Q&A: Family First Senator, Steve Fielding, on content filtering

The internet is a "medium" now?

Sorry Steve, but explain to us how the internet is a “medium”? How the hell can he compare it to a magazine? Unless the magazines he buys are continually updating themselves every second. Why do these people refuse to understand that the internet cannot be compared with any published medium or TV or radio? Why do they continually make reference to technical trials when the debate should be about the ethical, moral, social and economic impacts such a filter would have, which most people seem to think it would have negative impacts on all. The debate should be why we should do it, not if we can.

A challenge for the pro-censorship crowd

Here's a challenge: name one country with mandatory internet censorship which has not used it to censor political content and stifle dissent.

The censorship scheme put forward by the Labour party is very, very dangerous.

This is not China. This is not Iran, nor Saudi Arabia. This is a Western democracy where dissent should not be stifled, and it WILL not be stifled.

If mandatory internet censorship goes ahead in this country, I will be one of many people telling everyone how to bypass it.

You cannot win, Fielding.

"This is not China. This is not Iran, nor Saudi Arabia. This is a Western democracy where dissent should not be stifled, and it WILL not be stifled. "

Nice quote, entirely accurate.

With or without some controls on the Internet...

Well said.

Its a communication network. Just a better one than the phone network, but a network just the same. Dingbat senator, did you fail at being an engineer and become a senator as it requires less thought.

Every engineer KNOWS that a network is not a medium for media. Just as one can play music over a phone call, one can play a song over a internet protocol connection. It is for private and non private communications, not for it to become a medium for the media giants

RE: The internet IS a broadcast medium...

WayneP, when you mention a "shouting trogolodyte who has minimal knowledge of the technologies he is shouting about" are you referring to Stephen Conroy or Steve Fielding?

Neither of them seem to display much knowledge of IT.

Fielding has no clue

Steve you do realise they must rule out DNS poisoning and keyword blocking, as the over-blocking is too much, and could almost be circumvented while being blindfolded. Meaning that your goal will never be realised. But feel free to let us know how it will be done, we're all waiting for your networking lecture...

Never mind how we are going to fly to the moon with our arms, let's just plan where to go first...

Why is everyone getting so riled up about this? All he's said is he supports some kind of filter on the Internet.

He never said anything about the ACMA blacklist. Maybe blocking really nasty and not a Government list would be a worthwile idea.

Still waiting for the pro-censorship crowd...

I'm still waiting for the pro-censorship crowd to name one country with mandatory internet censorship that has not used it to censor political content and stifle dissent.

Anybody?

...anyone at all?

Insulting people isn't a very good way to win an argument.

And why am I shouting, you ask? Because I'm sick of my elected leaders not hearing me over the voices of the Crypto-Fundamentalists like Conroy, Fielding and Hamilton, or the people whose fundamentalist agendas are all-too brazen, like Rudd and Wallace.

Every piece of technical advice the government has received over this proposal that HASN'T come from a vested interest (censorware vendor, fundamentalist lobby group, etc) has told them that this can't be done, and shouldn't be done. And yet every single person who has sent a letter of protest over this issue to their Labor Party member has received a copy-and-paste form letter, which manages to waffle on for four pages without addressing a single concern - and that's if they're lucky enough to have received any reply at all.

The government refuses to listen to anyone who disagrees with their policy. They won't even negotiate. The only things that have made ANY form of headway in this matter are leaks of information that the government didn't want us to see.

Ignore the "shouting troglodytes" (as you call us) all you want. You'd make a wonderful Labor Party politician.

Lol, some have no clue, agreed...

We put police in the cities, but people get around them easily and murder, mug, attack and rob...

Too easy...

Then I guess by your logic the police are useless and we should simple do away with them.

Too easily circumvented... lol. Who needs these troublesome mandatory security methods being applied to everyone in the country.

The government could all of a sudden go crazy and turn out just like Iran, China and Saudi, strip away our rights and turn the police on us... oh mega lol...

If not this gov, what about the next, or the next!

We are doomed!

The ploan is, I expect, that from now on we only accept stuff from the gov which is perfect and cannot be circumvented, right?

Makes sense.

No more tax office, not school regulations, no more courts.

You beaut mate, real logic.

The police have never arrested or the courts never jailed someone not guilty, have they?
(errrr. overblocking)

Never let someone off who was guilty? Of course not, we only use perfect systems...
(errrr. underblocking)

Nope, never seen it.

@ Roddy

Hi Roddy,

Read http://libertus.net/censor/ispfiltering-gl.html#finland

Then come back and rephrase your answer.

Ta.

Roddy...

Wrong. Finland has already used their internet censorship system to silence critics of the system itself.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Finnish_internet_censorship_critic_blacklisted

Care to try again, maybe a little harder this time?

Finland

Truly guys, you are getting pathetic...

