Comments on 'Thanks & wrap up'

Sam Douglas

12 Dec 2008 3:21pm

Blogs are many and varied, so it's hard to say what the key elements actually are. I don't read or consult other government blogs. But the blogs I do read and consult have high value for me in terms of either engagement in debate or the provision of useful information (preferably both). While it might not be possible to engage in debate with those posting comments in the way that individual bloggers can, I would encourage practices that come as close as possible to this. The ability to respond to a political opinion or argument in a post and continue the discussion with the author is one of the best things about blogging for everyone involved. I think that the frustration people are expressing is at least partially borne out of this. As you well note, many people are not happy about the ISP level filtering plans. What they want is a chance to engage in debate with those responsible in as direct a way as possible. Do not try too hard to steer the conversation away from filtering. How the Government blogs might well be important. But many people see the advent of ISP level filtering as a serious threat to personal liberty and democratic values (myself included). I would ask that you forgive people for thinking that this is more important than the layout of this blog. The most important thing about this blog remains to be seen, and it is this: How will the Government respond to the feedback we are giving it? If our comments, opinions and arguments have no effect on policy, then all this talk is for nothing and the failure of this blog will reflect the larger failure of Australian Democracy. Sincerely, Sam D

Alan-Sydney

12 Dec 2008 3:23pm

Blogging is above all dialogue. Right now the proposal for ISP filtering is the showstopper issue for most of us. I think you'll find directing the dialogue from ISP filtering fairly counter-productive. That may well reflect the rather unsatisfactory nature of the government's consultations on filtering to this date.

Verity Pravda

12 Dec 2008 3:25pm

Well done on responding to the experience so far. I was greatly afraid that you were going to merely keep plugging away with your predetermined list of postings. However I'm not sure I've seen he evidence of "The overwhelmingly response seems that government blogging is a good thing and a welcome way to engage with the public; that it improves the accountability and transparency of government." Some of your respondants have been quite confused and thought this was the Minister's blog and even that he was reading it. In reality this is just a more immediate way of doing the old-fashioned consultation process - with a number of weaknesses. The main weakness is that respondants aren't required to create a narrative of their responses. While the public servants who normally read responses like it when everyone constrains themselves to just answering the questions in the discussion paper, it is the submissions who engage with the breadth of the material who provide the most value. As I also said on my reply on PSI I'm not convinced that this process alone adds to transparency. fter all three workshops and one forum wre held on the DE and the only public information is the two snippets of Senator Conroy on YouTube. So let's agree that we could say that Government on-line consultation and forums could improve transparency and accountability. Not that it has done so.

Dave

12 Dec 2008 3:27pm

While I understand your comment on wanting a broad range of comments, the idea of feedback is that people raise the issues that are important to them. Thats why the overwhelming number of posts have focused on the proposed internet censorship filter and the objections to it. If it wasnt for that, all you would have was disgruntled comments about telstras efforts relating to the national broadband network!!

Mike

12 Dec 2008 3:27pm

Hearing is not the same as listening. With regards to Internet filtering you are NOT listening. Blind Freddy can see that the vast majority of the people you serve DO NOT want this filtering, myself included. We are in a democracy where the the majority rules - or should!

Brad Gould

12 Dec 2008 3:28pm

Blogging, in this case is all about two way communication. So I welcome this initiative. It promotes democracy and transparency. Some suggestions? Actually talk to us - not recycle talking-point memo's at us, the voters, who put Senators and Ministers where they are in the first place. For example, Senator Conroy's *disgusting* behavior in Senate question time - completely avoiding direct questions from fellow Senators, who are representing *voters* is the height of arrogance. Many people (and Senators) bring up very valid points about policy and government. These should be addressed, not ignored. Everyone wants open and honest communication - it breeds trust and understanding. This is a golden opportunity no not just pay lip service to it and actually *achieve* some open government. (A more asute reader might also look at that comment from a net-filtering perspective and some policy makers might wonder why their secretive machinations result in so much distrust of Governments and their elected officals). So actually just talk to the people and listen and respond to their concerns. You'll be amazed at the positive response you'll get by being honest and forthright. Brad

