Censorship ==> Rudd Finally Talks about His Internet Censorship Scheme
Posted: 26-02-2010 16:38, By: admin
For the first time in Kevin Rudd’s time in power, bar that one mention in a chat room discussion a while ago, he finally decided to publicly discuss his plans to censor the Internet on Sunrise this morning. Dave Morgan from Sydney, after outlining some of the common criticisms of the policy, put forward the following questions to Rudd but he didn’t seem to get much of a response.
“My questions to you are- will you guarantee that no Australian business will suffer any loss in productivity by the implementation of a mandatory internet filter, when filtering is already applied? And, why do you insist on implementing a policy that will simply fail in its objective to protect the children?”
First the PM tries to simplify what Refused Classification content actually is by only naming the more extreme stuff. Rudd proclaims that RC involves “Acts of child abuse, acts of sexual abuse against children, including material which also provides how to kits in terms of conducting terrorist attacks.” Conveniently no mentions of; Euthanasia material, abortion material, video games unsuitable for those 15 years and younger and fetish material. He also mirrors Conroy’s rhetoric regarding “it’s not a silver bullet” by saying “Is any system perfect in dealing with it [RC content]? No. But is our challenge to reduce it to the absolute extent possible? Yes.” We know it is a silver bullet, the proposal fails all it’s stated aims so why are you hell bent on pushing this very expensive and freedom eroding policy through.
Then the PM tries to justify it by saying “what we're doing here is the same treatment that you extend to any piece of material out there in movies, in videos”. Basically suggesting bringing the Internet in line with the other mediums but classification and censorship law in Australia doesn’t work like that. It is a complete mess at the moment. For example, it is legal for me to possess a Refused Classification game or movie, providing I am not in WA, prescribed areas of NT or it contains illegal material. I live in Victoria I can legally possess Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure (a game Refused Classification for containing graffiti), how is censoring RC content bringing the Internet in line with other mediums?
Next the PM goes on to mention the almighty Enex Report, “We've tested this with some nine internet service providers. And what we've found is that the impact on speed is the equivalent to 1/70th of the blink of an eye. This is backed by Optus. It is backed by Telstra.” The Enex Report was so flawed it left open more questions than solutions after it’s release. Circumvention was trivial, high traffic URLs can’t be filtered and NBN speeds were not tested. Sort these problems out before you label the trial as a success. And you are testing my patience with the “1/70th of the blink of an eye” you and your party keep spouting, can we use some scientific terms please, this is supposed to be an “evidenced based policy”.
Kev then basically tells us that we need to be doing something, anything to solve this apparent problem of inappropriate content online. “It's not perfect, but let me tell you I will not stand idly by and allow this sort of muck to be put online without making an effort to reduce it, given the enormous impact it has on the safety of children.” A filter doesn’t remove the offending material from the Internet Kev, it barely even hides it considering the ease of circumvention. If the content is ILLEGAL then by all means you have my support in getting the Fed’s to take down the offending URLs, however don’t you dare touch legal material. There are alternative ways to both protect those kids and the soft adults that haven’t figured out how to close the window of an offending webpage.
And a final comment from the PM on the issue “I think this stuff is filthy. I can't stand it. I think these are the right measures. You're running a business, we're pro-internet, but we don't make apologies for this.” Basically he’s saying a big F you to those innocent people who will be negatively impacted by his policy. He’s made it clear that it is not up for debate just like Conroy’s paper regarding transparency of the scheme, it had a pretense that the system will be in place regardless but we want a few tips in making look like we are not the Authoritarian collective that we are.
Then Kochie goes on a rant about the evils of Facebook which isn't even worth my time rebutting. The man simply doesn’t understand how big Facebook is and how impossible it would be for them to check every page for offending content. There are already ways to get FB to help you take inappropriate content down, contact them and they will help you out, we don’t need an Internet Censorship scheme.
A video clip of the Sunrise segment can be found here
A transcript of the Sunrise segment can be found here
Posted: 26-02-2010 16:38, By: admin
For the first time in Kevin Rudd’s time in power, bar that one mention in a chat room discussion a while ago, he finally decided to publicly discuss his plans to censor the Internet on Sunrise this morning. Dave Morgan from Sydney, after outlining some of the common criticisms of the policy, put forward the following questions to Rudd but he didn’t seem to get much of a response.