You are beginning to sound like sad desperates:

"On Wednesday, NBI confirmed that site was censored because it published and maintained an incomplete version of the Finnish child porn blacklist."

That has nothing to do with political dissent and everything to with direct contravention of laws they clearly knew about.

Finland stands as an example.

Websites will never be exampt from any l;aws simply due to having political comment or content.

If you break clear and existing laws in this fashion you will get blacklisted. If you are suggesting that the publishing of the Finnish blacklist is exempt from laws in Finland and is only "political content", then I suggest you explain that to the Whirlpool management, as they advise strongly against publishing blacklists??
Next question?

@Ben

Hi Ben,

I understand where you are going with that, however the question was simply to nominate a country that has mandatory filtering and does not use it to filter political dissent.

We are talking direct censorship here, not relative, indirect and co-incidental.

It was a question along the lines of "filtering always corrupts..."

And someone cannot get any further than to read the headline of an article, and not even bother to see if there was more to it than the headline.

We come back to the question of whether a democratic government, with all the imperfections we know of, will begin to act in a corrupt manner when they have some internet filtering tools in their hands.

They have myriad police, censorship, secret agency, military, banking and legislation powers at their hands. Yet ever again we hear this argument that just the "Sauron Ring of Evil" internet will cause them all to automatically freak out and become corrupt?

And some of your associates just do not seem to comprehend that the majority of the Australian public will simply amuse themselves when you suggest that our system will be corrupted by internet filtering...

Even their hardest mainstream political opponents, who want to accuse them of all evils, steer way away from that one...

It all comes back to the core fundamental on regimes:

Did internet filtering or censorship cause them to become corrupt, or did their already corrupt regime corrupt the usage of the internet filtering?

Because that is exactly what they have done with all the other tools of government they have, and they were all very very corrupt long before the all-consuming evil of filtering darkened their doorsteps...

lol

Yeah, there were the mullahs and Ayatollahs in Tehran when the Iranian Revolution happened, all saint like and seeking only happiness and goodness for the world, when some evil filter vendor (if there were any back then) shouted "You can filter the internet one day!!!" through the palace...

It was sad to see, all these virtuous gents just snapped and went all beserk, killing, raping, gassing, torturing, raging violence. Just to get the people ready to have their internet filtered one day.

That is proof guys, 'cause look, their internet *is* filtered today.

Logical proof!

Yep, internet filtering is guaranteed to cause any group of otherwise sensible and democratic folks to lose all their marbles and drive their country into perdition...

*lol* chuckle have a think about the logic guys...

Roddy, first you failed by holding up Finland as an example of a country with mandatory internet censorship which had not used it to censor political content. As the links we have provided clearly demonstrate, the website of activist Matti Nikki had been blacklisted. You can wave your hand and shrug it off, but that doesn't change the fact that you are clearly wrong in this case.

Now you are failing by pretending the "internet filtering tools" proposed by Conroy are comparable in any way to existing police and legislative bodies. It's a secret blacklist with no oversight which we're not even allowed to know about and which has no method for independent review, whereas our existing legislative framework has something very important called the Separation of Powers. So your comparison is woefully inaccurate.

If the blacklist were publicly available, subject to public oversight and independent review, then your comparison might have some merit. I would advise you take a close look at the proposed internet censorship scheme before you ardently support it.

Nobody is claiming that Iran and Saudi Arabia were perfect before Internet censorship. So would you like a match for that strawman?

@ Roddy

I'd argue that a website which opposes the government's mandatory ISP filtering is political content, and censoring it is censoring dissent.

However our country is proposing a system nowhere near that of Finland. Our system relates to classifying inappropriate content, not child porn. Do you remember the timeline of what will be censored? It went: Prohibited (more than 1 year), "Almost exclusively RC", "We've never said anything but RC". Who would trust that track record? When the systems are in, what makes you so certain that the proposal won't go back to prohibited content?

Whether or not they find dissenting views, or they are rated MA15+, fact of the matter is that they are legal content which will be censored. Does it really make a difference of the process of which they were censored? Censored is censored. Our censorship systems are so broad that it can't help but capture political dissent or political comment. When dealing with exclusively LEGAL content, the potential for scope creep is significantly greater.

It doesn't have to be "abused" in a direct form, the government just has to change the legislation in the name of protecting children and widen the scope. The implications of this is that much more content will be censored. That's how it will be abused, not Conroy, Rudd or the ACL adding random pages to the blacklist.

Internet Filtering Will Kill Online Business

I run a home based business in affiliate marketing & my specialty is in online stores which is a product that many consumers want & need & it's handy for those like myself who live in rural Australia & can't travel to a major regional center to do shopping, I use a lot of online advertising such as Youtube, Traffic exchange, Facebook & Myspace to promote my websites & since I started which was in November last year my work is starting to actually pay off. I have worked sometimes 7 days a week & in some cases more than 12 hours a day just promoting my websites so I can generate business to get a bit of extra income.

