ACL: Anti-filter movement doesn’t faze us

"ACL spokesperson, Glynis Quinlan, said the anti-filter movement had remained relatively stagnant and anti-filter sentiment was confined to a select number of groups.

“They’re really just talking to each other,” she said. “It doesn’t appear [their message] has touched the general public and society; it is kept to Internet civil libertarians and the people supporting it all appear to be the same.”"

these ACL people are just slightly less block headed than Conroy if they think this.

this just shows that the ACL has their head in the sand....the ant filter movement is NOT relatively stagnant. its snowballing. the only thing stagnant is the ACL who cant seem to continue to must enough of their sheep to keep posting online to tell us we need this filter. the ACL campaign is stagnant and going backwards.

To the ACL, stop telling the rest of the people what we want because by continuing to do so you just are insulting the average australian who you basically are saying arent smart enough to 'save their children'. god bless.

The ACL are the scaremongers. Children accessing inappropriate content on the internet is not a big problem. Why the religious keep trying to impose their will on the majority I just don't know.

Why would the ACL say anything different? They are one of the biggest proponents for the whole scheme. Unless the filter starts targetting their own material I would expect nothing but total support. Remeber that they put god before anything else including logic, reality and all rational reasoning and whatever helps block the 'evil' things like naked ladies, abortion and free thinking, etc. In one foul sweep Conroy will bring this country back to dark ages despite his super duper fiber network. It doesnt matter how fast your internet connection is if you cant access information freely.

I find a half naked man, nailed to a cross and left there to die, offensive and a form of torture. Also some people could also get sexual gratification from an image such as this, so it could also be regarded as a sexual fetish.

I think this should be considered RC content.

If the filter does come in, I know I'll be submitting every website that depicts any such image.

As a Christian I totally dissociate myself from the mindless position of the ACL concerning the filter.

They do not speak for me on this issue, and the sooner they wake up as to what's really at stake the better.

Ironically, because of the likelihood that many Christian websites will be blocked because some bureaucrat thinks they are not politically correct, Christians should be leading the anti-filter movement. I am stunned that this has yet to occur.

I for one am very concerned that the ACL is correct when they say:

"ACL spokesperson, Glynis Quinlan, said the anti-filter movement had remained relatively stagnant and anti-filter sentiment was confined to a select number of groups.

“They’re really just talking to each other,” she said. “It doesn’t appear [their message] has touched the general public and society; it is kept to Internet civil libertarians and the people supporting it all appear to be the same.”"

Those of us who are internet literate all know about the filter but I don't believe the general public has a clue. The general public are not going to be reached through Internet campaigns either. We are talking about people who read news papers (the made from trees kind) and watch TV news, rather than using the net. Those are the mediums we need to use to reach these people and get our message across about all the issues with the filter as it is proposed. Only then can we expect to see a ground swell of public concern which will affect an election.

I too am a Christian and like those above I am thoroughly against the filter. I work very hard in my church educating people as to the real issues behind the filter. I actually find the ACL very manipulative by presenting information to the churches as if the filter were going to fix all 'naughty content'. We know it will do no such thing and that the people it is meant to protect are the generation who can most easily bypass it.

So please don't associate all Christians with the actions of a few misguided morons and the sheep who follow them.

*Pepi- agree completely with your sentiments. This is a big threat to Christians and they should be at the fore front of the fight against the filter.

The "select number of groups" includes:

Google
Yahoo
National Youth Law Centre
Save the Children
Choice Magazine (they have a campaign against it)
EFA
Get Up
The US administration
Australian Library and Information Association
Reporters Without Borders
NSW University Media Research Unit (critical report)
National Association for the Visual Arts
Young Labor NSW
iiNet
Internode
Justice Michael Kirby (ret.)
Labor Senator Kate Lundy
NSW Labor

(I'm sure I've missed some).

Oh really? So Google, Yahoo, iiNet, Reporters Without Borders, The US Government, The Greens, Internode, EFA, GetUp, Save the Children Australia (to name just a few off the top of my head) are just a bunch of fringe dwellers talking amongst themselves in opposition to this filter are they? What about every poll conducted including one recently with 90,000 voters, showing about 99% opposing the filter?
When the groups that represent the people this filter is supposed to protect (children) oppose it, and the only support for it comes from an extremist Christian group led by an ex SAS soldier that believes the universe is only six thousand years old, you know it's a bad idea.

Inspite of all these being spams scams and spams interfecting the interwebs for the some 20,000 people and all these spams and spams are coming flying through the portal and Google is vacuuming up all the data with their big machines we must will stop save the children from being exposed to the portal.

Church groups have always had a tendency to burn books.. destroy knowledge... The more educated you are the less likely you will have faith and believe in their god

We had the dark ages once.. we don't need a vehicle for it to happen again.

"Glynis Quinlan, said the anti-filter movement had remained relatively stagnant and anti-filter sentiment was confined to a select number of groups.

That's because the Government has tried to keep it's censorship policy a secret

“They’re really just talking to each other,” she said. “It doesn’t appear [their message] has touched the general public and society; it is kept to Internet civil libertarians and the people supporting it all appear to be the same.”

Is that why a recent poll on SMH had 99% against censorship and only 1% for? Not bad for a terrible policy that has been kept secret for a year or so.

“Hopefully, people and politicians can see past it to the real issues at state and it does seem to be the case.”

You mean issues like control of information and having bureaucrats deciding what we can see?

You can hold whatever views you like, as can we all. DON'T TRY TO IMPOSE YOUR VIEWS ON ME!

Earl Blennerhasset: "I'll disconnect"

ME too!

@Know

Whilst this is not a religious discussion. There is a huge difference between "there is a creator." and "The creator is a god who shaped the earth 6000 years ago and had a son called Jesus who could walk on water."

But back on track, the filter would more likely to be used to block stuff like Scientology and other newly developed religions. All new religions tend to be persecuted, banned and forbidden. Christians was persecuted 2000 years ago, and because of their faith they choose to remain christians, now its Scientology's turn.

However, it must be noted that some choose to remain scientologians (if that is the correct terminology) despite persecution; this faith or believe does not in anyway justify Scientology to be a worthy religion.

They're christians... ofcourse reasoned logic doesn't sway them ;)

I for one, as a Christian, a Systems Admin, and also having worked with Children in the past find the ACL's pitiful strawman arguments to be completely offensive.

The claims that they speak for the majority of the Christians out there is completely false, and all they are doing is causing more harm than good.

I come from a church with upto a thousand Christians, a substantial amount of them are technically oriented because we believe in actually keeping up with technology, and I can tell you, from the youngest to the oldest that I have spoken to, they believe this whole thing to be a complete total farce which will not have any effect whatsoever.

I think it's time the ACL's small minority keep their noses out of this while they haven't got a clue about how stupid an idea it is.

I applaud the posters above who say they are Christians and that they oppose the filter / do not support the ACL.

Meanwhile, I'm sure the ACL would be well aware of the GetUp petition against the filter that has received nearly 130,000 signatures... are these people not part of "the general public"?

I'm afraid it's time this government was out. If it continues with this madness, ISPs should refuse "en masse" to implement this ridiculous filtering. United, ISPs wield considerable power in today's technological society. The Labor government would be unwise to find out just how much power.

Religious groups should not play any part of politics and technology at all. Countries that are governed and influenced by religious groups spells failure.. need we not speak of these countries...