Comments on: Internet censorship. Nice idea, just not practical.

By: Gavin Moodie

Gavin Moodie — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I am most grateful for the well informed, calm and well reasoned arguments of Electronic Frontiers Australia against censoring the net. I have made a donation to Electronic Frontiers Australia to support its activism.

By: dermot mcguire

dermot mcguire — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

“Clive Hamilton is not a dickhead; he just has a misguided approach to a challenging, though overstated, problem.”

Clive has an unworkable solution he is peddling. He flares up like a schoolgirl when challenged. that makes him a dickhead. the real solution to net exploitation is parents being resonsible and the police worldwide cracking down as in the wonderland and beaver dam cases.

ps have you seen what a filter will block?

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Very well put. Of course, none of this will make any difference and the dickheads will implement the damned thing anyway. Blerg.

By: Perry Gretton

Perry Gretton — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Clive Hamilton is not a dickhead; he just has a misguided approach to a challenging, though overstated, problem.

Thanks, Colin Jacobs, for presenting a well-reasoned rebuttal of Clive’s proposal.

By: VIc

VIc — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

The censorship test in the proposed legislation will be “unwanted content”. If the ACMA keeps it’s unwanted list secret, how long will it before sites with ‘unwanted ideas’ make it onto the list? By way of example. Australian Professor Frederick Tobens is the holocaust denier recently pulled off a plane in the UK in response to a German issued Interpol warrant. Denying the holocaust in the UK is not illegal. It is in Germany. Tobens’ website is in Australia. He’s never been to Germany. This is what happens when ideas are deemed unwanted. What would the ACMA do if the Anti Defamation League wanted Tobens’ site black listed? Senator Conroy is well advised not to open this censorship can of worms under the pretext of ‘good intentions’ to limit porn. The staged 911 event was the pretext for the US the Patriot Act which tore up the Constitution, restricting freedoms and civil liberties. Ask David Hicks about ‘good intentions’, which serve the advancement of tyranny. We might trust the ALP today. How about some future administration that might seize Australian democracy from the middle of the road whilst most of the people are asleep? Freedom of information is our guarantee of freedom. No to Internet Censorship.

By: Bernard Keane

Bernard Keane — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

No Bev - tank YOU.

By: bev

bev — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I think Clive Hamilton is a brave boy very high standards, I guess as I am now a Senior Person, I can see what young, person has to cope with on the internet and the Media concerning Porn, its not just the young but older people to who live on their own. As I know both sides of life I am now very careful what I say to people about relationships because their is quite a difference of views in our society, but I would advice any one to think of their mental state when they talk about this subject, and stay well and happy in relationships and keep on learning or ask a good C hristian person to help you or to discuss it with you, so rest of your life you can be content and live in peace tanks clive

By: Colin Jacobs

Colin Jacobs — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

By the way, the title’s a bit misleading. If you were wondering why EFA thinks net censorship is a “nice idea”, we don’t. In this case censorship is definitely a cure worse than the disease, and only a small group of people (CH included) think society is diseased enough to warrant it.

By: Kevin Rennie

Kevin Rennie — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

During the early noughties I was teaching Year 12 English Studies at Katherine High School in the Northern Territory. A very useful website for studying Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was The Republic of Pemberley (http://pemberley.com/). One year the site was blocked by the NT Department of Education. Apparently their black list was outsourced to a U.S. firm in silicon valley.

Presumably the website was inappropriate because it mentioned prejudice or pre-marital sex or shot-gun marriages. It was possible to correct this gross case of censorship and incompetence and have the site put on their ‘White List’ but it was too late for the students’ examination revision. This is the inevitable result of politicians and bureaucrats trying to decide what we should have access to on the Internet.
More at ‘Labor View from Bayside’

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Totally agree. I recently updated my Computer Associates anti virus program and when I next logged on, discovered it came with a Parental Controls net nanny. These controls not only slow down my computer by more than 50%, they block most of everything. In my bookshop I was trying to find a book to order for a client. The book was a very popular children’s book for 15-year-olds. No go said the Parental Controls, this is a book that includes ‘dating’. I have since gleefully uninstalled the Parental Controls.

By: Dave Liberts

Dave Liberts — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Although Hamilton responded to some of the comments made in respect of his article yesterday, neither his article nor his comments addressed the technical issues of censoring the internet. This seems very silly to me - surely the merits of any policy decision must include assessment of the practicality of the policy as much as the underlying philosophy? I’m personally ambivalent on the philosophical issues around censoring violent sex images or images of illegal activities, but I’m deeply concerned about any moves which involve blocking non-offensive material. Currently, there is no software which can censor offensive imagery while not also incorrectly identifying harmless material as requiring censorship. We would not accept traffic signals which were only 95% effective. We would be furious with level crossing signals which gave 5% false positives and let through 5% of trains without activating. Why would we be willing to accept ‘clean feed’ which also allowed thousands of web pages to be blocked unnecessarily, and possibly deliberately for purely political reasons?

By: Graeme L

Graeme L — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Don’t despair Michael! while guys like Colin Jacobs keep writing good sense, and dickheads like Clive Hamilton keep writing garbage, surely good sense will prevail.

By: Cameron

Cameron — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Hooray, a reasoned and thoughtful articulation of the (I believe) insurmountable challenges facing internet censorship!

Thanks!