Australia Back To Censoring The Internet... Again
from the haven't-we-gone-through-this-before? dept
Not again. It seems that every single year or so, politicians in Australia suddenly decide that it makes sense to filter the internet to block out "bad stuff." And every time they do this, people point out how this is censorship, it doesn't work, it harms legitimate uses, and it's a waste of time and money... and eventually the whole thing dies down. But... it's back again. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is pushing a plan to filter out a list of "criminal" sites. Amazingly, Conroy is claiming that a recent trial showed that filtering technology was 100% effective. That seems unlikely. Every year that this comes up, there are widespread protests about the censorship, but once again, the politicians don't seem to care. They just want headlines about how they helped "protect the children."![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: abuse, australia, censorship, filters
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Throw some math at 'em
As a sample size grows, the probability of achieving 100% accuracy in anything falls towards zero.
That is to say, it's highly improbable that Australia can achieve a filtered Internet at anywhere near 100% accuracy. However, I'm glad that they're finally going ahead with this.
It is my hope that after a string of embarrassing false positives and open secrets for evading the AU filters, that Australia decides to officially remove their filters and that somehow, other nations learn from the mistakes of Oz.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Throw some math at 'em
well maybe they could 100% filter all internet content altogether - then they could get that stat - but that would be s**t so lets not suggest that :P
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Throw some math at 'em
stop thinking you're so smart
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Good deal
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Good deal
Well yeah. They're all marsupials, they just can't compete with us mammals.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Good deal
This filtering is one of those symbolic/moral panic thingos, When I was young it was reds under the beds now its child molesters under every bed.
This is the same gov that thinks doling out computers to kiddies is a better use of public money than employing more teachers to supervise the same kiddies.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Good deal
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just a few corrections
Unfortunately it hasn't been completely abandoned as just yet and it looks like we are looking at live trials in the near future.
The latest wave of #nocleanfeed (#openinternet) outrage is due to farcical trial results (http://www.inquisitr.com/52298/australia-confirms-censorship-plans-tells-fibs-on-the-filtering-tria l/).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Just a few corrections
What about 2004: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040817/1028205_F.shtml
Or 2005: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050210/2342242.shtml
Or 2006: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060321/093249.shtml
Definitely was being pushed for well before 2007.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Just a few corrections
Unfortunately it hasn't been completely abandoned as just yet and it looks like we are looking at live trials in the near future."
What about the Liberals/Nationals plan in 1999, 2001 and 2004? Each of those 3 times (just like this time by the ALP) is to try and appease the Christian nutcase in the senate to make deals to get other legislation passed.
And live trails have already been done and completed. They were optional for each ISP and customers for each ISP it was optional.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It could be 100%
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That's politician thinking right there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
As for the type of content that will be targeted, Senator Conroy's "criminal sites" is a hugely misleading term which in actual fact refers to any content that is refused classification (RC) under Australia's conservative censorship laws. To give you some idea of what these laws are like, there is no R18+ classification for computer games here. The maximum rating a game can receive is MA15, therefore anything that is deemed unsuitable for anyone over 15 years of age is RC (banned), and by Conroy's definition falls into the category of "criminal content". The introduction of the new filter will enable this law to be extended to online games (Second Life is a common example), and the sites that sell them.
The crowning turd on the whole debacle is due to the fact that it's obviously completely unrealistic to expect the Australian Board of Classifications to review this quantity of content, the federal government will be relying on submissions from the public for blacklist entries.
It doesn't take a genius to imagine the level of abuse that will arise from such a system.
The government also announced it will additionally be offering ISPs a "bonus financial incentive" (aka. bribe) to block other kinds of content, such as gambling sites.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It won't happen. It needs to pass through the senate which won't happen. It will be introduced into parliment early next year and will pass through the house of reps no problems. But the zenate will block it. The ALP and the 1 Family First(ie. Right-wing Chrisitan Fundamentalist nut jobs) member will pass it. But the Greens won't pass it, nor will the Liberals/Nationals.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But did he specify exactly what it was effective at?
My guess is that it is effective at getting him campaign contributions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
100%
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: 100%
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yes 100% of website addresses added to the blacklist were blocked (after the initial stuffup where the blacklist didnt update properly-lol) as you'd expect.
But the interesting bit is with the heuristic scanning. It claims no decrease in speed with the lowest level (without mentioning how effective it was) and around 84% detection rate at the highest setting (without mentioning how slow that made things). There is also a small paragraph that mentions that it will only prevent "accidental" exposure as anyone who wants to get around it could via encrypted proxy. But the large part of it seems to be telling the GG & minister what they want to hear.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Heuristic means it makes big guesses (see: luck) so it runs faster. When you leave things on luck, it means you lose on precision...
On a different note, what is WRONG with Australia??
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bread and Circuses
1) Drag out the Flag debate (Union Jack, evil or not).
2) Drag out the republican debate (as long as the people dont directly elect the head of state) they may elect someone competant.
3) Or as here blame Movies, video games or the Internet for all the worlds woes.
Do any of you notice that no mater how often the politicions debate (drone on) about these so called issues they never actauly do it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
...
You smartass, Im sure i could take care of myself a lot better than you could, the internet is a needed resource for my business it brings in 45%+ of my revenue, oh and before you call us tender and fragile, why dont you come live here for a bit and see how you like 100F+ Heat? Hm. ass.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hogwash...
Australia in particular likely has the highest number of pedophiles and instances of cover-ups within its control hierarchy of politicians, elite families, judges and law enforcement than any nation on Earth.
jb
[ link to this | view in chronology ]