I fear that if this filter comes into affect many legitimate website such as the advertising sites I use to promote my business will be blocked & in a worse case my site could be blocked as I have heard that some totally innocent sites could be blocked by this filter, If this is the case I will have no choice but to close down my sites because I will be very restricted on how I can advertise my business & that will also mean losing my income potential. I have already had to close down 2 other sites I had because I was not making a profit from that business & I won't be the only one who will be put in this position.

If the government wants to introduce a filter then make it optional so families can get access it but not for those who are single & rely on the internet to generate income, The government needs to wake up to itself & see that this is not a quick fix solution we already have to vote & we are meant to be a democracy I don't think so.

@ Roddy

Roddy, if that person broke the law, home come they aren't sitting in jail? Why not order that person to delete the blacklist but everything else can remain accessible? It is further evidence that the definition of what can be censored is stretched and the rules can easily bend to suit an agenda.

The point isn't why other sites criticising the government aren't banned, but why that one was. Criticising the government and criticising a secret censorship system are different debates.

Our government is open to debate about many of their policies, even controversial ones. But secret censorship? That's just a no-go. Not open for debate. Why is our government calling us child abusers for questioning a secret censorship system, when the blacklist has already leaked and had zero, count 'em, zero child sexual abuse material. But scrap that truth, this time the government gets another shot at credibility. We're not buying it.

If the government *only* censored 30% of sites criticising the government, while 70% remain accessible, is that fair? 20% banned? 10%? What is your limit?

Sweden, UK and Norway are all OPTIONAL. How is that a variation of mandatory? Consumers have a choice. With our system, they don't.

Roddy is Who You Are Dealing With

Roddy is a good example of an individual who is running this country and wants to control other people. This is the type of individual you are fighting against.

He's authoritarian and has hairy palms. That's all you need to know.

@ Roddy

'Anonymous' is not the reason Conroy refuses to debate us in this issue. He refuses because he has no legitimate arguments and can't respond to basic questions without looking like an utter moron. You hold up a minority, in fact one person, and claim that this person represents the majority of those anti-censorship, and that Conroy is right to ignore everyone. Practically everyone I have talked to, both offline and online about this issue, are very civil considering the stakes of this policy.

Imagine how society would work then. Governments wouldn't do anything because one person had a strong emotional reaction, and they build bunkers to hide in until the dust settles (isn't Rudd building one anyway?).

Then you use this person as an excuse to ignore my questions.

Start with these questions and try not to skip over them:

1. Why implement it when there is no problem - we have had uncensored internet access for decades, and what was the harm?
2. Nobody really wants it apart from the government (even they are divided according to reports) and the religious right. I can't find a single poll which had even a majority of people wanting this. It's poison, and demand is practically non-existent.
3. It won't work. It over-blocks, it slows down connection speeds, the censorboxes fail and people will try to do whatever it takes to take the boxes down.
4. It's too expensive. As connection speeds get faster, the performance load on the censorboxes get worse, meaning upgrades are inevitable. That will happen when IPv6 is readily adopted as well. Then there are support costs, training costs, security costs. This exercise will be very expensive. And everyone will pay for it. Even though practically nobody wants it.
5. It will be implemented by incompetent bureaucrats. Bill Henson was cleared of all criminal charges, and his images still made it on the blacklist. Then there's iTunes gift giving banned in Australia and no-where else. The ridiculous 'backslash backslash' excuse, the Russian Mob, caching errors. Don't be surprised if one of your favourite sites is a victim to such errors.
6. The blacklist will leak. So after all this 'protecting' people from content they wouldn't see anyway, everyone now has a concentrated blacklist of all this 'worst of the worst' online content. How is that better than now? It doesn't matter what security practices they take, it will still get out.

@Ben

In the meantime Ben, just one point:

"Practically everyone I have talked to, both offline and online about this issue, are very civil considering the stakes of this policy."

You mean civil like this:

"Calls for Labor to allow conscience vote on gay marriage.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26323557-29277,00.html

A Senate committee, sitting in Melbourne today, will hear evidence from gay marriage advocates, family groups, the Catholic Church and the Australian Christian Lobby.

I wonder who the shitsuckers in Labor will suck up to...?"

or this:

"From: Bourkie

Subject: re: GetUp finally GetsActive on censorship post id: 667063

<b>
Oh yes, the Government!
</b>

And Family First and ChildWise (and their luddite leader - Bernadette McMediaWhore)."

or this

"I just don't understand why Conjob is still in the Labor party since he contradicts himself every time he opens his trap and lies in Senate Estimates. If Krudd actually was the "prime minister for all Australians", Conjob would have been fired by now."

or this

"The Lone Ranger writes...
Clive Hamilton is trying to socially engineer Australia into being a more sexually conservative society.

