenue and there has been no indication of whether this will be reimbursed or not.

read about it here:
Australian Internet Filtering - OCAU Wiki

Background info from the above link

Spoiler:

Quote:

* The Government plans to impose mandatory Internet filtering at the Internet Service Provider (ISP) level. There are two lists, a 'child' safe list which filters both illegal content and hardcore pornography; a second which users can 'opt-out' to which only filters unwanted content.

* Senator Stephen Conroy, the Government Senator responsible for this project has stated that they will also be looking into the possibility of filtering other content that may be illegal in Australia. Which would for example include: euthanasia, abortion, drug-use, etc.

* Other political parties and members have made their intentions clear to include further content to be banned, such as overseas online gambling, and as suggested by Family First Senator Steve Fielding - hardcore pornography.
o 'Conservative' Senator, Cory Bernadi has since rescinded his support for the Government's plan, voiced his concerns with mandatory Internet filtering, and has also elaborated no his frustations with the current filtering systems in use in Parliamentary offices. 1

* Mark Newton, a Network Engineer from ISP Internode was the victim of bullying by the Office of Stephen Conroy over his criticisms of the Government's Internet Filtering plans. Conroy's policy advisor Belinda Dennett, sent an email to the Internet Industry Association (IIA) board member Carolyn Dalton stating requesting that Mark Newton rein in his comments over the Government's proposal. This email was accompanied by a phone call demanding that the message be passed onto Senior Internode Management. Mark Newton has made it clear that his comments are his own and do not reflect the opinions of his employer.

* Senator Conroy accused Senator Ludlam (Greens) of suggesting that people should have access to child pornography when questioning him at committee meeting whether users would truly be able to "opt-out" of the system. 2 3

* Email, Peer to Peer, Instant messaging, newsgroups and any other custom application protocols are on the ACMA report as things that the Government is also planning to apply the ISP-Level filtering to.

* Conroy has answered in the Senate at Question Time that the filtering system will block access to "unwanted content". He has avoided answering any questions that Senator Ludlam has directed at him.

* The filtering trial has been scheduled to begin in April/May 2009, however there have been delays due to ACMA having to tighten security around the blacklist. iiNet had applied to be part of the trial but they later withdrew. iiNet's CEO Michael Malone said in a statement that "It became increasingly clear that the trial was not simply about restricting child pornography or other such illegal material, but a much wider range of issues including what the government simply describes as 'unwanted material' without an explanation of what that includes". The initial ISPs that will take part in the trial were announced on the 11th of February 2009 and they are Primus Telecommunications, Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1. Optus was announced as a trial participant by the DBCDE on the 22nd April 2009 and will begin their trials on May 22nd 2009 on an opt-out basis for a selection of their DSL direct customers. Telstra and Exetel are conducting their own private trials of filtering technology.

* Up to 10,000 websites will be on the blacklist of the ISP Level filtering trial scheduled for April/May 2009. It is unknown what is on this list of banned websites, and it is likely that they will not be released at any time in the future.
o A list has been released on Wikileaks claiming to be the ACMA blacklist, however Conroy, ACMA and Tech2U have claimed this is not the actual ACMA list. Although Senator Conroy did confirm that a number of URLs on the list were present on the ACMA list and suggested that legal action would be taken against people passing on the list and AFP may become involved. The validity of the list cannot be confirmed as unbiased sources are not able to gain access to the real ACMA blacklist. 4

* Senator Conroy has been repeatedly questioned on the proposed filtering system by several other Senators from various parties, however has each time failed to answer the actual question directed at him.

