Anti-filtering protest blackout turns websites black
- 27 January, 2010 08:54
- Comments 15
An online protest to turn the Internet “black” for Australia Day was joined by hundreds of websites, but many companies are being careful not to take on the Government.
The protest, which was joined by the Australian Democrats and the Australian Greens, showed visitors a black background and information pop-up screen from the EFA that argues against the Government’s proposed ISP filter.
EFA vice chair, Colin Jacobs, said while many websites had joined the protest for its launch, the relatively late notice had prevented others from coming on-board.
“We’ve had a few hundred websites sign up, including those of the Australian Greens and the Democrats,” he said. “We’ve had many expressions of sympathy, but certain companies, especially those with public stakeholders, find it difficult to commit to a political viewpoint.”
Jacobs was reluctant to say companies and stakeholders were avoiding the protest due to a potential loss of business, but admitted only “one or two” ISPs had joined the protest.
“We’re a little bit disappointed when anyone says no, but that’s their right and they may choose not to sign onto political dissent,” he said. “In some cases it was too short notice for all the stakeholders in the company to agree to standpoint and others didn’t want third-party javascript applications on their front pages.”
The vice chair expected the movement to grow in strength as awareness increased and added the aim of the campaign was to educate the wider public about the filter.
“Many in the IT industry certainly have huge reservations,” Jacobs said. “We’re a little bit disappointed when anyone says no, but that’s their right and they may choose not to sign onto political dissent.
“This is the first step of raising awareness. The EFA is not organising physical demonstrations at the moment, but there are people that are passionate and pretty keen to take direct action,” he said.
The protest officially runs from January 25 – 29, including Australia Day.
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Comments
Anonymous
ISP Filtering in Australia
Well I am glad to read this article that informs people that there are many other people in society that are interested in physical demonstrations of disapproval for internet censorship.
China and Iran are the only 2 other countries that sensor internet. The US are complaining about China doing that and supported Google's threat to take Google out of China all together.
So this becomes very interesting now doesn't it? Will GOOGLE threaten Australian government to withdraw Google all together too?
Or is this going to be just another story about the mind numbingly accepting Australians to swallow yet another LIE?
Censorship is FASCISM.
Anonymous
ISP Filtering in Australia
Well I am glad to read this article that informs people that there are many other people in society that are interested in physical demonstrations of disapproval for internet censorship.
China and Iran are the only 2 other countries that sensor internet. The US are complaining about China doing that and supported Google's threat to take Google out of China all together.
So this becomes very interesting now doesn't it? Will GOOGLE threaten Australian government to withdraw Google all together too?
Or is this going to be just another story about the mind numbingly accepting Australians to swallow yet another LIE?
Censorship is FASCISM.
Anonymous
Child rape pics are NOT free speech
The law, as it stands, says RC content is illegal to display, distribute, sell or make available for hire
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/12/23/stephen-conroy-dear-crikey-heres-why-youre-wrong/
If anyone wants to know how 'RC' is defined, the Classification Guidelines for Film and Computer Games are here:
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/LegislativeInstrumentCompilation1.nsf/framelodgmentattachments/6C888688A3BBD40ACA2574120004F72A
To reiterate, RC material is not R18+ material. It’s not X18+ material. It’s material that is ‘abhorrent to the reasonable adult’, and has been refused classification. This includes material such as rape, child porn, DIY terrorism...
This issue is not about personal internet filters. This is about what happens in your street, suburb, your country. This is a democracy, and I for one don’t want this stuff unrestricted
Who would?
Let me daringly put forward a name, one symbolic of another ‘group’:
Dolly Dunn
Several paedophile membership organisations advocate age of consent reform to lower or abolish age of consent laws, and for the acceptance of paedophilia as a sexual orientation rather than a psychological disorder, and the legalisation of child pornography.
Recently a political party with a paedophile agenda has been registered in The Netherlands:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5038682.stm
The party plans to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and for legalisation of child pornography and sex with animals.
The Party uses the same ‘free speech’ argument as those against RC filtering.
“As for banning illegal content, I agree with Labor and Mr Abbott”
Unforgiven
ISP Filtering is pointless
As a simple note : NOTHING can stop the flow of information if someone wants it bad enough. These proposed "filters" that are "supposed" to stop access to "accidental" access of certain information that children shouldn't have access to - [at least thats the BS the g'ment keeps putting out].
Guess what? There is a program that can block that same material that parents can easily download. It's free.
The freaks that intentionally go looking for that kinda stuff, should be be behind bars [or alternatively shot in the head <,<] - but this censorship aint gonna stop them. Ever hear of the underground market, the 'net version is p2p?
