Stephen Conroy’s internet filter smells just like a campaign to put clothes upon the world’s animals. It will generate headlines about decency and families, but leave the fundamentals of society entirely untouched.
Great Firewall of Australia
Will net censorship filter through to the ballot box?
What are the electoral consequences of net censorship? Next to none, says Possum Comitatus. The seats of Melbourne and Sydney are the only places it even stands a chance of becoming an issue.
The Age: Filtering out our freedom
Rudd’s plans to censor Australia’s internet will do nothing to protect us against so-called “net nasties”, but everything to put the country at odds with our liberal-democratic values, says The Age.
#nocleanfeed: ditch the hashtag or we’re doomed
The anti-filter movement has been built around the Twitter hashtag “#nocleanfeed”. It’s fine for geeks, says David Olsen, but that kind of language is never going to engage your average Australian. The campaign desperately needs a make-over if it’s ever going to go mainstream.
Conroy: Why I’m censoring your internet
As the internet types their uproar over the proposed internet filter, the man behind the plan, Stephen Conroy, writes about why it’s being introduced. To keep the kiddies safe and maintain a civilised society, apparently.
Where are the ALP’s usual media critics on the filter?
Stephen Conroy announced a very expensive plan to give the government and its favoured lobbyists the power to control the internet: so where have all the usual anti-ALP pundits gone? Are they worried about offending fundamentalist readers? asks Jeremy Sear.
How to bypass the internet filter
Australia’s mandatory internet filter won’t be rolled out until mid-2010, but Anthony Caruana can already tell you how to bypass it.
What Conroy’s clean feed report doesn’t say
Stephen Conroy’s clean feed report is missing vital data about participating users and leaves a lot of important questions unanswered, writes ISP network engineer Mark Newton.
Farrer: The slippery slope from filtering to censorship
At what point does “filtering” start and “censorship” begin? asks Gordon Farrer. It’s just one of many fundamental problems with the government’s new internet filter.
Untangling the net
A report by academics Catharine Lumby, Lelia Green and John Hartley on how the internet filter could easily end up blocking Australians’ access to important health information and contentious political debate.
Google: Why we don’t support Conroy’s internet filter
Google is, unsurprisingly, unimpressed by Conroy’s internet filter plans. Access to politically controversial topics for public debate is vital for democracy, says the company’s Head of Policy, Iarla Flynn.
Australia to join ‘enemies of the internet’ such as Syria, North Korea and Iran
Instituting a mandatory filter to achieve what almost all other Western democracies have managed voluntarily would place Australia in a category of its own for a Western democracy, writes Lelia Green.
Bernard Keane’s guide to writing to Ministers
Want to vent your fury about net censorship? Bernard Keane offers some tips for making your correspondence to your local MP as painful as possible, drawn from his sordid, blood-soaked and adventure-filled time as a public servant.
Net filtering won’t work, so what is Conroy up to?
The government’s net filtering trials conclusively show filtering doesn’t work — so why is the government pursuing it and asking us to trust not just Stephen Conroy but every politician in the future? Ask the parents.
Conroy’s internet filter: so what?
When it comes to curious kids with technically adept mates, or desperately secretive pedophiles trading their nasties, the internet filter will be nothing but a minor inconvenience.
The Internet Filter and the Creatures of the Sea
Featuring the Coconut Carrying Veined Octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus)
Crikey Says: Why the internet filter is just a political stunt
The Conroy-Rudd internet censorship regime has nothing to do with pedophiles or terrorists, and everything to do with building credentials with mainstream voters who have no idea how the internet works.
Anglican Minister: Why I oppose the internet filter
Anglican Minister Will Briggs says Conroy’s internet filter is a “useless, ineffective, waste of money”, that’s neither philosophically nor logistically viable. Can a Man of God be a pirate, too?
The messy, muddled morality of the internet blacklist
With Conroy’s internet filter pretty much a certainty, the big questions are now what will make the blacklist, and who gets to make that decision. Skeptic Lawyer looks at the blurry ethical lines of just what is and isn’t acceptable.
Australia is filtering out our own achievements
Australia’s ad campaigns to tackle the HIV epidemic in the 1980s were visionary and a great example of what Australia can achieve by being open-minded, writes Catharine Lumby. Ironically, you may not be able to watch them anymore under the new internet filter.
Conroy’s filter: won’t someone think of the children?
The premise of Conroy’s internet filter is supposed to be protecting Australia’s kids from “net nasties” and pedophiles. But Stephen Collins already has an effective filter for that: it’s called “good rules and decent parenting”.
Can the blogosphere topple a government?
The blogosphere may have reacted with the predictable explosion of outrage and vitriol at the announcement of the Government’s plans to filter the internet, but is Australia’s Twitter Army strong enough to take the fight to Conroy and Rudd? We’ll never know unless we try, says Craig Wilson.
Australia’s censorship now on line with China, Egypt and Iran?
What is happening to Australian democracy with Stephen Conroy’s Great Firewall of China? Where does that put us in comparison to the rest of the world?
Spinning around with no filter facts
There’s lots of spin in Conroy’s internet filter report, but it’s missing some key facts. How many people were in the trial? What happens on high volume websites? When we realise the government is @#$@ing us over?
The Twitterverse filter reaction
As #nocleanfeed trends not just Australia, but internationally on Twitter David Swan examines how the Tweeps reacted to the internet filter news. It seems with lots of indignation against @KevinRuddPM.
