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Bluelight and the Aussie Internet Filter – Will it affect us?

I'm very dubious about the Greens. Clive Hamiliton is for the filter, and the few Green senators I've emailed with have all said there needs to be some control over the net.

If Hamilton is voted in there is no way he would vote against the filter. As for the others I've spoken with, I can't trust them when they use a phrase like "examine all the possibilities". Why not just come out and say "I do not support mandatory internet filtering"... ?
 
i did a quick search on this thread but couldnt see anything so not sure if everyone is aware of this.

http://www.stopthefilter.org/

For perth

March 6, 2010, 12:00-3:00, Forrest Place, City. There will over 800 according to the facebook.
 
For Melbourne

March 6, 2010, 12 - 3 pm at the State Library

For Brisbane

March 6, 2010, 12 - 3 pm at myer centre, Brisbane.

As many of you blue lighters I whole heartadly encourage you to go.
I'm sorry to say that I won't be attending though as I have plans lol. But please do a better job then me and make an appearance!
 
^ I think the Brisbane one isn't a protest so much as a group collecting signatures for a petition, maybe handing out flyers etc. Still better than nothing hey? I honestly don't know if petitions like this are of much use though....
 
^ I think the use is minimal, But it's still a step in the right direction. As previously said a tiny step is still a step.
 
imprecate said:
I'm very dubious about the Greens. Clive Hamiliton is for the filter, and the few Green senators I've emailed with have all said there needs to be some control over the net.

If Hamilton is voted in there is no way he would vote against the filter. As for the others I've spoken with, I can't trust them when they use a phrase like "examine all the possibilities". Why not just come out and say "I do not support mandatory internet filtering"... ?
Click to expand...
All 5 greens senators to vote against filter legislation
Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said on Saturday at the National Day of Action against the government's internet filter that all five Greens senators will vote against the internet filtering Bill.


Greens MP Lee Rhiannon
(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet.com.au)
"We absolutely need to defeat this incredibly irresponsible piece of legislation that is now before the federal parliament," she said to attendees in Parramatta Park in Sydney. "My colleagues in the federal parliament — we have five Greens senators — will vote against it. What we need to ensure is that some sanity starts to prevail and that we win the numbers."

The filter curtailed freedom of speech, she said. There were also better ways to protect children against pornography, such as education, which she said had been pointed out by a 2008 report written by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

"That's a report to the government. They've been told that. We know they've been told [that] by a lot of their MPs who actually understand how the internet works. They've been told about this by official government bodies, but they're pushing on with their censorship."

"So I do urge all of you when you leave here today to take away a commitment to sign the petitions, to write your letters, to write your emails, ring up the politicians," she said.

Public pressure really did make a difference, she said — especially since, according to her information, Labor and Liberal MPs were speaking up against the policy.

While public pressure will make a difference, a lot of people failed to show up to the protest. Of the 700 indicated on Facebook, fewer than 100 people at any one time actually showed up at Saturday morning's protest in Parramatta Park in Sydney's west.

"There are a number of MPs who do not support this legislation and are saying to their leaders, to Mr Abbot and Mr Rudd: 'This is madness. It will not work. It will make us look like a fool internationally, let alone amongst Australians once they catch on.'"

Debate had begun, she said. Now, the community needed to give it legs by voicing disapproval.

She also said that those campaigning against the filter needed to change their slogans.

"We've been using terms like no filter, no clean feed," she said. "Can I tell you — people don't understand it. They really don't."

The more complicated the arguments, the less likely the public and the media would take notice, she said.

"As you know, politics gets down to a five-second grab."

Filter was a positive word as it takes out bad things, according to Rhiannon. So was clean feed, she said. She had started to use censorship instead.

"I think we've got to come up with language that makes it easier for the person walking down Church Street on Parramatta, who uses the internet, but have not heard about this, [so they] can relate to what we're talking about and will be worried about what they're doing."
Click to expand...

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/commun...inst-filter-Bill/0,130061791,339301580,00.htm
 
Seriously, the Greens are on our side. Anyone would agree there should be *some* regulation - as in, it should be illegal to host kiddy porn and when discovered, it should be removed. I don't think anyone here is against that. We are against censorship and expanding government power to ban information based on the decisions of bureaucrats who aren't even accountable to the public!

I agree with Rhiannon. Censorship is something people understand. this debate needs to move into people's loungerooms... then hopefully some sense will prevail.
 
Aussies r 2 apathetic to care about this. the 'average' person that is. i hope it doesnt get thru, but im sure sometime in the future, b it 10 or 50 years, it will. the internet is slowly becoming owned/controlled by the gov. Just look at googles decision in china
 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/12/2843865.htm

Australia on internet enemy watchlist

Posted Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:21am AEDT

A top media rights watchdog has listed Australia along with Iran and North Korea in a report published on countries that pose a threat of internet censorship.

Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) put Australia and South Korea on its list of countries "under surveillance" in its Internet Enemies report.

Australia was listed for the Federal Government's plan to block access to websites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse. Critics say the plan is a misguided measure that will harm civil liberties.

In South Korea, the RSF report added, "draconian laws are creating too many specific restrictions on web users by challenging their anonymity and promoting self-censorship."

"These countries are worrying us because they have measures that could have repercussions for freedom of expression on the internet," RSF secretary general Jean-Francois Julliard said at an internet rights award ceremony.

Russia and Turkey were also added to the watchlist, which is a category below RSF's top "Enemies of the Internet", the countries it considers the 12 worst web freedom violators.

These include Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Iran and Vietnam.

"The world's largest netizen prison is in China, which is far out ahead of other countries with 72 detainees, followed by Vietnam and then by Iran, which have all launched waves of brutal attacks on websites in recent months," RSF's report said.