“My questions to you are- will you guarantee that no Australian business will suffer any loss in productivity by the implementation of a mandatory internet filter, when filtering is already applied? And, why do you insist on implementing a policy that will simply fail in its objective to protect the children?”
First the PM tries to simplify what Refused Classification content actually is by only naming the more extreme stuff. Rudd proclaims that RC involves “Acts of child abuse, acts of sexual abuse against children, including material which also provides how to kits in terms of conducting terrorist attacks.” Conveniently no mentions of; Euthanasia material, abortion material, video games unsuitable for those 15 years and younger and fetish material. He also mirrors Conroy’s rhetoric regarding “it’s not a silver bullet” by saying “Is any system perfect in dealing with it [RC content]? No. But is our challenge to reduce it to the absolute extent possible? Yes.” We know it is a silver bullet, the proposal fails all it’s stated aims so why are you hell bent on pushing this very expensive and freedom eroding policy through.
Then the PM tries to justify it by saying “what we're doing here is the same treatment that you extend to any piece of material out there in movies, in videos”. Basically suggesting bringing the Internet in line with the other mediums but classification and censorship law in Australia doesn’t work like that. It is a complete mess at the moment. For example, it is legal for me to possess a Refused Classification game or movie, providing I am not in WA, prescribed areas of NT or it contains illegal material. I live in Victoria I can legally possess Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure (a game Refused Classification for containing graffiti), how is censoring RC content bringing the Internet in line with other mediums?
Next the PM goes on to mention the almighty Enex Report, “We've tested this with some nine internet service providers. And what we've found is that the impact on speed is the equivalent to 1/70th of the blink of an eye. This is backed by Optus. It is backed by Telstra.” The Enex Report was so flawed it left open more questions than solutions after it’s release. Circumvention was trivial, high traffic URLs can’t be filtered and NBN speeds were not tested. Sort these problems out before you label the trial as a success. And you are testing my patience with the “1/70th of the blink of an eye” you and your party keep spouting, can we use some scientific terms please, this is supposed to be an “evidenced based policy”.
Kev then basically tells us that we need to be doing something, anything to solve this apparent problem of inappropriate content online. “It's not perfect, but let me tell you I will not stand idly by and allow this sort of muck to be put online without making an effort to reduce it, given the enormous impact it has on the safety of children.” A filter doesn’t remove the offending material from the Internet Kev, it barely even hides it considering the ease of circumvention. If the content is ILLEGAL then by all means you have my support in getting the Fed’s to take down the offending URLs, however don’t you dare touch legal material. There are alternative ways to both protect those kids and the soft adults that haven’t figured out how to close the window of an offending webpage.
And a final comment from the PM on the issue “I think this stuff is filthy. I can't stand it. I think these are the right measures. You're running a business, we're pro-internet, but we don't make apologies for this.” Basically he’s saying a big F you to those innocent people who will be negatively impacted by his policy. He’s made it clear that it is not up for debate just like Conroy’s paper regarding transparency of the scheme, it had a pretense that the system will be in place regardless but we want a few tips in making look like we are not the Authoritarian collective that we are.
Then Kochie goes on a rant about the evils of Facebook which isn't even worth my time rebutting. The man simply doesn’t understand how big Facebook is and how impossible it would be for them to check every page for offending content. There are already ways to get FB to help you take inappropriate content down, contact them and they will help you out, we don’t need an Internet Censorship scheme.
A video clip of the Sunrise segment can be found here
A transcript of the Sunrise segment can be found here
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Jarrod: [Don't forget "Holy Christ!" Kevin's new blockbuster, in which Scott Mosier fights Jesus himself! "Jab, motherfucker,Jab!"] Yeah man, that was funny as
Jester: Don't forget "Holy Christ!" Kevin's new blockbuster, in which Scott Mosier fights Jesus himself! "Jab, motherfucker,Jab!"
Anonymous: It's not in a comment, you're an idiot.
admin: "If you look closely, it appears to be test code inside a comment.... not that I wouldn't put it past them to actually use something like that." I mirrored the source code http://puregeekdom.com/pdfs/dbcde-mirror.txt if you want to check it out. The section about removing "ISP Filtering" is not inside /*comments*/ or //comments
Anonymous: Hmm, this could actually be javascript that is contructed server-side on the fly and piped to the client page. Still, makes you wonder....