As is Bernadette McMediaWhore.

Both believe that only THEIR version of Australia deserves to exist and wants to mould the society to their ultra right wing fanatic beliefs.

Thank god for VPN is all I can say"

or maybe this little beauty:

"stax, the religious push really needs to have it prominently explained to them what's been happening in Canada with the persecution of Christians by the HRC's, being ordered to recant their beliefs publicly in some cases. Little Johnny in 5 years time in front of a HRC for accessing Christian material... it's ok for Clive after all."

I could go on Ben, there are hundreds of them, and they only get better.

Right wind nutjobs, religious fanatics, Nazis, pedo supporters, communists, blood-sucking leeches, dictators ad infinitum.

All very civil... lol

** I am not a member of any of the associated entities of any of the folks above, truly picked at random in under 5 mins of Google search.

@ Roddy

I realise you'll get back to those points I asked, but in the meantime:

I'm struggling to think what is worse - calling someone a liar for being a liar, or calling everyone who disagrees with Conroy's point of view ad child porn sympathisers. You conveniently ignore that Conroy is the most despicable player in this debate. We just want answers. Conroy isn't providing them. He hasn't provided them for an entire 2 years. Is that excusable?

Why bring up the gay marriage article? Completely different debate. Next to no relevance to the topic at hand.

What merit and truth does Conroy have in his arguments? That Australians are just criminals waiting to be caught? That children are routinely viewing RC content? That the rest of the western world are considering the same approach? That ACMA play a useful role in online regulation? That circumvention will be much more difficult than predicted? That the scope will not change once the system is in? That RC is equivalent to illegal? That the policy will help protect anyone from the nasties online, let alone children? That censorware vendors are not snake oil salesmen? That the real motivation is not censorship?

"Ever noticed that the media and broader Australia has not "caught on" just how catastrophic this initiative is? How little interest they apparently have?"

That would imply that they have heard about it but don't care. But that is not the case, they are simply unaware about it. That doesn't imply lack of interest, but lack of awareness. Big difference. I'm open for conspiracy theories of why the majority aren't aware of the issue though. Read today's newspaper and find five fluff stories. Then think whether people would be more interested in government mandated censorship of the internet than those. It's a big stretch to believe that people aren't interested.

"Going on record as a group or individuals and smearing someone openly, repeatedly and pretty personally (Conroy / Rudd etc), with no peer group restraint show, indeed a group "schadenfreude" emerges, is not condusive to "debate"."

How about you read all 59 parts of the debate on Whirlpool, plus countless other websites. You'll see that the number of comments which are personal attacks are in the very small minority. Almost all are debates on logic and reason. Go on, check it out.

"It also has the result that most politicians that would like to score points against Conroy also distance themselves from this behaviour..."

Much like those who oppose government mandated online censorship and resent being called as equivalent to producers of child porn and paedophiles. You're definitely exaggerating the severity of 'this behaviour' from anti-censorship people.

@ Roddy

"He will also, as you or I would, refuse to be taken down paths of discussion that try and create red herrings and attempt to promote remotely related aspects to main issues."

Conroy refuses to discuss the issue at all, red herrings or not. The last time I heard him speak about the issue in person was on Insight in March then again in Senate Estimates last month. His website hasn't been updated for months and includes a lot of inaccurate statements. He evades all the pertinent questions in this debate with every opportunity. Just look at the transcript from Senate Estimates - http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S12489.pdf

Was there really anything said by Conroy that we didn't already know? Was he being personally attacked? No? Then why will he refuse to provide more details?

"Ah Ben, it is so easy to label any person a liar.... Ever told an untruth mate? It is so easy to label any politician a "liar", that this line takes an irrelevance that does not win you support or votes."

That wasn't my point. I was asking if calling someone a liar is worse than them calling you a sympathiser to paedophiles.

"And if you are referring to Conroy and one of his statements about opposition to the filtering, then no matter how I read that, I for the life of me cannot see how that labels anyone who disagrees with him as child porn sympathisers..."

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2009/2512171.htm

Senator Ludlum: Just let me finish. The countries that you've just listed for me, is it mandatory, or is it an opt-in system, that for example, concerned parents could take advantage of?

Senator Conroy: Illegal material is illegal material. Child pornography is child pornography. I trust you're not suggesting that people should have access to child pornography.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm

"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."

"Independants cannot afford to be associated with movements potentially viewed as "too far out there..."

By 'too far out there', do you mean not being associated with the religious fringe groups? Because that's all who seem to be supporting this policy. I argue that supporting this policy is being 'too far out there', as the benefits of this policy are non-existent.

@Tristan

This legislation is viewed as controversial only by a smaller percentage of the public Tristan, even though there is a determined group working very hard to oppose it.