* The extent of 'unwanted' websites is still unknown, however Senator Conroy now claims that the Government has always only wanted to block material that has been refused classification (RC) by the classification board. This is in stark contrast to the many statements he has made saying the Government intends to use the ACMA blacklist for the mandatory filtering tier which contains material that comes under a variety of classifications 5. The filtering trial will use the standard ACMA blacklist. It became known that the ACMA blacklist contains political content when a member of Whirlpool recently submitted a complaint relating to an anti-abortion website which contained pictures of unborn fetuses (however legal) to ACMA. ACMA confirmed that they were satisified that the images were something that would be classified as RC by the classification board and that the website had been added to the blacklist.
o A link to the now banned website was posted on the Whirlpool forums, and subsequently the ACMA ordered a takedown notice to Bulletproof Networks (Whirlpool's webhost) threatening fines of $11,000 a day. This is also unusual in the circumstance that it is never happened before as well as the takedown notice being issued to the webhost instead of the party responsible for hosted website.

* The ACMA list has already been leaked on the Wikileaks website.
o This list contained a number of legal websites which also include a dentist, dog kennel, and a Queensland tour operator. Among other URLs on the list are numerous Youtube, wikipedia, fringe religous, legal straight and gay porn, and euthanasia websites.

Now for the debate part.

Do you feel that cencorship is acceptable, does it infringe on your liberties or rights to freedom of speech etc.
Would you be opposed to a filter in your country?

edit: 4chan is on the blacklist, I am still unsure as to whether I think this is a good or bad thing.

edit edit: given the oppurtunity I would murder the person/people responsible for this.

Nibbles · 03-24-2010, 05:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo

Now for the debate part.

Do you feel that internet censorship is acceptable....?

Never. There's stuff I don't like and there's stuff I don't ever want to see. So I don't go looking for it. So filtering content on the internet is not protecting me from anything I can't make my own mind up on, unless of course, it's something I want to see. But where do we draw the line when subjectivity is at play, how often is the line reviewed (the film "A Clockwork Orange" was banned in the UK for around 20 years!) and why go to all this trouble?

And hey, what if I do see something I didn't really want to see? It's happened a few times but I turn it off! OMG unharmed too!

"But think of the children!!!" Yes, that's what parents should be doing and I do not oppose whatever rules a parent wants to impose upon their children in regards to internet access but I don't this shouldn't be the governments responsibility.

As for the child porn nuts, it doesn't prevent actual child abuse itself nor does it prevent access to child porn material. Remember, this is just a URL filter.. it has no impact on P2P and can be easily circumvented by using VPN's.

I don't expected to be affected or inconvenienced by the filter (I live in Australia) as it currently stands but once it goes live, it becomes easier to then add to it over time.. and who knows what future governments may feel is inappropriate.

Mostly though, and on very general terms here, I just hate the politically correct mentality which grows and grows until something that we once took for granted becomes unacceptable and legislated into oblivion, politicians wasting taxpayers money over ensuring the world is "safe", using the most inefficient and ineffective ways possible.

To illustrate my example of Political Correctness driving things out of hand I thought I'd include a couple of personal experiences that spring to mind:

- My old Primary School (that's age 5-10 in NZ) library banned all children's books that had anything to do with supernatural themes or monsters. This was about 10 years ago. Where The Wild Things are and The Witches by Roald Dahl to name a couple of books I was fond of reading 12+ years prior to that which are now, less accessible to today's generation. Well.. I guess they got the movie versions... =/

- A few days ago I bought "Moon" on DVD (great movie btw). On its Australian Classification sticker it had the usual M rating with the following comment: "Contains Science Fiction Themes". WTF?!

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-24-2010, 06:49 AM

Instead of echoing Nibbles' post, I direct a question at you Aussies.

Precisely how much are the ISPs backing this movement?

**Voodoo** · 03-24-2010, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ViS

Instead of echoing Nibbles' post, I direct a question at you Aussies.

Precisely how much are the ISPs backing this movement?

Quote:

The Federal Government has announced it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the internet after Government-commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet. lies! slander!

But critics, including the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam, said the trial results were not surprising and the policy was still fundamentally flawed.