A senior manager of US internet giant Google, David Drummond, said there was an "alarming trend" of government interference in online freedom, not only in countries that are judged to have poor human rights records.

He cited Australia's plans as an example, saying that there "the wide scope of content prohibited could include socially and politically controversial material."

The Australian case "is an example of where these benign intentions can result in the spectre of true censorship," he added, speaking at Thursday's ceremony.

"Here in Europe, even in France, at this very moment, some are tempted by this slippery path of network filtering."

- AFP
 
Google 99.9% certain it will pull out of china over censorship
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...will-leave-china/story-e6frea7u-1225840503552

GOOGLE Inc. executives are "99.9 percent" sure they will pull the plug on their Chinese search engine after talks with Chinese officials over censorship concerns have broken down.

The Financial Times reported the Internet giant has gone so far as to draw up plans for the dismantling of their Chinese operations.

While the decision may be made soon, the actual process of shutting down Google.cn could take time, the FT reported, because the company hopes for an orderly closure and will take steps "to protect local employees from retaliation by the authorities."
Click to expand...
 
Hopefully google take just as tougher stance against the Australian government as they have with the chinese government. How embarrassing would it be for Rudd if Google pulled out of Australia because of the Australian governments push for censorship.

On a side note the filter legislation is supposedly being put to parliament anytime within the next few weeks. The following petition will be submitted once the legislation reaches the senate so if you haven't signed the petition you better do it soon.

http://www.efa.org.au/epetition/

You can remain anonymous on the survey if you don't want your details appearing on the internet. Just select the "Do not display name on website" tick box.
 
^^ That had nothing to do with Chinese censorship, google enabled censorship for years by filtering search results, it was only after an unspecified hacking attempt against google that originated from Chinese universities that google cracked the sads.
 
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/aus...nworkable-google/story-e6frgakx-1225844270444

FRESH from halting censorship of search results in China, internet giant Google says Australia's mandatory ISP filter is both unworkable and unwanted by parents.

The federal government plan will force ISPs to filter web pages that contain refused classification-rated content based on a government blacklist.

Labor senator Kate Lundy, Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam and a host of privacy advocates and child groups say they prefer an opt-in version of the filter.

Google was one of 174 submissions received by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, which had called for public feedback on transparency and accountability measures for the refused-classification list.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

RELATED COVERAGE
CHINA: Google stops censoring
Analysing the internet filter
Courier Mail, 2 Mar 2010
Internet censorship gets the go-ahead
Perth Now, 16 Dec 2009
Report reignites censor debate
Australian IT, 19 Oct 2009
Filtering works, Enex trial shows
Australian IT, 30 Sep 2009
Banned abortion site not blocked
Australian IT, 7 Sep 2009
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

Google took the opportunity to comment on the broader proposal for mandatory filtering, saying parents would rather see more effort into cyber safety education than censorship.

"In considering the government's plans for mandatory ISP level filtering we have listened to many views, but most importantly those of our users," its 24-page submission says.

"We have talked directly with parents around Australia about their views on ISP level filtering. The strong view from parents was that the government's proposal goes too far and would take away their freedom of choice around what information they and their children can access.

"The importance of a better effort to educate parents and children about online safety was repeatedly highlighted as the area where most effort should be focused."

The filtering scheme, championed by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, is mainly aimed at blocking child pornography web pages but Google argues that the RC category is too wide.

"RC is a broad category of content that includes not just child sexual abuse material but also socially and politically controversial material - for example, educational content on safer drug use - as well as the grey realms of material instructing in any crime, including politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia.

"Decisions in relation to instructional, educational, scientific or current affairs video material will often be much more complex than in relation to entertainment 'films'," Google said.

"Scenes of war or terrorist activity may 'offensively depict real violence' and rate RC when the video is not in any way 'gratuitous violence' or posted for entertainment."

The net behemoth says website operators should be offered a proper explanation before their web pages gets filtered.

Google believes the filter would slow user access speeds as it would have to be implemented by hundreds of ISPs and millions of internet users who access billions of web pages.

The live trial last year of a handful of ISPs didn't follow the department's own testing technical framework, Google said, and omitted key aspects such as testing a blacklist of up to 10,000 URLs and piloting new technologies like IPv6.

There wasn't a representative cross-section of ISPs that took part in the pilot and no costs of filtering were gathered.

"There is a risk that these factors (not covered in the trials) limit the usefulness of the trials," it said.

Popular video-sharing website YouTube, which Google owns, has had its fair share of bad press with footage of violence or bullying aired for all and sundry. But Google says all videos must comply with its guidelines and YouTube abides by local laws.

Any suggestion that owners of high-traffic websites would voluntarily agree to remove or block content deemed RC-rated was a folly.

When Google receives a legal request, such as a court order to remove material, it would investigate the legitimacy of the request but not automatically comply.

"Beyond these clearly defined parameters, we will not remove material from YouTube."

It believes that under the filtering regime, the likelihood of material on high volume sites being assessed as RC and appearing on the blacklist would be higher.

The company reiterated views made in December that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide, and that the government's plan was heavy-handed.

According to Google, moving to a mandatory ISP level filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond child sexual abuse material would raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.
Click to expand...
 
yeh no shit, It's only a matter of time lol

They'll probably slowly end up making parties in every country, and Take their rightful place as supreme rulers of Planet Earth

Also who watched the 7pm project today, Stephen conroy was interviewed about the whole thing. Didn't go long enough. But you could tell the general concencus from the hosts was that they were against it.

But I'll tell you what, he is one bloody good public speaker, he knows what to and what not to say.

anywho heres thy link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2WBsjOspNo
 
I saw that. It was quite funny how obvious it was that the hosts are against it - good entertainment! I jush wish it went for longer.
 
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