Your first question is thus not correct that I think that Tristan, again these assumptions... *sigh*

Real, broader public action and opposition has not eventuated, even though the policy has been public for 2 years, and visible.

I have seen enough instances of Conroy openly discussing or debating the issue over the past two years, however I also see predominantly the same questions being placed, the same outrage and a lot of enmity being demonstrated.

So how often do you figure a public figure contends with that? The views and many of the actions of the groups opposing the filter are all pretty public to read, ad infinitum. He has tabled his policies and reasons several times, he has made adjustments due to good feedback and ignores the rants and repeated complaints after a while.

He debates questions in the Senate.

Now that all naturally does not qualify as "debate" for some, EG yourself. Clearly you would prefer to be able to confront him yourselves, however when his staff read the forums and blogs on the subject, and how he is described and labeled, why would even bother?

He knows what many of the opponents think and how they label him and the policy. He has stated his case several times, what has he to gain with confrontation?

On the filter, well it is a question of how it is done. Principally, history shows us over a period of thousands of years that it is always a good idea for democratic or benevolent monarchy governments to restrict access of a variety of substances, practices, content and/or people to their societies.

Note the qualification of democracies and benevolent monarchies.

It is almost always a question of the who and how, not simply what. So please spare me the useless comparisions with dictatorial regimes and despots.

Like them or not, our government, as the one before them, as the one that will follow them, is neither dictatorial nor despotic... Democratically elected under free and fair elections in an incredibly free, fair and de4mocratic society.

Imperfect, but incredibly open and free...

That said, we have control mechanisms to keep some stuff out of our societies. Drugs of dependance, dangerous substances, illegal immigrants, terrorists, slavery, child abuse products, etc.

Entry to society is not only international borders, it can be internal distribution as well. So they need to define the "point of entry" as pragmatically as possible.

Like it or not, it is the government of the day that makes the laws predominantly. That is how it works in Australia.

Like it or not, they also need to designate that chosen "point of entry" and apply the controls there.

Lo and behold, the internet, as much as it is a major part of my career and daily life, as exciting as it is, as breath-taking as it can be, is not excluded from these laws or responsibilities.

Can people circumvent Customs controls, or do Customs make errors? All the time, every minute of every day and every week of every year Tristan.

Do we drop Customs controls due to this facet? I think not, that would be naive.

Are there people who argue that it is their "right" to have the substances deemed unacceptable or illegal?

Too right, all the time.

Does that stop the gov or the broader society from advocating their restrictions?

No it does not.

What I will argue are the assumptions and misinformation that I see. Some are legal POV, some are technical bulldust of the first order.

IPv6 is a great example. The IP tech architect dudes at the telcos know nothing about IPv6 being default encrypted. lol.

They also have no idea why the underlying handling of IP addresses would change the handling of URLs at the packet inspection level.

Seems some forum folks know more about their telco and ISP networks that they do... lol

They are amused, better said bemused.

Now I need to get some work done so that I have some time to get back to Ben later, he has outstanding questions...

@ Roddy

The policy has been visible for the last two years? Where? Besides Insight and Q&A shows, plus some media outlets running the story when the ACMA blacklist leaked, there has been nothing outside the occasional mention in the IT sections of broadsheets. Hardly anyone knows about the policy. People at work that I've talked to haven't even heard of the policy, let alone understand what the government is trying achieve.

As for the restricting substances for the greater good argument, at least I know what substances are restricted. With this policy it's secret. I have no idea what is blocked or why. Whereas with films and publications I know exactly what has been banned and for what reasons. The problem is the policy has morphed time and time again since it was first announced, and the public still hasn’t much of an idea if it will be RC that is banned or "unwanted material" (whatever that is and who decides what is "unwanted") or both or something entirely different.

Why shouldn't the public be asking Senator Conroy for answers? Segments of the population are vocal on all kinds of policy issues. Roddy, why should this policy be exempt from criticism from people who are concerned with it?

RE: Dictatorship...

Trying to compare this Government process in Australia today to the Nazi era? Hmmm....

Dictatorship?

" completely beyond reach of the people... " ?

First of all, that would mean that this blog and online forums would not exist here, there would be no discussions or debate as we are having right now and you would have been jailed or worse fror that comment....

We have had mandated censorship in Australia for a very long time gth-au, long before the Nazis, and long after the Nazis, and during the Nazis...

You might to check that out.

The emergence of the internet did not invent censorship, the invention of the internet did not remove the requirement for governments to restrict the entry of some materials / substances / people / content into our society.

Been going on for a long time.

I just went outside and had a look, but could not find a skerrick of a Nazi anywhere, my office needs to be located somewhere else I guess...?

As the filter, in your words, cannot stop any content, you will have nothing to worry about and can continue surfing undisturbed.

The process of regulating the blacklist now includes the CB, which introduces a whole raft of oversight and compliance issues, as have applied to the CB findings for many years. Check them out first.