Stu

12 Dec 2008 3:29pm

Broaden out the debate? ISP-level filtering is incredibly poorly thought through and ill-advised, and whether the government is aware of it or not, it already constitutes a broad assault on every aspect of digital communications. I think you underestimate the damage you are doing to the digital landscape in Australia if you think it is a minor issue to be compartmentalised and set aside for an unspecified future date. You say you hear us, but are you listening? As long as the ISP-level filtering plan lives, the answer is clearly not.

texinick

12 Dec 2008 3:33pm

We understand that you want us to concentrate on how the government blogs, and about the digital economy, but as I stated in another blog topic, where someone brought this up, your intentions with the mandatory filtering directly affect ALL aspects of using the internet, especially the digital economy. So I believe it's VERY relevant for people to discuss it. How can we possibly discuss the Digital Economy on your blog, knowing that you are about to stifle it, without bringing it up. I've been involved in web development and support for 13 years, 8 of those have been running a web development company. The filter is going to affect every aspect of the internet, and I believe it's going to affect me in my profession. If you are truly listening, then you'll listen to the majority of people responding to these blogs, and you'll listen to the 55,000+ that have signed up to the Get Up campaign against the filter. If you REALLY ARE listening, you'll listen to the multiple professionals in this field, that are telling you this is a complete waste of everyone's time and our money. Drop the ludicrous filter idea, and then we can get back to seriously discussing your blog and the digital economy. As long as the filter is on the agenda, everything you ask the public is going to be affected by it.

newt

12 Dec 2008 3:33pm

Tell you what: How about you guys abandon the ISP censorship plans, then we'll stop talking about it and begin to entertain the possibility of discussing other less important issues. Sound ok? Thanks!

newt

12 Dec 2008 3:44pm

Oh, and by the way: One of the things you'll learn about blogging is that you don't get to control the subject matter. You are a host of a conversation, you are not a coordinator of a conversation. Yes, you may WISH that everyone talked about something else, but the fact of the matter is that censorship touches a raw nerve, and regardless of how you spin it in future blog posts it isn't going to go away until your Minister drops it. Why? Because nobody trusts your Minister. What you guys say about censorship has no credibility, so please don't imagine that you can smooth things over by "responding to the issues we've already raised in the comments." Finally: If your blogging platform has deficiencies (requirement for post review, lack of paragraphs, etc) then pick a better blogging platform. Another rule of blogging you haven't yet encountered but shouldn't ignore is that if you disrespect your contributors with pointless annoyances, your contributors will disrespect you.

Sam D

12 Dec 2008 3:47pm

I think that this blog should ping Technorati in a similar manner to other blogs.

Alex12

12 Dec 2008 3:52pm

The Department's response (above) to comments from the public is rather bizarre. Why are you guys even asking questions like "What are the key elements of a blog"? Did someone just grab the nearest intern and ask "How do we look more internet savvy?" Look at some popular blogs or forums if you want to know how to build a good one! Examples: - Slashdot.org - BoingBoing.net - Whirlpool.net.au On the technical aspects (and questions like "Do you read and engage with other government blogs?") the answer is that virtually ALL government websites are so poorly designed and so unhelpful that I try not to use them. ALL government "search this site" functions ALWAYS return absolutely nothing of any use. On blogging as an organisation: Blogs are written by real people. They are not a medium for issuing press releases. You will need to nominate one or two people to represent the Department via the blog. We're not stupid, we know that there are real people behind this blog and the department and we also recognize that real people make mistakes (and hopefully fix them when they're noticed). If you're actually serious about the DBCDE blog, accept that you're going to mess things up occasionally, fix them as soon as you can and we'll respect you for it. Leave the propaganda and politicking aside for a bit and focus on getting stuff done for a change. Labor is going to criticize the Liberals. The Liberals are going to feign outrage at Labor. Both major parties are going to ignore the Greens as much as possible, regardless of whether their ideas are useful or not. We know that this is going to happen and we'll read the papers if we're really that interested. The job you're doing to too important to get bogged down in party politics and you've ggot more than enough outlets for doing that already, so please just let this blog (just this one) be about Getting Stuff Done. Next: please, please, PLEASE ask for help when you need it. Again, we know there are real people behind this initiative and we're REALLY aware that the Department has some...issues...understanding the internet (see: internet filtering policy). There are literally thousands of us out here who will help you guys get your heads around difficult subjects. Hey, we'll do it for free if it means you stop coming out with non-starter ideas (e.g. internet filtering policy). Lastly, please also consider getting representation on OTHER sites as well. If you're serious about engaging with people, go to where those other people are. Forcing them to come here looks like an exercise in vanity. The discussions you want to have with "the people" are already happening on sites like Whirlpool.net.au and since you're late to the party, its only fair that you join an existing conversation rather than trying to start one of your own. Again, don't be afraid of going to external sites. ISPs and other IT suppliers have official representatives on Whirlpool because interacting with the public in an open (but moderated forum) works. When those reps mess up, they correct themselves. It happens. We respect them for acknowledging their mistakes. Cheers, Alex12

