Group items tagged

Great Larvatus Prodeo post over the weekend, written for Electronic Frontiers Australia about the internet filter. Quite long, but here is a key quote: "The Internet ... is part of that secular movement towards the democratisation of social relations; and of knowledge. It's precisely because the Internet affords so much promise for those who wish to decide their destinies in common, to learn, to form an informed judgement and habit of thought that its freedom from state interference is so important at the level of principle." http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/04/16/left-reasons-to-oppose-the-net-filter-nocleanfeed/

The elderly in an effort to uphold their right to freedom of information are undertaking workshops which teach them how to circumvent the internet filters so that they can still access information regarding euthanasia which would otherwise be fettered with the proposed ISP filtering law …..how effective are these filters going to actually be?

A Crikey article on DBCDE's proposal of mandatory filtering and the "Submissions on measures to increase accountability and transparency for Refused Classification material". The Government's courting of mandatory filtering has drawn widespread criticism from such stakeholders as Google, the Internet Industry Association and highly regarded academics such as Professors Catherine Lumby, Lelia Greean and John Hartley. One of the main concerns is that the scope of the filtering is too wide and will have major implications on what content is available online. This article also helpfully provides links to some of the submissions.

Listen to Radio National- Australia Talks. Presenter Paul Barclay mediates a discussion about the proposed mandatory internet filtering system. He talks with Minister Stephen Conroy and Colin Jacobs, Vice President of Electronic Frontiers Australia. Together with two experts, Mark Newton a network engineer and Andrew Graydon Chief Operations Office of Netsweeper, who both provide technical analysis on the efficiency of the filtering system.

Google Australia says here that the mandatory internet filtering is too wide and they believe that the filtering not only would slow user access speeds, but also questions the legitimacy of the measure because of the associated restrictions on access to information

Follow up article to Ambassador Bleich's appearance on Q&A last night, where he said the "internet has to be free" and that there were other means of combating nasty content such as child pornography. "We have been able to accomplish the goals that Australia has described, which is to capture and prosecute child pornographers ... without having to use internet filters" Surely a strong American stance against the MISP means no MISP?

Rudd's internet filtering proposal is legally flawed. William's outlines simply how our existing classification system has its own problems and is unsuitable to classify internet content .

It's great to see that there is a legal argument against the filter, but it isn't something that Government is likely to take into consideration as they can easily get around it by defining the legalities surrounding the internet to be different to what we have currently. It proves their hypocrisy, but I doubt that concerns them...

A really interesting conversation thread on Slashdot about the US Government's concern over Australian ISP filter proposals, and Conroy's denial that his office has been contacted. Posters discuss net neutrality, US and Chinese interests, ACTA, practical realities of filter implementation etc.

If you missed Abbott on Q&A last night the full transcript is here (http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2859473.htm?show=transcript) or I've extracted the main bit about ISP filtering on my blog (http://logocopblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/facebook-v-isp-filtering-via-abbott.html). This article from the Oz also provides a good recap of Abbott's comments and some analysis...

Washington state government supports a library in its decision to fully filter the internet content available within the library. Concern has been raised as the article reports that 75 million people in the US rely on their internet access from libraries, and if this stringent filtering becomes standard amongst libraries, this is a very large number of people being censored.

Report demonstrating Microsoft Bing is filtering content in some "Arabian" (Arabic speaking?) countries. They are filtering largely sexual content but also non-sexual content relating to homosexuality and other taboo topics. 

The University of Sydney's IT Alumni Association will next week bring together IT experts in networking, industry, law, child welfare and ethics to discuss the Federal Government's plans to introduce compulsory internet filtering by Internet Service Providers. Forum details When 6.30pm for a 7pm start, Wednesday 28 April 2010 Where Boardroom (Room 124), School of IT Building, 1 Cleveland Street, The University of Sydney How Entry is free and open to the public but online registration by 23 April is essential. For more information http://www.it.usyd.edu.au/alumni/discussion_forum.shtml

"One of the big challenges in the debate so far has been combating the myth that the filter is - or ever was - a cyber-safety tool designed to keep kids safe online. It's not. It's designed to "harmonise" censorship laws, not protect children from inappropriate content. It's censorship for its own sake." This is interesting as EFF Australia are running a campaign to educate people not normally involved in debates around the internet - indeed, the campaign targets people who may be inclined to suport the idea of a filter: mums and dads.

Online censorship is growing in scale, scope, and sophistication around the world," said John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. South Korea's filtering efforts are very narrow in scope, but heavily censor one topic, North Korea;

This is 5 years of global survey on political, social and national security filtering conducted May 18, 2007

Four Corners and Q&A are covering the mandatory ISP filter debate tonight, should be a great double bill. Now its off the agenda till after the election, so the Government clearly misjudged the public reaction. Thanks to widespread media coverage on the inherent flaws of the MISP, coupled with the activism of protest movements such as Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Pirate Party, its fair to say that the general public have moved beyond the Government's black and white positioning of the proposal.

Thanks for the reminder!

How on earth can he guarantee that this will be 100 percent accurate - with no overblocking, and no underblocking!?!?! And in this interview, he advises that this is not a limit on freedom of speech and that the internet should not be considered a special platform.

This article discusses how the Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has dismissed the Internet as a special medium, claiming that it is nothing more than, "just a communication distrbution platform." Which, is quite short sighted, as the notion of open source, crowd sourcing, collective/collecting intelligence, collaborative intelligence is achievable because of the Internet. Conroy also claims that his filter is 100 percent accurate..." which begs to question, according to who? Filtering, content only prevents access, it does not prevent those individuals from crimnimal acts offline, nor does it address how to protect victims from their predators.

Call for consultation regarding Australian government's mandatory internet filtering scheme. 

Great, accessible article exposing the major flaws of the proposed internet filter - the fact there are 10 major flaws is pretty indicative of the proposal itself...fundamentally flawed.

The federal government's own experts have slammed the internet filter as"difficult" to implement, and saying it would "impose siginficant burdens on the industry". Expert and government report author Louise Collins also suggested the blacklist would have "currency" and could actually serve as a directory for paedophiles.

The conversation first looked at internet censorship from an international perspective covering issues of internet governance from and internet freedom. Unfortunately one or two members of the panel were prone to regurgitating policy rather than engaging in an actual debate. Towards the end inevitably the discussion was drawn to the proposed filtering laws within Australia. The general consensus from the panel members was that education had to be an essential part of policy when addressing online safety. Interestingly the government representative, the Minister for Home Affairs, was a keen supporter of this policy stance.