Australian government to censor the Internet by 2011

I am perplexed how these policies suddenly appear but am not surprised that they do. Without open debate or discussion it appears a real case of dictatorial government control; the comparisons to media restriction in communist china are a degree from what is happening here.

The processes involved with deciding what gets put on a list needs to be stringently considered without compromising the freedoms of individuals. If I want to have a wank to some debauched porn, then be it... as long as its not illegal content ie kiddy porn.

I see this working in two ways. (1) we look at an amalgum of available and allowable content worldwide and utilise that as a norm. content that is freely available and accepted, AND has considerable traffic in other countries, should be a good starting point for allowable content, and (2) we as individuals need to shape our future. there are enough people who have a driving passion for these topics to enter into employable positions that can enact change. become a lawyer, become a policy advisor, become a polititian, and steer our country in the direction WE want. this is what other factions have done for years... there's nothing stopping us, but our will.

Apples and oranges dude...socialism has nothing to do with conservative religious believes. Way to throw a jab at Obama though. *rollseyes*

Anyway, if the Chinese can break through there "firewall" and get out to the open internet I don't see how Australia is gonna have it working 100%. This is just gonna be a huge waste of money that could be used elsewhere.

Porn to the internet is like air to a living, reproducing creatures.

Filtering porn on the internet will be harder than filtering air. Porn will find a way though, and don't be surprised that the very people this legislation is purporting to protect will be the first and most motivated to find those ways.

It's the other things like;
- political stuff they don't want us to read,
- drugs, hazardous material,
- and don't be surprised if even copyrighted material through p2p is also put on that list eventually,

that the gubmint will be filtering that we won't know about which will be what hurts our freedom the most. By cloaking our access to stuff we wont even know that's on the list, we will be ignorant, asleep on the topics, and a pliable population.

As an Australian Tax payer I feel ripped off and sickened to see our taxes funding this unnecessary trial.
If Conroy is afraid of our children having access to violence and pornography (just to name a couple), why is it up to the government to seek ways of preventing it from happening?

Perhaps the money used for this unnecessary trial be best spent to teach parents of this country on how to be responsible parents. If you don't have time to spend quality time with your kids then don't have them!

Can anyone tell me what other democratic country has done what Conroy wants to do?

Doesn't Conroy have anything better to do?

Only problem is that the government might seethrough to block Proxys' and/or SSH patching. Most Schools in Australia already have the ISP filtering making it hard for students to research topics with a graphic nature such as animal crualty. The ISP filtering that Australian schools have also blocks Proxys' and SSH patching. There scheme is wrong. They announce that anyone person can make a complaint and the ACMA will block it until a full review has been made. They need to think about what they are doing and pull there heads out of Mr krudds backside.

I'd love Facebook to be banned here in Canada.

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Now that i agree to

Hey Australia, better start downloading the internet now! *tongue in cheek*

I guess those Aussies will have to go find their porn another way.

Despite child safety advocates telling him it won't make a difference, industry professionals telling him it won't work, schoolkids telling him they'll just work around it and the general population telling him repeatedly they DON'T WANT IT, he's STILL going ahead? Governments seem incapable of understanding that the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it. It won't prevent anyone who wants to see the "inappropriate" sites from seeing them because circumventing the filter is absolutely trivial..

Labor was pushing for net filtering long before they got into power. So Australians knew full well that it was going to happen but voted for them nevertheless.

You must be joking
First of all we have a Prime Minister, not a President
Secondly we are not a religious country especially in comparison to in god we trust !! america :rolleyes:
You guys are the religious fanatics not us (obviously excluding all those wacko middle east countries)
We are a multi-cultural country having citizens originating from many varied countries, and due to that, "religion" is just all broken up here. Thank god !

And just as a twist on that information, its usually the religious nuts that are the ones responsible for CP and abusing kids. Geez you US guys must have some big issues in that case. And I know that you do in this area alone.


One more thing about this BIG issue of censorship. The government have stated they will only be stopping specific known bad sites (at this stage) So if anyone needed a proxy help in Australia for this, then they must only be wanting to go to those "specific" censored sites, I wouldn't be helping them

At least we will have less users with Malware infections

Edit
A normal day on Sunday in Australia
Go on picnic
Kick a footy (that's real Aussie rules footy)
Go to the beach or pool (the sun is pretty hot here)
Recover from drinking beer, Saturday night, all night long :zzz: :monkey:

We have no time for the church here :evil: , excluding 1% of the population, usually of ethnic background

You guys just got this! this thing has been out, since when the Australian government is decding to go forward with the new broadband trial in TAS, the government said that if the internet is going to be changed so would, filtering would be inserted. so in common words if Austraila wants the new superfast broadband, they have to go with the filtering which i have to say is BS!

Australia already has enough issues to sort out with, and needs to pull their heads out of their old ***'s and start thinking for the people of Australia and their issues, instead for themselves.

If you fire off an angry email to Senator Conroy about filtering, all you'll likely get is an automatically-generated reply giving you the standard words on the issue. Don't waste your time, waste theirs instead! See http://is.gd/5pjGo

Wrong. They opposed mandatory filtering when the Howard government proposed it in 1999 and 2003. Before they got into power they supported an optional client level filter for parents.

In China you can go to jail for 10 years if you are caught bypassing the filter.

I'm a little surprised that Australia is so conservative. I keep seeing stuff about them banning video games because they're too violent. Aliens vs. Predator just got rejected. Left 4 Dead 2 and Fallout 3 were both initially rejected and had to be cleaned up. What's the big deal with a little fake gore/violence? Next thing they'll be banning movies, music, and books too (if they don't already do so...)

Based upon my own prejudices, I'm inclined to believe you. However, , I think reality disagrees with you at least a *little*.

Religions Affiliations in Australia:

• Catholic; 25.8% of the population
• Christian (non catholic): 38.1%
• Other religions: 5.4%
• No religion: 18.7%
• No response: 11.2%

Religion in the United States

• Catholic: 25.1%
• Christian (non catholic): 50.9%
• Other religions: 3.5%
• No religion: 15%

Well, you don't at least....

"In the 2006 Australian Census participants were asked "what is the person's ancestry?""

• * Australian (37.13%)
• * English (31.65%)
• * Irish (9.08%)
• * Scottish (7.56%)
• * Italian (4.29%)
• * German (4.09%)
• * Chinese (3.37%)
• * Greek (1.84%)
• * Dutch (1.56%)
• * Indian (1.18%)
• * Lebanese (0.92%)
• * Vietnamese (0.87%)
• * Polish (0.82%)
• * New Zealander (0.81%)
• * Filipino (0.81%)
• * Maltese (0.77%)
• * Croatian (0.59%)
• * Australian Aboriginal (0.58%)
• * Welsh (0.57%)
• * French (0.5%)
• * Serbian (0.48%)
• * Maori (0.47%)
• * Spanish (0.42%)
• * Macedonian (0.42%)
• * South African (0.4%)
• * Sinhalese (0.37%)
• * Hungarian (0.3%)
• * Russian (0.3%)
• * Turkish (0.3%)
• * American (0.28%)

Apparently Australia doesn't ask for ethnicity anymore, BUT in the 1999 census, the estimate was 92% Caucasian which is even possibly more 'pale' then the U.S. Yes, incredibly diverse....

Its not our country itself, its a couple of politicians with their idealized religious beliefs that they are trying to push on everyone. The government over here is running the country into the ground, the worst thing about the internet filter is there will be no list of actual sites blocked available to the public, which is really bad for reasons I don't think I even need to explain.

I fkn hope the Hackers of Australia will speak up!!!