Monk

12 Dec 2008 3:54pm

I appreciate that you are attempting to become more available to the general public by using a blog. However the ISP Internet Filtering is at the core of the matter and needs to be resolved before we move onto the digital economy as a whole. The Filtering will be counterproductive in improving the digital economy, it needs to be scrapped. Freedom - The opportunity to have responsibility.

Refused Classification

12 Dec 2008 4:03pm

"Finally, in responding to the many comments on the blog to date (over 900 to date), there are a lot of comments related to the issue of ISP filtering."

"we wonder if it is possible for the main focus of the debate to broaden out to consider issues relating to how the Government blogs and to the digital economy�"

The ISP filtering is not irrelevant when it comes to the digital economy, in fact quite the contrary. It has alot to do with it. For the digital economy to thrive you need equal and open access with no speed or cost inhibitors. The ISP filtering policy negatively affects all of the factors that promote the digital economy, hence why people are commenting on this issue on your digital economy blog.

Dennis

12 Dec 2008 4:09pm

You say that you "hear us", but its clear that you're not "listening to us". What is more "relevant" to discussion about Broadband Communication than the Internet? More so, you ask that we stay-on-topic, and yet do not provide a topic for Internet Censorship.

900 comments, 1 supporter. If this filter goes ahead, it is tyranny - not democracy.

get on with it

12 Dec 2008 4:16pm

Stop slowing down the internet with inane filtering and get on with getting the NBN going.
Faster not slower please.

toholio

12 Dec 2008 4:38pm

The large number of 'off topic' filtering posts doesn't mean that filtering isn't relevant to other digital economy topics. Free speech issues may not be pertinent in all cases but speed and cost almost certainly will be. If we also consider encryption breaking to be relevant, and we should if the filter is to be even marginally effective, then discussion of the filter will be essential to all topics on this blog as the ability of Australian companies to take part in any form of digital economy will be ruined.

Klaw

12 Dec 2008 5:02pm

When does the Minister plan to respond to the questions directed at him in the Senate in regard to the proposed ISP filter?

Perhaps the answers to those questions are too embarrassing?

If the Minister is truly concerned about the Digital Economy, he would at least be giving clear and precise answers to those questions, to give Australian citizens and businesses a little certainty about what exactly is proposed and how it will impact on them.

I challenge the Minister to discuss these matters openly with the anti-filter groups in his capital city of choice this weekend.

Stainless Steel Rat

12 Dec 2008 5:05pm

Here's a clue, if all anyone wants to talk about is how bad an idea mandatory internet filtering is, how it's a tool used by oppressive governments to control their population, how about you actually listen and scrap the idea? It's unwanted, unneeded and not the policy labor went to the polls with. That would be listening.

Erik Hallander

12 Dec 2008 5:06pm

How can you be listening when you're still wasting money with this horrid ISP filter idea? Trying to save political face?

Do yourself a favor and win back a lot of supporters by owing up to your mistakes. It takes gut to take the fall for your own stuff, and people respect that.

