I contacted ACA and TT (through their website forms) about the Internet Filtering plan that the Australian Government is pushing through.
I’ve been really vocal about this previously, but now I think it’s time to start committing myself into writing and helping others get their letters written and sent to the people both responsible and the people letting this happen.
Click on the article to see the full text I submitted.
I work as a system administrator in Brisbane, I’ve worked in the IT industry now for almost 10 years, working from a Call center in an Australian ISP to National onsite support and administering networks of hundreds of computers in a Queensland Datacentre.
That’s my credentials so I hope the next part will be taken seriously.
The internet filtering plan that is proposed by the government and is steamrolling ahead is not something that will protect children or enforce the law, it will only push us further behind the rest of the world in access to a resource that by its own definition works by consensus.
If the average Australian really wanted this filtering plan the market would provide it, ISPs would provide it because if they didn’t their customers would go to whomever did provide it.
People who do commit crimes online won’t be stopped by this, won’t even be fazed, infact it may make it harder for the police to catch them since they will have encryption built into whatever they use for the next stage.
The people who are going to be hit the hardest are the semi-literate to non-technologically literate and the next generation of students.
The Internet will be slowed.
Any censorship of the Internet does not work, the reason it is such a good resource is the fast and inaccurate nature of it.
This won’t stop criminals from breaking the law, and may even help them by forcing them to work around the system, rather than using the current system and getting caught.A real plan would involve helping educate parents, supplying CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) that could use filtering if that’s what the household really wanted or using a government subsidised ISP that provides this filtering.
In the end it comes down to the point that the internet is just like the real world, you don’t send your child to a Library in the Queen Street mall after midnight just because the Library is a great resource of information, if they really need that book, you’d walk with them.
I believe the solution to most of these issues isn’t more government interference, it’s more family values.
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I can provide many articles on the information behind this debate and would happily explain any points I’ve made that sound confusing or are too technical.
Tags: censorship, filtering, Internet Filtering