David in Canberra

I would like to congratulate Senator Conroy for this attempt to engage public opinion on a difficult and contentious topic. It has been interesting to observe the debate, and I think highly valuable to see yesterday’s rebuttal of some of the key arguments being used against filtering. In particular I find it intriguing that the media and ISPs have been successful in directing the argument towards speed and freedom of speech issues instead of towards the potential harm facing our kids by unfettered access to the mass of pollution to be found in the ocean of information that is the internet. Moreover, I think there are positive aspects to filtering such as protection from phishing and hacker sites – but I accept that there will always be suspicion of a mandatory system without a published block list. For my part, as a parent of two emerging teenagers, I have implemented the (free) blocklist-based filtering offered by OpenDNS at http://www.opendns.com/. Is the system going to absolutely prevent my kids getting their hands on undesirable material? No. But it *does* reduce the risk of them accidentally stumbling onto it, and it further helps protect my equipment and my privacy from hacker and phishing sites they might innocently end up visiting. I will look forward to further debate on the issue once the white paper is released, and I hope that this is not the last experiment in engaging the grass-roots opinions of the Australian public instead of allowing the media moguls direct our thinking.