Kjic

12 Dec 2008 5:11pm

If told you I had a magic frog that $50.00 notes pop out of its butt with a Burrup! Would you believe me without seeing it or even believe me with fifties to back it up? If I also told you that if you ever wanted a frog of your own, all you have to do is believe long enough dedicate your life to the cause work hard without question and you will receive reward of the frog so you may go forth and enrich the world, if not in this life but the next. Now my real point is if we allow beliefs to control our way of life should we allow them to feed off all our fears ails vulnerabilities in life and death? And let�s not forget that there are a lot of good souls who get out there tirelessly to try to do the best they can for the time they�re in? Then also do we allow that influence of �A Belief� Too affect a multi cultured democracy (which some might say is only a temporary solution to a modern multi belief and cultured country? Our monarchy has its own law god queen and country but let Shari law in? They are both Abrahamic beliefs as is our leader who in his pursuit of his belief? And with aid of a belief held party to give the projection credibility, can enact scheme that cost us all and censors us all? Where is our religious freedom? Then one belief acknowledges the other belief because if they don�t they have only their own as allies for acceptance? Should there be one law for all and no grey areas because of color belief or stature in the community or for being politically aligned? Wrong is wrong and right is right. Right? Is that akin to being able to vote yourself generous gifts out of the public treasury where is accountability? Let�s face it now the politicians are saying they are a hundred thousand underplayed? Far as I am concerned they have a lot of questions to be answered in respect to allowing belief to have any hand in running a country? For belief is but an interpretation of a truth to some? So credibility is gained by two believer�s lol. I spend a lot of my life trying to find what sane is only to be sadly disappointed! Because when you get there you find a lot of crazy people running countries believing in some tooth fairy letting resource barons Baronesses Kings queens CEO�s and the political rabble bleed us all dry while whispering sweet nothings to us for appeasement. If we get to rowdy they send the storm troopers in, or silence us all by censoring, you�re already branded crazy because you don�t believe and look for factual evidence, Lmao.

Priscilla

12 Dec 2008 5:12pm

Hello Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy,

I'm really glad you guys have started blogging. What took you so long ;)

Ok, so in your words, "As a general rule, departmental officers do not speak as individuals�they represent the government. This blog therefore is not an individual�s blog�it is the Department�s."

Why are you sticking to the old-skool way of doing things? It would be wonderful for the department to have a blog of trusted individuals speaking about their area of expertise. Then your blog would have a more human face. And I would know who I'm addressing my comment to. At the moment, I have an image in my mind that I'm talking to a building, because that's the image I have in my mind about "the department".

Also, you ask "Do you read and engage with other government blogs? What makes that engagement valuable to you?" I'm not aware of any other (Australian) departments that blog. So, no I don't. However a couple of government employees have excellent personal blogs. They're excellent because they're engaging, they ask questions, it's a two-way conversation.

I hope the negative comments you're getting doesn't put you off. Yes, you have a long way to go, but at the same time this is a really essential way for the government to communicate with the public so please continue :)

Darren

12 Dec 2008 5:13pm

Further to FDB's post; the interactions between ISP spokespersons at bloggers on whirlpool.net.au would be a great model for this site.

EndInTears

12 Dec 2008 6:40pm

Please provide a post with a detailed description of your Internet censorship plans and provide us with the ability to comment on same - and pay attention to the comments.

Stefan

12 Dec 2008 6:41pm

It puzzles me that the government has plans to spend billions on an NBN and then place a mandatory filter crippling any of the speed increase that may be implemented. Politicians need to stay within their credentials, you do not realize how idiotic it truly is to attempt a mandatory internet filter that has been proven time and time again are a useless waste of money. Even with the bigheads like Telstra strongly against all of this, still sounds like a splendid idea, no?

George Bray

12 Dec 2008 6:43pm

It's great that the Govt is experimenting with blogging. From the enthusiastic participation seen in such a short time, it looks to be popular. My suggestion to make the information design of the blog better, and to focus the discussions, is to "advertise" the Topics page better. Make this the entry point of the site. And list perhaps a dozen issues where people can direct their posts. Starting off with a single topic, and having it collect the ire of everyone on censorship, reduces the ability of your staff and the public to separate the issues. And what about putting it at http://blog.gov.au ?? or at least http://www.dbcde.gov.au/blog

Wendy Green

12 Dec 2008 6:44pm

I agree with Newt, but Newt have you thought that this blog is being *censored*? all this goes through moderators, and who knows what their brief is. Is anything off-topic pushed to one side along with abusive posts? We simply don't know the rules of this game, and I reckon the gov won't tell us.

