Internet's not special, says communications minister

Internet's not special, says communications minister

www.smh.com.au

Web experts recoiled today at communications minister Stephen Conroy's assertion that the internet is not "special" and should be censored like books, films and newspapers.

(visit the link for the full news article)

G'day

This guy Conroy......

Fair dinkum.....there's something wrong with him.....& his mate Rudd.

Follow the link & listen to the interview.....it's extremely interesting & you won't believe what he's saying......they're on a crusade they are, this mob!

What a shocker.

Internet's Not Special, Says Communications Minister

Asher Moses
April 1, 2010 - 11:58AM

Web experts recoiled today at communications minister Stephen Conroy's assertion that the internet is not "special" and should be censored like books, films and newspapers.

In an on-camera interview with Fairfax Media's national Canberra bureau chief, Tim Lester, Senator Conroy dismissed the torrent of criticism directed at his policy as "misleading information" spread by "an organised group in the online world".

Asked what percentage of all of the nasty material on the internet his filters would block, Senator Conroy dodged the question, responding that his filters were "100 per cent accurate - no overblocking, no underblocking and no impact on speeds"

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/deba484d7822.jpg[/atsimg]

But Mark Newton, an engineer with ISP internode, said: "Censorship will not catch a single pedophile, will not cause a single image to disappear from the internet, will not protect a single child."

Senator Conroy also brushed aside concerns from leading academics and technology companies that the plan to block a blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australians was an attempt to shoe-horn an offline classification model into a vastly different online world.

"Why is the internet special?," he asked, saying the net was "just a communication and distribution platform".

"This argument that the internet is some mystical creation that no laws should apply to, that is a recipe for anarchy and the wild west. I believe in a civil society and in a civil society people behave the same way in the physical world as they behave in the virtual world."

Newton said this was a "gross oversimplification", pointing out that Australia Post and Telstra's telephone network were also distribution platforms but were not censored.

"Why should the internet, a distribution platform for all manner of intangibles, be censored as if it was a movie theatre? It makes no sense, the model doesn't fit," he said.

The Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam was also quick to ridicule Senator Conroy, saying books and films were distinctly different because they are "dicreet, physical packages of content", whereas the internet is dynamic and has "a trillion web pages already indexed and an unknown amount more added every day".

"To characterise sustained opposition by individuals and groups as diverse as EFA, Google, SAGE, Yahoo, Save the Children, Reporters without Borders, Justice Kirby, Choice Magazine, leading online academics and industry associations and the United States Department of State as 'an organised group in the online world' is a remarkably naive misreading of how unpopular this proposal is," Senator Ludlam said.

University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt said the difference between submitting a book for classification and having an organisation classifying and blocking websites without anyone's knowledge was that, in the book case, "it is well known that the book was censored and there can be a debate about the correctness of the decision".

Landfeldt said it was true that the filter system would block all websites it was told to block but the trillions of pages on the internet means the government will not make the internet a safe place for children and will only be able to stop access to "a small minority" of web pages.

Senator Conroy said the aim of his policy was to "ensure that particularly children ... don't stumble across this material", which he described as being child pornography, bestiality, extreme violence and pro-rape websites.

He neglected to address widespread concerns that the "refused classification" rating also applies to sexual health discussions, euthanasia material such as the Peaceful Pill Handbook, historical war footage and instructions in minor crimes such as graffiti.

Senator Conroy admitted that his filters would not do anything to stop the spread of child pornography on peer-to-peer file sharing networks, and that they will "slow down the internet" if applied to high-volume sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia.

He mentioned he was in discussions with Google over a way for the company to apply the filter to YouTube but Google has already rejected these requests.

"If we know there are 355 websites today that have child pornographic images on it, should we say well we're not going to do anything about it?," he said.

Colin Jacobs, spokesman for the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said this comment ignored evidence that the overwhelming majority of child pornography was traded in others ways such as by peer-to-peer. It also ignored the fact that anyone who wanted to bypass the filters could do so quite easily.