As far as I can read from all reports and statements, content restrictions to date have only been proposed, not promised, and are still in formulation.

Who mentioned legal betting sites as inclusions in the blacklist, I have seen zero from the gov side?

Which technical errors, those of the discarded past systems, or your "assumed" errors in the not yet chosen future systems?

Corruption is such a handy word, interesting how some people bandy it about so quickly when speaking of those they do not like or agree with, yet reserve the saintly profile of moral purity for themselves...

@Matthew...

Good questions Matthew.

Something can be visible, yet go unnoticed by many, or simply be of little interest to many.

Most Australians have been exposed to this and many issues, and they show their broader interest or concern levels with their participation in the issue. There have been a variety of jouros that have written articles, incl. frontline jouro's such as Jack the insider etc. It hase been on national TV and readio, it is dicussed in federal parliament and the senate.

Minchin has commented and spoken on various occasions on the subject. The media tries on contentious issues and drops them if there is only a focus group interest.

The public has had many chances and opportunities to get involved, interested, vocal, and they have not done this to a great degree at all. If the people at your work were concerned, they would find out for themselves Matthew.

The difference that the internet makes to restricting access to materials is pretty obvious, and this is the beauty and the challenge for regulators: Access to materials can be close to instant.

You will have to live with the fact that there are public servants, who outlive governments, who will have the responsibility of oversight and controls. Far beyond what was in the past. Attacking them now, as some unfortunate individuals immediately began to do, again gives Conroy ammunition to ignore those groups.

People attacking the CB have usually been fringe groups, mainstream political forces in Australia stay away from that one and anyone who attacks that office....

Consider this though Matthew:

"The problem is the policy has morphed time and time again since it was first announced..."

It is a basic function of democracy that policies "morph", change, mature, adapt, gain in definition, progress etc. It may not be the response that you wish from Conroy, but he is adapting the policy as far as he and his party are prepared to do so in order to find the best format under the given circumstances.

You can and should be asking Conroy and other pollies for answers, however they cannot claim they received no answer when the answer they got was not the one they wanted.

You nail the issue here though: The policy is not exempt from criticism at all, it gets criticised from some quarters daily. The population is vocal on all sorts of issues, and when enough voices communicate in the right manner, then pollies take notice.

Just claiming all manner of effects and doomsday scenarios is not enough. Claiming all sorts of negative effects when other democratic countries with similar systems do not have this array of evil consequences, is not going to convince enough Aussies to force change.

@ Roddy

Still getting around to answering my questions Roddy?

http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/325310/q_family_first_senator_steve_fielding_content_filtering#comment-6325

@Ben

My apologies Ben, I have allowed myself to be distracted, and work/family has been busy.

Back on those this evening at the latest...

@Roddy

"The public has had many chances and opportunities to get involved, interested, vocal, and they have not done this to a great degree at all."

Oh really Roddy? This comment from Tony Jones on Q&A back in March when Senator Conroy was on; "Well, Q&A viewers will know that our guests attract questions on their special areas of influence and expertise [...] but we’ve never seen anything like the avalanche that Stephen Conroy has generated. [...] We couldn't print them up. We used too much paper, with more than 2000 people sending web and video questions about the government’s proposals to censor and filter the internet." Yeah, the public have no interest in this at all, huh Roddy? Plus how come when people send off letters to their local Labor MP, we get a form letter back from Conroy's office?

"You will have to live with the fact that there are public servants [...] Attacking them now, as some unfortunate individuals immediately began to do, again gives Conroy ammunition to ignore those groups"

Sorry, but who is attacking public servants again? People have been critical of the Prime Minster and Senator Conroy over the issue. So I ask again, why is OK to attack politicans on talkback radio and in forums on web about all manner of policy issues, yet if people attack Senator Conroy in the same way about this policy it's OK for him to ignore or not answer questions about this policy. My letter to his office got the standard form letter reply and answered none of my questions. Why is this OK?

"It is a basic function of democracy that policies "morph", change, mature, adapt, gain in definition, progress etc."

Yes but it shouldn't be changing on a nearly weekly basis like this policy has (one week RC, next it's unwanted material, then illegal, then back to RC). I would call that policy on the run.

"Claiming all sorts of negative effects when other democratic countries with similar systems do not have this array of evil consequences, is not going to convince enough Aussies to force change"

You do realise that no other western democracy has we Senator Conroy has proposed. In every other country, UK and the rest of Europe, it's voluntary. I can pick an ISP in those countries that doesn't filter. I won't have this option here.

"As the filter, in your words, cannot stop any content, you will have nothing to worry about and can continue surfing undisturbed".

But why should I as a consumer have to pay through higher ISP fees for it? It doesn't work, it won't stop child porn, it'll slow down the web to a degree. What is the point? Why are we doing it if you can bypass it so easily?