Oh Come On

12 Dec 2008 6:45pm

Lets stop listening to all those who make money selling porn and reduce the hype? ISP filtering will slow down the loading of a webpage or an image by a fraction of a second at most. The FACT is that our computers are constantly filtering our pages and images anyway. If you use an anti-virus system (McAfee for example) your computer checks the sites validity and content without you even having time to realise that it has happened. No matter what the vested interests tell you, ISP filtering will not slow down the internet in a noticable way.

Stainless Steel Rat

12 Dec 2008 6:51pm

WakandaMan

12 Dec 2008 6:52pm

Can all of you guys complaining about the potential slowdown as a result of the filtering please get a clue? The government initiative has been done very cleverly- they have trialled a lot of different filtering products, and found one that reduces the speed by only %2. Even the most hardcore gamer (or pirate) has to agree that is negligible- you're not even going to notice the difference. Meanwhile the benefits are massive. Not only will it actually help to protect the innocence of young children (which is being lost earlier and earlier in our society) but it will aslo save schools, libraries and other educational institutions massive amounts of money and time as they must put in filtering on their networks at the moment. And it's not going to keep anyone from accessing material if they still want to either. The governement is doing something good for our country, and you lot are only concerned about yourselves. Why am I so surprised? Think about the greater good for a change and get your facts straight.

Sticky

12 Dec 2008 6:52pm

Finally, in responding to the many comments on the blog to date (over 900 to date), there are a lot of comments related to the issue of ISP filtering. As we indicated in our introductory page, we plan to blog about this issue and respond to many of the issues you�ve already raised in the comments in an upcoming post and welcome anyone who has anything new to add to topic to respond to that thread." Until this issue is buried there seems little point in discussing 'other' issues.

Brad

12 Dec 2008 6:33pm

Is it possible that those who oppose internet filtering could be completely honest about their true opposition. That is it will limit their access to free and plentiful smut! With great freedom comes great responsibilty. There is a price worth paying to protect our chidlren (and ourselves even though we may not acknowledge it) and if that price is something as insignificant as a slower internet speed then what is the problem? If you object to the inernet filtering and you have small children shame on you!

alexolife

12 Dec 2008 6:37pm

I can't say it any better than anybody else here already has, so I'll just repeat what I said in my letter to my local member. The ISP-side filtering plan yields exactly zero benefit to anybody in any way, except that it gives the Government arbitrary control over what we access on OUR Internet. The Minister's comment likening advocates of freedom of speech to child porn enthusiasts was disgusting and offensive. Child porn is distributed through peer-to-peer file sharing, and blocking the IP addresses of so-called "child porn websites" (along with whatever else the Government deems "inappropriate") will do nothing to prevent it, let alone bring the perpetrators to justice, let alone protect the children involved. Surely this is an opportunity for the Rudd Labor Government to set itself apart from the Howard Coalition Government by swallowing its pride and backing down from what is clearly an ineffective, costly and divisive policy.

TK

12 Dec 2008 7:54pm

I am in favour of the ISP filtering. its about time.

bob crawshaw

12 Dec 2008 7:57pm

"we wonder if it is possible for the main focus of the debate to broaden out to consider issues relating to how the Government blogs and to the digital economy�" First rule of the blogosphere. The comment-ee is not bound by what the comment-or wants to focus on.

Lyn

12 Dec 2008 7:58pm

Sam's 1, 2 and 3 are pretty spot on, though 3 will be difficult given the length of time moderation is taking. Assuming the reason moderation is taking ages is that the response is bigger than expected, it's common blogging practice to post an update at the end of the original entry. That way, you can at least acknowledge some comments along the way to let people know you're paying attention. Otherwise, people feel like they're talking to thin air, which defeats the purpose and exacerbates the impression you don't care what anyone things about the clean feed. It would be nice to know who we're talking to. Even an invented author name would help. Mr Government. Conroy's Cat. Even better, someone whose head we'll see on telly from time to time. Ministers' names wouldn't be terribly convincing. Of course, if you really want to get down to business you have to deal with the big issue first. There's no point trying to look as if you're interested in what people have to say if you're going to ignore the issue they want to talk about. Unfortunately, if you're going ahead with the clean feed, the game's over.