Senator Conroy has been on the attack against Google after the search giant issued a withering critique of his policy. After questioning the company's credibility in an ABC Radio interview on Monday night, he fired off another broadside in yesterday's interview.

He said Google already censored more material than the Rudd Government was proposing to block with its filters, pointing to its blocking of R-rated and X-rated material on YouTube and its censorship of search results in Thailand that are critical of the Thai king.

"Google are welcome to their view but Google have got to be prepared to be consistent," said Senator Conroy.

Jacobs said suggesting that enforcing YouTube's terms of service was equivalent to state-sponsored censorship was "at best misleading". Senator Ludlam said Senator Conroy's attacks on Google were "a deliberate misdirection of the debate", while Jacobs said they "smack of a personal vendetta".

Senator Conroy also rejected concerns that the government was creating a new mandatory censorship mechanism that would be prone to abuse by future governments.

"I think in Australia we have a vibrant democracy and anyone who wanted to try to expand beyond existing banned material - RC - would have one hell of a fight on the floor of Parliament," he said.

Asked whether it was a fact that the blacklist, a catalogue of some of the worst websites, was likely to leak at some time in the future, as has occurred in a number of other countries, Senator Conroy responded: "so the alternative is just to leave them out there and do nothing?".

He said he realistically would not expect to see legislation enabling the filters to be introduced before the second half of the year, after which it would "go through an open and transparent consultative process".

"For $44 million, we're buying ourselves an initiative which will have no measurable impact whatsoever," Senator Ludlam said.

"In exchange, we establish the architecture for future governments to abuse the loose and undefined 'RC' category to add a creeping range of material to the list. Once this architecture is established, the idea that its scope won't be expanded by future governments is a gamble we don't believe we should take."

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

www.smh.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

It's an interesting angle he's got. Sort of like someone who says "I'm right regardless of what the rest of the world thinks".

It's the type of attitude that could get you put in a loony bin.

So why is he in office?

-m0r

Originally posted by m0r1arty
It's an interesting angle he's got. Sort of like someone who says "I'm right regardless of what the rest of the world thinks".

It's the type of attitude that could get you put in a loony bin.

So why is he in office?

-m0r

G'day m0r1arty

The Australian Parliament is the loony bin now.....

.....& he's one of the labour party lunatics running the labour party asylum.

Cheers mate
Maybe...maybe not

There is a huge difference between books and the internet. The internet is interactive.

Australia is going over the line here...

[edit on Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:04:05 -0500 by MemoryShock]

a scientist once said, internet is the first step towards lvl 1 civilization

well, I suppose a politic knows better

[edit on 1-4-2010 by Faiol]

reply to post by MemoryShock


G'day MemoryShock

I agree.....

......& once that "step too far" is taken, there's no going back.

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

Originally posted by m0r1arty
It's the type of attitude that could get you put in a loony bin.

Everyone thinks like this, so whats new. Tell us one person that does not think they are right.

Not saying this geezer is, but its generalizations like this that are so rubbish, as everyone thinks like this.

Blanket censorship is just another attempt to provoke a reaction from the people. That's not a good idea, from what I hear, Australians don't screw around when you mess with them.

reply to post by Maybe...maybe not


The only thing this is about is government wanting more power. If someone wants their content filtered, there are a very wide away of options for filtering out bad content. Many of them are designed for parents who filter out bad material for children. And unlike a government system, many of them actually work.

reply to post by Maybe...maybe not

The problem here I believe is Stephen Conroy He started his filter stand and than noticing 99% of ISP's and the public are against it(96% poll yesterday) but still will not stand down(it's a pride thing now) he's now acting like a Bully and we the general public he states "unfortunately there's a lot of miss-information has been spread, a lot of Australian's are mislead by untrue claims by an organized group(Anonymous Kevin Rudd's website hacked over internet censorship ) in the online world" that's because it's his information we are turning down

Opt-in is the only way and "let parents parent their Own children!"



