peggotty

As an online publisher, a parent, and a citizen, I am utterly opposed to this proposal because it is a simplistic approach to dealing to a serious issue and it will not achieve a reduction of child porn or avoid the "accidental" exposure of children/teenagers to porn. (Two different things often confused by filter supporters) Why it won't work? The government is treating this as though the sites in question are static publications. Websites can move domains and IP addresses faster than any organisation can keep its blacklist up to date. A few redirections and your classifiers will be tied in knots. Other options? There are 4 ways people get to porn sites - accidentally or otherwise. 1. Links from another site or search engine. You talk about a civil society. In civil societies, we have media businesses which rely on providing good content and omitting the rest to keep their audience/users. Whether you are talking about news media, entertainment sites or search engines, it is in all those businesses' interests to invest in the technology so that they don't give readers what they don't want. ie let google bear the costs of filtering porn out of their results. Likewise media owners bear the cost of avoiding giving their readers nasty surprises. It's censorship by omission and is kept in check by having a variety of businesses in competition with each other. 2. Adware, Spyware, Viruses Adware on a test machine is the only way I have been presented with "accidental" porn in 14 years online. Put simply, adware and spyware vendors get their software installed on users computers so they can force open windows and sell the page views. Do something about the adware/spyware issue (which is also a threat to many online businesses) and as a byproduct, you'll get rid of most of the accidental porn problem. 3. Mis-typed domains. The domain parking industry is huge yet is provides no benefit that I can see. A domain not found notice would be far preferable than a page of SEM ads or some porn. This industry merely soaks up the advertising dollars of legitimate businesses. 4. Address given by a "friend" or "accomplice" You can't monitor every offline or online communication to stop people telling others where to find the stuff if they want it. You have to rely on education. If anything open online communication is easier to monitor and aid investigation. So instead of wasting all our money on filtering software that won't work, let those who want filters on their own computers put it there (paying out-of-work tech people / tech apprentices to install software for the technologically challenged could be cheaper than imposing filtering at the ISP level) Most importantly, do something about the spyware/adware and you'll get rid of most of the porn that is pushed at people. This industry is already being tackled in the US courts for their effect on businesses, but is allowed to go unchecked in Australia. And please be more concise about the problem. If you are trying to stop child abuse, put the money into investigation. The online images are just the evidence, you need to tackle the crime rather than filtering out the evidence. If you are talking about stopping your kids happening upon a bit of online porn, don't play the child pornography card. Kids have seen porn behind the bike-shed at school, at their mates houses, when they've found their parent's stash, for generations. It's not the same issue and IMO to conflate the two doesn't show sufficient respect to the seriousness of the situations when children who are being abused.