Jez

12 Dec 2008 8:02pm

I can't help but wonder how far $84b would go in additional police and specialist law enforcement teams that actively take down these sites and the people that set them up, rather than just adding the url to a 'bad' list. You will not solve this issue with a blanket approach, which is akin to burying your head in the sand - just because we can no longer see it, doesn't mean the problem's solved. And before someone starts with the "won't someone think of our children" argument, what about the children in the porn - we could do a lot more for them if we backed law enforcement with actual resources to find these children and take out the bastards that abuse them. On another note, we keep talking about the impact on broadband speeds, but what about the do the 8-10% of people still on dial up, unable to access and/or afford broadband outside of metro areas?

Dean C

12 Dec 2008 8:03pm

"The overwhelmingly response seems that government blogging is a good thing". No - the overwhelming response is that your proposed censorship is going to be your downfall. Hire some better spin-doctors. This post is a pitifully transparent attempt at further ignoring the issue and insulting our intelligence. You're incompetent Conroy. You've blown it.

Jenna Fox

12 Dec 2008 8:04pm

You can be individuals while standing up for what you believe in. Find the members of your group who really do believe in the issues at hand, then they can be passionate and agree with the official stance at the same time. Taking this even further, we don't want to see this fake government in agreement. Politics needs to change to let us see it's gruesome innards... some day. One step at a time. We want to know who we're talking to, and we can smell the deception and 'group thinking' a mile away. :)

Brad - Gold Coast

12 Dec 2008 8:06pm

Firstly - to the other "Brad" who posted on the 12/12/08 that people against the filter all just enjoy smut, mate get a life. It's not the smut that people are annoyed about, it's the whole Network slowing down! Here are my points on this issue The idea is so flawed I don't know where to start. 1. It doesn't actually stop anything. The people making the rubbish in the first place that the government claims that this will stop aren't being stopped at all...that's where the $$$ from this should be spent. The idea that it's going to stop all of this is just not right. It's just filtering it from our view to make us think that the world is a wonderful place where we Aussie can see and do no wrong. Focus on the people out there making the illegal stuff and that would be a more effective stop! 2. The filter could be bypassed with the simplest of technologies such as a VPN to an external country. They are free and they do exist! I don't think the aussie government is implimenting this technology all over the world so, it's only a short period of time before word gets out on how to get around this, and it's money burnt. Labor has an excellent way of doing that too. I think the term "In the black" is forgien to the Labor government. 3. How about a communications minister that actually knows a bit about 21st Century commuincations? Or is this too much to ask for? 4. Put the responsibility of governing childeren using there home internet services back onto the parents. The current party in power is trying to make Australia a "nanny state" whereby people need to be told how to and what they can do for everything. Internet, how many drinks I can have, seems a little unfair when I am my own person in a free country (So I thought) and I make my own choices... Why not invests the money back into the community to compulsory lessons to parents about computers? There is an option. Then show them how to use a net filter and show them some good practices such as placing your PC in an area whereby the person using it is well supervised? Personally I have 3 kids, so I am concerned about influences that are on the internet but I am a IT Professional so I have an unfair advantage over other parents in this area. As such my kids if they want to use the internet do it in the loungeroom where I can see them. One actually found YouTube the other day, I told her "No" and took away the Laptop. Simple and effective. She doesn't visit YouTube anymore. How many parents have done that.. heaps I would say. I use filters to stop unwanted website which YouTube got added to. Simple. Not that I don't trust my kids, as they know they loose the use of the Computer if they don't listen, but so that if they Google something and a YouTube link is shown, it doesn't work. Simple, effective parenting. People who can't do this (re - Brad who posted earlier -The government isn't your babysitter) just shouldn't and their kids using computers. 5. Australia's internet is sub-standard by international measures, and you want to slow it down some more. Great idea..Stoneage anyone? reference my 3rd point as it seems to play a bit part in this point. 6. The blacklist... so how many opposite websites are going on this one Rudd and crew? Wonder if one does manage to get on their how long it would take to get the site removed from the blacklist. Doesn't matter how much you hide it, if you impliment it, the ISP will leak what is on it for sure. Why? Cause the Australian ISP also think this idea is the most stupid thing that has occurred for some time now. They want to trial it just to prove a point that it's stuffed. 7. Lastly, bet none of this makes it to the offical Government blog... which is why I am going to post it here and the other sites which are also showing feedback around Australia. If people want to see opinions, www.whirlpool.net.au which is the Australian Broadband Forum. It shows that the community which I am part of and know a lot about, and are no fans of what is proposed. Australia, your Internet if this goes in, is going to be 100% stuffed.