Stephen Conroy is using pedophiles as his case for the filter, Now since Conroy knows of two hundred and something pedophile sites Whats he Doing about them? and wouldn't it be Best to monitor these sites for AUS traffic and than act accordingly to catch a Spider, cause it would! Conroy's Filter will just push these screw-ups of human nature deeper onto peer to peer, encryption etc....

Conroy thinks if certain sites are blocked the problem is solved

I for one have had enough of my government preaching to us all, what about the children, save the kids, has anyone thought of these cases in the news lately? the cops are there waiting for these pedophiles at the arranged meeting sites, completely setup by the coppers.

The way Conroy thinks is no data no crime.

anyway like I've stated before. can't wait for Conroy's Political funeral




Zelong.

Stephen Conroy is just one of those names....

Like they walk up to you, "Hi Im Stephen Conroy"... you just automatically want to spit on your hand and shake theirs. Thats all I got for now.

reply to post by Maybe...maybe not


the man is a nazi, pure and simple.
Perhaps not overtly,but that is his spirit and his daemon.

"the principle is the same, which misleads and deceives, and with tricks which darken the truth, leads away a credulous and foolish rabble"

So what are we going to do to draw attention to this man's personal crusade to end freedom of speech and mind in Australia?
I'm all ears for a new approach because sure as eggs are eggs, I have run out of ways to make people care locally.
They have plasma tv's you see,
I only have the internet.

Originally posted by Well
Stephen Conroy is just one of those names....

Like they walk up to you, "Hi Im Stephen Conroy"... you just automatically want to spit on your hand and shake theirs. Thats all I got for now.

Pretty close Well...

Tho I'd rather crap in my hand and then shake his...Well worth me having a #ty hand

Formula One driver Mark Webber said recently Australia is becoming a Nanny State.

This was actually in reference to Lewis Hamilton getting in trouble with the cops for doing burnouts. Good description none the less.

The problem is, we are letting them get away with it. It is clear to me, that Australia takes orders from someone else. So who is driving this?

It's getting out of hand now, I had soo much hope for this government, but every decision they come up with seems to go from bad to worse. This guy Stephen Conroy is acting just like his leader Rudd. He's a bully, who came up with what he thought was a good idea (and on the surface it looks great) but can never work and is a very dangerous plan. Australia in the last 10 years has been going down a disturbing road of less and less personal freedom, and more and more government control of our daily lives.

how long before we can't do or say anything about the government without fear of being locked up.

Originally posted by realist00
Formula One driver Mark Webber said recently Australia is becoming a Nanny State.

This was actually in reference to Lewis Hamilton getting in trouble with the cops for doing burnouts. Good description none the less.

The problem is, we are letting them get away with it. It is clear to me, that Australia takes orders from someone else. So who is driving this?

Webber was a zillion % wrong with the example he used...We have those laws in Victoria for a very good reason...

But I digress...Yes, another example of nannying by the government...

Who is driving this ? If you mean internet content filtering, do a search for ACTA...That will fill in the blanks for you

reply to post by asIam

I'm all ears for a new approach because sure as eggs are eggs, I have run out of ways to make people care locally.
They have plasma tv's you see,
I only have the internet.

If there is a need than Plain and Simple, "Opt-in is the only way and "let parents parent their Own children!" "

"I only have the internet." I only use internet too bugger TV and all their ad's , Old or changed story's and of course all their ad's costs are part of the items costings too

Zelong.

reply to post by Zelong


G'day Zelong

I agree.....

Conroy & Rudd are egomaniacal bullyboys.

Only egomaniacal bullyboys would treat us with such contempt.

Let's hope the "96% against" poll makes them think twice about the electoral risk of proceeding with this.

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

Originally posted by asIam
reply to post by Maybe...maybe not

 

the man is a nazi, pure and simple.

G'day asIam

Yes.....

He is.

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not