Waste of time, waste of money and puts AU in line with dictatorships.
QUOTE:
"To reiterate, RC material is not R18+ material. It’s not X18+ material. It’s material that is ‘abhorrent to the reasonable adult’, and has been refused classification. This includes material such as rape, child porn, DIY terrorism..."
As for your description of RC - may wanna get your facts right, RC is anything that can not be classified under an existing rating for that media. IE, video games have no R18, anything that "should" fall into that category is technically RC - this would also mean, that videos related to said game, are RC - filtered by this scheme o.O OMG! I Wantz my freedom of speech.
-Gamer, Against Censorship
Trevor C
ISP Filtering In Australia
If the Rudd Government do implement an Internet Filter, we do not have to take it quietly. There is a Federal election due soon and we can show our anger at being treated like China and Iran with our votes. There may be just enough angry voters out there to show the Rudd Government that we are not going to put up with their crap. They will learn, the same way John Howard had to learn. Labor may have been voted in with a fairly large majority, but that majority is dwindling fast. take note of this Kevin Rudd. Australians will not tolerate being treated like children. They are capable of making up their own minds on what they want to see, and what they don't want to see.
Anonymous
A matter of opinion
I agree with your statement about CP but what you seem to be missing from the people against the filter is that although we would all love to see an end to CP there are other things that we could loose as well, like our freedom of speech when it goes against the governments view. Have you ever heard of Tiananmen Square? because yes, I doubt that such a tragedy will happen here in Australia but it's a good example of how an ISP Layered filtered country can choose what the people see.
Please don't think that it is only CP and bestiality that will be filtered, intelligent discussions about things that are illegal will also be blocked and it may not happen right away and it may not happen but we all know there are corrupt politicians who WILL use this to there own advantage.
David
free speech - yes
To Anonymous
Politicians in Australia propose to 'filter' internet content to all Australians.
It has been decided that a Board of political appointees will draw up an ever expanding list of sites to be blocked and that the list will be held as a state secret.
The public conversation on this has been steered towads and revolves around child pornography and you have been hooked on this bait quite firmly.
However, all agree that a filter will not affect the production or dissemination of this material, and only 32% of the current list relates to child porn sites.
There is more to this issue than you seem to be aware of, perhaps a glance at a bigger picture will help to inform you.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24138351/Untangling-the-Net-The-Scope-of-Content-Caught-by-Mandatory-Internet-Filtering
If this issue was about child safety then the money would be better spent by the Aust Fed Police, or, for those with a less punitive inclination, it could be used to feed, cloth and house disadvantaged children.
This issue is about whether or not Australian politicians will have the same powers over the public debate as their counterparts currently do in China, Burma, Iran etc.
I say NO.
baggyone72
Child porn is disgusting, it is also rarely found on webpages
Dear Anonymous
I fully agree with you that child sexual abuse images are abhorrent and everything that can possibly be done to stop the production and distribution of such filth is a moral imperative.
However, the proposed filter will only block specific web addresses and only after those addresses have been reported to ACMA, been investigated by ACMA, and declared by ACMA to be "RC". . The leading world body fighting child sexual abuse images on the internet, The Internet Watch Foundation, claims that they have a list of between 500 and 800 webpages blocked at any one time. They try to liase with international law enforcement agencies to get the filthmongers caught, or at the very least get the webpages shut down.
The filter will not block e-mail, chat, usenet, direct file transfer, or peer-to-peer transfer. These methods of communication now make up more than 50%, some say 66% of internet traffic.
The best method of stopping this stuff is the same way that we now attempt to stop drug dealers, people smugglers, and other criminals - good old fashioned police work. The internet is like a city, it has libraries, hospitals, schools, playgrounds, cinemas and dark back alleys. We need police moving through the back alleys to stop the worst of the worst from happening, not simply covering up that it does happen.
Also, a point of clarification. RC is illegal to sell, distribute...etc. It is not illegal to view or own. RC material also includes fetishes such as spanking, golden showers and other activities that are not illegal for consenting couples to do with each other.
I might not wish to participate is such fetishes, but I recognise the right of people to explore them.
RC can also include "promotion or instruction in crime". On the extreme this could be terrorism or drug manufacture, or it could also be drug harm minimisation or a call to civil disobediance (strike or protest).
RC is far too wide a net - and no other democracy in the world currenly casts such a wide net.
Anonymous
What a great movement - it's the first I've heard of it though
Hopefully this movement gains momentum - obviously it was a last minute thing as I didn't notice anything, and yes I was on the Internet for part of Australia day.