Jay

12 Dec 2008 8:08pm

Brad, yeah sweet thats right brother. let your government raise your children, If you support the Government filtering you should be ashamed for not supervising your kids. Let them rent porno do you? whats the difference?

oldefellah

12 Dec 2008 8:09pm

It's not hard to interpret the general gist of the blogs so far and I'll be absolutely gobsmacked if the government taes them into consideration if and when a decision is taken on whatever it is they are supposed to be deciding. Just fixing the broadband dinosaur would do for starters. How much more mucking around is needed on this?

elmato

12 Dec 2008 8:09pm

Please dont mention 'get a clue' and 'affect gamers' in the same spiel. We are talking about filtering html traffic.

texinick

12 Dec 2008 8:24pm

To response to WakandaMan and Oh Come On: Are you 100% certain of what you are saying? What do you know that every other IT/Web professional that is posting here doesn't? For every page you load, the filter is going to parse that and check to see if any word is in the filter's blacklist, that's the easy bit. If you read the reports on the filter testing, the slowdown measured was BETWEEN 2% and 86%, it wasn't based on one filter package causing 2% slowdown and another 86%. The problem is the type & amount of content. I can guarantee you that image heavy pages/sites will be affected by more than a 2% slowdown. Analysing the text on a page is quick and easy. analysing pictures, flash animations and videos is not. Aside from the slow down, one of the key points in this whole argument, is that filtering is NOT GOING TO STOP THE material that we're being told it will. As for Brad's comment: You have got to be kidding me!? I will filter my children's internet usage. I will not be told what I, as a 41 year old adult, can and can't view. This is not about whether I view 'smut' or not.. and if I do.. so what?? Do you watch horror movies that involve death and mutilation?? I am a web programmer/web host. The filter is going to cause me a lot of problems in my day to day business.

SeekTheTruth

12 Dec 2008 8:42pm

Well said WakandaMa, Oh Come on & others! The speed loss is negligible. Even if there is a temporary very small drop in speed, this is a small price to pay for protecting children and women. There is a lot of hype and misinformation in the media about this at the moment - mostly put out by the porn trade and movements like GetUp who obviously have vested interests. They also ignore the fact that the United Kingdom and Sweden have voluntary ISP filtering which has been adopted by virtually the entire industry in those countries, without the loss of freedom of speech or internet speed, and it has proved effective. It is far from a waste of money or idiotic, as some suggest. These people obviously do not have kids. For those over 18 who choose such a lifestyle, legal porn will still be available by opt in, so this is not even an issue for them. It is true that peer-to-peer and vpn networking will not be blocked, but most families and children do not use these anyway. So ISP filtering is not even an issue for them either. It is naive to think that ISP filtering will stop freedom of speech. No one is being stopped from viewing anything legal. If you want legal porn you can get it! (If you want illegal porn such as child porn, then you have a serious problem and need to seek help.) It is like saying that speed limits are an infringement of our freedom. We may not always like them, but they are there for the betterment and protection of society. So with ISP filtering. Our politicians can scrutinise ACMA and any blacklists to ensure free speech is not impeded by the plan to block porn. It offers benefits of protection for those who are wanting it for their children and homes. Agreed, this filtering will not bring perpetrators of child porn to justice or necessarily help the victims, but maybe it will stop someone from getting into porn, who once addicted (yes it has been proven porn is an addiction - google it!), may end up in child porn. It all starts somewhere! How about thinking of our 'responsibilities' to the future generation, rather than just our selfish 'rights'. We expect the government to provide clean drinking water - it is our choice whether we want to drink the clean water or to drink polluted water. At least we start with the clean water. It is better to have healthy people to start with, rather than trying to heal those ill from the polluted water. Well done to the government for this initiative.