@Tristan... Betfair

Thanks Tristan but I do have a pretty good understanding of how the filter process works.

The question still remains whether a URL was actually blocked or only claimed to be blocked.

Also, if so, which URL?

If this was an overseas betting operation without a specific Australian gaming license then it was an illegal betting site.

Just because Betfair has a legal operation here does not mean that their overseas ops and online betting sites are also legal...

In which case a block would be legal and correct if there was a complaint.

**If* there was a block at all.

Again, a single incident, unverified, most probably a fully legal block, etc.

The article was saying that, people quoted in the press article was saying that.

Not Gov, not Conroy, not ACMA, not CB, not Rudd, not the senate, just another speculative press article...

@Ben...

Hi Ben, finally back.

"Conroy refuses to discuss the issue at all, red herrings or not. "

*R*We do not need to see someone personally discussing a subject for it to be discussed, or statements made, or any manner of responses given. There is in all likelihood few or no satisfying responses for some, yet the question remains at which point he is liable for responses, and at what point he chooses to respond. I just googled Conroy statements on this subject in 2009 and there are plenty, however few with the substance you demand.

For what it's worth, I believe that the recent trials did not bring any solid results either way. They were too small and too few, but that was an ISP decision, they were all asked. But it was not a "which technology will we use" trial, it was always information and market intel gathering, albeit not scaled.

And when he did respond more fully in the past, there are more imputations and interpretations of his statements than I can follow at all... lol... Naturally he gets a gutful of that over time and minimises statements and discussion from his side.

Looking at the period in question, I followed up on some blog and forum sites today, and found hundreds of attacks on Conroy, day in day out... Very persoanl and direct attacks.

In Australia, with all our apparently antiquiquated and restrictive censorship, there are freely available Conroy directed attacks, hate articles and blogs, demonising, slander, mis-quotes, effigies, ridicule and some suggestions that come from pretty morally bankrupt people. (not referring to you here at all Ben, others)

All allowed and mostly legal. Some would make a successful slander and libel case if he ever pursued the individuals.

Australia has a strong democracy, we can do this here....

"That wasn't my point. I was asking if calling someone a liar is worse than them calling you a sympathiser to paedophiles."

*R* Both would be bad if untrue, and so much would depend on the context. The difficulty is the so-called "Urban Legend" effect... Interpretation takes over from actual intent. But if it is claimed enough all of a sudden it becomes "fact"...

*R* Ben, I read nowhere there from Ludlam and Conroy that Conroy is accusing anyone of being a child porn sympathiser. I see a typical rhetorical question or statement meant to bring Ludlam back to Conroy's point. Typical politics and happens with many subjects, and is forgotten, everyday in politics. No accusation there at all... What I have seen is massive re-interpretation in the meantime on what Conroy meant to say. Putting words in people's mouths that they never said or meant is not a good basis for truth andclear debate.

"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."

*R*Sorry Ben, but what is wrong with that statement? Factually correct and in context. Some people were claiming that any interference with the Internet and what people put up there is against freedom of speech. Some people were actually equating that at the time. So Conroy makes it clear that the Rudd gov does not agree that freedom of speech gives all people free license to put up or access anything they like if that is available to the Australian public.

Pretty straightforward. Naturally interpretation is a wonderful thing, we can infer many meanings to a statement, that often have zero to do with the intent of the speaker.... That in itself is a questionable practice.

"By 'too far out there', do you mean not being associated with the religious fringe groups? Because that's all who seem to be supporting this policy. I argue that supporting this policy is being 'too far out there', as the benefits of this policy are non-existent."

*R* In the end Ben, 'too far out there' is a decision for each group or individual in this context. Every one of us has perceptions of what is 'too far out there'. In this instance, it is the perceptions and position of the independent politiciansthat are referred to, not your's or mine...

Their votes may be crucial if this initiative comes to new legislation, if several Libs do not already follow their public statements and vote for it anyway.

I think you may be surprised what 'support' will entail in this case Ben. As it needs to be brought down, anyone who does not specifically vote against it or get active against it will count to the 'supporters' when it comes to crunch time, and that includes the Australian public.

Many of them just cannot yet share the position that it is evil or democracy-breaking, they can however see some benefits in blocking content they would also consider unacceptable, just like we expect the gov to make serious efforts to stop illegal drugs entering our society...

There are people that argue that anyone should be allowed to take whatever drugs they wish as well...

BetFair

1) Both the BetFair home page, and the Australian subsite, have appeared on the blacklists, as revealed by Wikileaks in March this year. I'll not list the actual URLs, since - as they are entries on ACMA's blacklist of Prohibted Content - the URLs are themselves Prohibited Content, and linking to them here would invite $11,000-per-day fines upon ArnNet's hosts. I believe someone else has already attempted to explain the meaning of "chilling effect" to you...