What needs to be made clear is that the Internet filter is purely a political viewpoint of the Internet - I believe many politicians are using this issue for leverage, as most of their constituents (baby boomers, seniors) would agree that there is lots of "bad stuff" on the Internet that they do not want their children to see. If anyone goes against the filter they would be going against the majority.
However, anyone who knows a bit about the Internet and its nature knows that any approach like this is doomed to failure - you just can't block everything.
For example, the firewall will probably only monitor web (http) traffic, perhaps with some pattern matching run on other channels (e.g. mail, ftp, vpn etc etc). But any organised group would easily get around this by way of encryption, private chatrooms/mailing lists etc.
And then there are people who actually need to use certain types of information.
For example, as a security analyst I would need to keep up to date on the latest security threats for software and protocols used on the Internet. Unfortunately many of the sites I would visit are currently blacklisted by many internet filters as "hacking sites". If the government decided to disable access to these sites, I would need to apply for exclusions on the firewall, if they even allow applications.
Another example I remember is when I was studying chemistry at university. Many of the reactions studied in first and second year chemistry are the same reactions leveraged by terrorists to conduct their attacks. If I were to search for such subjects and the goverment found out, would I be identified as a terrorist? Also of interest is that there are "international" and "american" editions of textbooks - often the missing parts are regarding the reactions used in bombs and elicit drugs. Looking back I would have hated to miss out on such subjects as they are some of the most interesting discoveries in chemical science.
Just like communism tries to apply a "one size fits all" approach to economics, this firewall will not fit everybody. It is a perfect example of how the minority of Internet users and members of society can ruin things for the majority of law abiding Internet users.
Daniel Slater
Freedom to Facism
No reasonable person will argue that material like child porn or rape should not be filtered. Such things are truly unacceptable to the great majority of us! However creating a lids of approved sites will only serve to limit free speech. If we allow the government to take control over which websites are allowed to be accessed then we can expect total facism... Child pornography can be stopped without resorting to total net cencorship. And the government knows this, it just wants to take total control of ALL information, alternative or otherwise! This is not a good thing...
Anonymous
Saw the list and most of the
Saw the list and most of the banned addresses were nudist sites and gross out sites like 2girls1cup how sad and pathetic we sell out freedom to prevent mostly mere issues of taste.
Any serious criminal would not use URL sites anyway.
Saliya Wimalaratne
Network Filtering
Whether or not Australians agree that content filtering is desirable (I personally think it's indisputable that some content out there should not be accessible by people), there is a major problem with this scheme that seems to be being glossed-over.
The key word above is <strong>content</strong> - the stuff people look at and listen to; certain types of which most people would find objectionable (e.g. child pornography).
The proposed (and trialled) filter acts on <strong>URLs</strong> - the http:// address that people type in their browsers.
There is a significant difference between "content" and "URL". A URL provides a means to access content, but that content can change <em>at any time</em>. That same content can be made available at many different URLs at the same time; it may be available at one particular moment at a particular URL but not the next. There is no hard link between URL and content.
So <em>yes</em>, a feasible URL-filtering scheme can be devised - but <em>no</em>, this does not address the issue (people don't need protection from <strong>URLs</strong>, they need protection from <strong>content</strong>)
Flawed-by-design projects are doomed to fail. Hopefully, this one fails without wasting too many more taxpayer dollars.
Regards,
Saliya
Saliya Wimalaratne
Network Filtering
Whether or not Australians agree that content filtering is desirable (I personally think it's indisputable that some content out there should not be accessible by people), there is a major problem with this scheme that seems to be being glossed-over.
The key word above is <strong>content</strong> - the stuff people look at and listen to; certain types of which most people would find objectionable (e.g. child pornography).
The proposed (and trialled) filter acts on <strong>URLs</strong> - the http:// address that people type in their browsers.
There is a significant difference between "content" and "URL". A URL provides a means to access content, but that content can change <em>at any time</em>. That same content can be made available at many different URLs at the same time; it may be available at one particular moment at a particular URL but not the next. There is no hard link between URL and content.
So <em>yes</em>, a feasible URL-filtering scheme can be devised - but <em>no</em>, this does not address the issue (people don't need protection from <strong>URLs</strong>, they need protection from <strong>content</strong>)
Flawed-by-design projects are doomed to fail. Hopefully, this one fails without wasting too many more taxpayer dollars.
Regards,
Saliya
arash
this is filter iwant anti filter
Alireza
It's not just your problem guys, We have a strict censorship in Iran, and It seems that the government doesn't pay attention to this protests...
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