Australia To Become A ‘Net Nanny’ Nation

For some reason the Federal Government keeps persisting with plans to make internet censorship compulsory for all Australians.

The proposed plan will put Australia’s level of net censorship in the same exalted league as countries including China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea. Can anyone spell F-A-C-I-S-M?

As reported in the Courier-Mail, Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy admitted the Federal Government’s $44.2 million internet censorship plan would now include two tiers – one level of mandatory filtering for all Australians and an optional level that will provide a “clean feed”, censoring adult material.
and could ban controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.

“We are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material,” he told a Senate Estimates Committee.

Previously the net nanny proposal was going to be optional – user could contact their internet service provider and be excluded from the service.

Not surprisingly, the proposal has been slammed by free-speech activists and groups such as Electronic Frontiers Australia. They say it will unfairly restrict Australians’ access to the web, slow our already hopeless internet speeds and raise the price of internet access.

Furthermore, EFA board member Colin Jacobs said it would have little effect on illegal internet content, including child pornography, as it would not cover peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.

“If the Government would actually come out and say we’re only targeting child pornography it would be a different debate,” he said.

I don’t understand how any halfway-intelligent person could think that an automatic filter could properly distinguish between child porn and parental photos of naked children. Or support groups for anorexia and pro-anorexia sites.

I’d support real measures to combat child-porn in a heartbeat. But sadly, before the offending material has even hit the internet filter, the damage has been done to the child victim.