Iirc most of them are opposed to it, but it looks as though it won't matter.^^

03-24-2010, 09:18 AM

I don't think Government Internet censorship will help anything. People still find ways around it (as previously stated by many). As with all good intentions there are so many things wrong with it. I know just from school that I couldn't get onto certain websites while I was doing legitimate research cause of the schools blockade. Then where do they draw the line for what's appropriate? Next in line is gaming forums because "gaming causes violence" we can't let these kids join together for a cause.

SgtJoo · 03-24-2010, 10:57 AM

Censorship in any way, shape or form is wrong. Unrestricted access to the internet is a right.

**Dante** · 03-24-2010, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SgtJoo

Unrestricted access to the internet is a right.

Whilst unwilling to drive this thread on a tangent, I gotta go for this.

What exactly do you mean by "unrestricted access to the internet is a right"?

That the internet and it's content should not be legislated, that is, the use of the internet to view illegal material shouldn't be sanctioned?
That the government should not be able to limit which web pages their citizens can view?
That private companies such as ISPs should not be able to limit which web pages their subscribers can view?
That employers shouldn't be able to limit the internet access their employees have whilst using privately owned computers?
Any/All the above?

Because I believe that to a limited extent all but the 3rd point (ISPs) can be justified.

My beliefs (summarised):

It seems obvious to me that using the internet to view child pornography should remain illegal and that other illegal uses of the internet such as fraud etc. should also be legislated, I doubt anyone will argue against this, but if they do i'd be willing to rebut.

Whilst some, perhaps even the majority, of child pornography is shared over P2P networks, it is undeniable that some is shared over URLs in the public domain, again, it seems obvious to me that governments should be able to take action to stop people viewing it in the first place rather than just prosecuting those who do view it. Compare it with drugs legislation, arresting dealers is more effective than just picking up addicts.

I don't believe ISPs should be able to limit their customer's access simply because I think they should be providing the service of access to the internet, nothing added, nothing taken away. Plus, coupled with the policy of limited government censorship, there shouldn't really be anything there they need to censor, and anything that that do censor would be an attack on civil liberties and overruling the government.

Employers should be able to limit internet access for the simple reason of ensuring work gets done and nobody gets offended. I can't really justify playing Flash games or watching porn in an office environment.

minicoopa · 03-24-2010, 05:42 PM

Same opinion as most above for a couple reasons

1. I still want to be able to look up free porn <cough> to watch with my gf <cough>
2. If your really want to get to child porn etc, then censorship isnt going to stop you (eg P2P)
3. It's going to slow down our net hard.

SgtJoo · 03-25-2010, 02:15 PM

I mean that uncensored and free and equal access to the Internet for all is an inherent right. It's my business what I do on the internet, and if I'm not infringing on your civil liberties what I do is my business. What I choose to share on the Internet is mine and is my decision alone on who to share it with.

BananaBomb · 03-29-2010, 08:45 PM

"It used to be that we world-proofed our children, but now we try to child-proof the world."

/thread

**Dante** · 04-05-2010, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BananaBomb

"It used to be that we world-proofed our children, but now we try to child-proof the world."

A nice idea in the abstract, a ridiculous proposition in practicality. Anyone for a funtacular world where anyone can have access to anything if their parents didn't "world-proof" them "correctly"?

MoleMania · 04-05-2010, 05:09 PM

The Australian government just thinks that everyone is a serial rapist/murderer/paedophile waiting to happen. End of. Of course I am opposed to this, but quite frankly, as I'm not and Australian, I don't give that much of a damn.

03-24-2010, 09:18 AM	#5 (permalink)
OzballO Guest Posts: n/a Tournaments Joined: Tournaments Won:	re: Proposed internet censorship in Australia I don't think Government Internet censorship will help anything. People still find ways around it (as previously stated by many). As with all good intentions there are so many things wrong with it. I know just from school that I couldn't get onto certain websites while I was doing legitimate research cause of the schools blockade. Then where do they draw the line for what's appropriate? Next in line is gaming forums because "gaming causes violence" we can't let these kids join together for a cause.

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