2) The URLs were on the leaked blacklists. At the time (and to this date), the blacklist in question only blocks access for those who have installed an IIA-approved software filter; however this is the same blacklist that the ALP intends to use for mandatory ISP filtering.
http : // alp.org.au / download / now / labors_plan_for_cyber_safety.pdf
As this is the last official public document that the ALP have released on this subject, it must be considered the current policy.
BetFair's operations were not significantly impacted under the PRESENT arrangement - under the PROPOSED arrangement, this would be a different matter entirely. That is not speculation, it is extrapolation.

3) Again, under the present arrangement, his operations were not significantly affected. Under the proposed arrangement, his website (or at least, the Australian portal) would be blocked to all Australians.

4) From the article: "We've been licensed to operate in Australia for three years and have never received a complaint or any allegation that Betfair locally or globally is not permitted to be used by Australians." Doesn't sound remotely illegal to me.

The "tens of millions of dollars" remark is not referenced, so you may speculate as to its origins all you wish.

Contrary to your request, it's actually the interesting stuff that will be more likely to get blocked.

:-)

"there are ... will be laws that prohibit the entry of the defined RC, banned, prohibited and illegal online content, as will be defined by the federally appointed depts and officers."

Do you have any evidence to back up that claim, or is that simply idle speculation on your part?

"not suitable for ladies ears"

Ah, the 1950s paternalist emerges!

"I can only imagine with a shudder how you speak to women and girls..."

As equals.

Shudder as you will.

@ Roddy

You may well be the only other person who thinks those remarks by Conroy were appropriate. Every other person I have spoken to were disgusted by that remark.

"Remember, the ISPs chose the technologies to test, not Conroy..."

The government is supposed to have a proper methodology. A strategy of 'trial whatever you want' will render useless results. Without a significant number of people testing it, and without every ISP trialling different technologies, it can give no meaningful results. Statisticians have slammed the trial and says that it will not produce anything meaningful - http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/312845/statistics_experts_label_isp_filtering_trials_unscientific

Are you more qualified than these guys?

"So what is your problem then with blocking kiddy porn? As you have stated, it has nothing to do with free speech..."

Wow, more strawman fallacies. I fully support eradicating the material, and to suggest that people anti-censor don't is blatantly misrepresenting our position. Kiddie porn is so rare on the web that investing in means of blocking the content is useless.

"A pic of a 6 yo boy or girl being gang-raped is not "information" Ben...."

Another one, I can't keep up. Can you point to any material on any blacklist leaked anywhere in the world where such imagery is present? No, the people producing this material share the content on encrypted peer to peer networks. This will not be touched by the filters. This material is already illegal, and police organisations are already seeking this content and taking it down and arresting those responsible. By the time they find the images, they take the content down, so no need for filtering.

"The police will not be able to "take care of it" alone... They thought that in the UK, and now half the European police organisations co-operate with the IWF initiative."

As I have said, co-operation does not equal useful results. Show me a quote from a police officer who says that such filters achieve something meaningful.

"That is not the intention of the proposed regulations and laws, technology implementations and methods. "

You keep ignoring all the evidence. Apart from child abuse material, every other content the government plans to ban is legal to access.

"I ask you once more, why should people accept child abuse, rape and torture materials being accessible in Australia and with us not undertaking everything in our power to prevent that?"

They don't. They support police taking effective action in shutting down such operations. Surely that's better than covering it up and pretending it doesn't exist.

I think you need to get out

** YAWN **

Yet another one rabbiting on about the proposed filter and child pornography.

If you think the web is the place to disseminate child abuse pornography then by all means go ahead and try.. see how long you last.

On those rare occasions when you can get any kind of answer about the purpose of the proposed ISP filter, it is usually justified as being for the 'protection of children' not 'the prevention of child pornography'.

As the protection of children has a much wider scope than 'child pornography' this leads people to question exactly what kind of material will be blocked - a fair enough question - and secondly - why an ISP block? If I have no children then why is my feed being 'cleaned' of content that may not be appropriate for children? Why not reduce road speed limits to walking pace so we can safely tell our unsupervised kids to go out and play on the freeway? That may sound specious but it highlights the difficulty of where you draw the line once you go down the path of justifying actions on the basis of 'protecting the children'.

It quickly becomes apparent that the whole concept is argumentative and the position of the ISP filter advocate then becomes one of finding something indisputably abhorrent that all will agree should be prevented, and out comes the child pornography argument. The beauty of that argument of course is the ease with which an opponent can be taunted for obviously 'being in favour of child abuse'.

The nonsense of it of course is that the web is a singularly poor medium to use for child pornography - talk about waving a red flag and shouting 'here I am come and get me'.

While people like you rabbit on about the filter and child pornography the real issues get sidelined. Fortunately it would seem that enough worthwhile dialogue has been raised that it has given the government second thoughts about the whole idea.