ilandrah

1) Side stepping the questions raised by the concerned particpants in this blog will not serve to reduce the amount of opposition to censorship. When people are asking for Senator Conroy to be more open about exactly what content is being blocked, they are not looking for new bookmarks, titles or URLs of sites, but a clear definition of what is deemed inappropriate material. If this blocked content is to be based on current laws then the public outcry will only increase tenfold as there is currently no adult classification for digital media such as games. 2) No one that I know of is seeking to be able to view illegal material from their computers, but it would be nice to have some assurance that adults living in a supposedly democratic nation will have the same access to adult content online that many now enjoy on television and DVD. Games such as Silent Hill have been denied classification based on current gaming laws that are designed with only 15 year old children in mind. This matter needs to be clarified immediately. 3) Parents should be capable of supervising their own children and implementing end user filters if they so desire. The money assigned for developing this censor would have been better spent ensuring that technically incompetent parents are capable of protecting their own children rather than expecting all of society to yet again be responsible for parenting their children for them. 4) Legislation will also need to be written, perhaps as part of an overall constitution that protects our rights to freedom of information and speech. Many Australians take it for granted that these rights are already protected under our constitution, but this is not the case and also needs to be rectified. Whilst an assurance from one senator that political speedch will be protected may be seen as comforting by some here, it does nothing to ensure that this type of censorship will not be mis-used in the future. 5) Australia already labours under some of the slowest internet speeds in the world. With the filter further reducing those speeds, what will be done to improve the lag and attempt to get us to a stage where we can lay claim to a modern internet infrastructure? Once again, this is an area where the money allocated to this program would have been better spent. 6) Lastly, just how much public outcry will it take for the government to abandon this ridiculous scheme and actually represent the people who voted them