CraigT

12 Dec 2008 8:47pm

Actually some blogs are written by teams - but with very clear voices. Looking at government blogs in the UK, US and NZ, even though they are written by public servants, they are written as coming from real people, not at faceless bureaucrats. This is critical for a blog to be seen in a positive rather than a negative light. It's the difference between speaking to a voice response system and a human being on the phone. The best advice I can offer for your department for blogging is to do lots of it. Blogging, like any other skill, is honed by practice, not simply by book learning. It is possible to be controversial and thought-provoking without crossing the APSC code of conduct, and it is possible to express contrary views respectfully without acting contrary to departmental interests.

CraigT

12 Dec 2008 8:51pm

Why not simply use one of the public blogging platforms such as blogger or Wordpress? These are good enough for the US government to use, why not for your blog?

Ashamed Australian

13 Dec 2008 10:25am

The Labor party is a disgrace. Conroy is a disgrace and should resign, period. If you think you can bring in the most intrusive censorship in the world, you are very much mistaken. People will not tolerate this. Parenting is for the parents, not the state! If you need too justify your position, do something useful, RESIGN. If you do not take notice of the protests tomorrow, then Australians can only come to the conclusion, you represent a dictatorship. Shame on you Conroy.

texinick

13 Dec 2008 10:26am

In response to SeekTheTruth: The difference is that in the UK the filter is voluntary. In Australia, I believe they are proposing TWO levels, of which one is MANDATORY. It is the mandatory one that is of concern. It has already been said that this blacklist will contain 'objectionable' material.. but who is to decide what is objectionable? Whose to say that talk about abortion, homosexuality or euthanasia won't be blacklisted? How is THAT constructive? Let's just sweep it all under the carpet and forget it all exists? Way to go! I DO have kids, and I AM capable of filtering what they can and can't view. There are already very good filters out there for parents to download if need be. If most of the child pornography is already going via peer to peer, as you correctly mentioned, what is the point in this filter at all? This is about the taxpayers money being used to 'hide' something that most people wouldn't see anyway (in your own words about most families not using peer to peer). The spam checking that our ISP's do on our email is not capable of being 100% correct, so how can a filter expected to be on all our web traffic? Mandatory blacklist: Today, illegal porn. Tomorrow, who knows? But it all starts somewhere right?

texinick

13 Dec 2008 10:27am

Now to be completely ON topic, for a change... Depending on what you are trying to achieve, a blog may or may not be the right tool. Personally, I find that a blog is generally for telling a group of interested people about what you are doing, predominantly for a one-way discussion. Comments can be left, but it's very hard to have, or follow, a discussion. If you wish to engage with the public, and are genuinely interested in hearing what they have to say, then maybe a forum is a better solution. In this way, discussions can be had between both the department and other respondents. The additional benefits of a forum, are that people are generally required to register prior to submitting posts, which then gives you the ability to look into the demographics that are contributing.

random 1850's citizen

13 Dec 2008 10:28am

umm so is senator Conroy amish? No one wants the filter, remember Net Alert? (No one downloaded it...) Child porn is already illegal and there is plenty being done about it (watch the news). To those who say the speed loss is negligible, the filters that damaged internet speed the least were the most ineffective.

Kjic

13 Dec 2008 10:30am

Just another waste of tax payers money to appease the religious and moral police I pay for net security so do most people I think it is about time we questioned the roll religion plays in our day to day life because it is a monopoly on life and death that costs us at every turn, what sort of snoop power are going to come with the filtering? Bad enough the power these people have now because the last government chose to go to war with the Islamic belief after disarming the country! Another Christian soldier Howard with another ploy to stay in power and we didn�t even have a say in it, some Spanish delegate signed on behalf of the monarchy. We let people who run our country give us moral guidance that believe in belief and we have seen what they have done through history, to send our mothers fathers and children to war for a belief not a fact, these are supposedly intelligent and sane? Lol If all these politicians are our brightest and the best our country can offer why the financial crisis? They use Christian groups or any other group mentality to launch them to power, family first party, what next the Sharia party, the way it�s going I vote the biker party in let the fun begin! All the filtering won�t stop predators stalking chats or sites like face book or you tube, they will just go underground. I am a consenting adult and if I want to surf for porn I will, my toy and I will play with it all I want lol if the government had any sense they would have an easy access sites you could report any suspect sites to and I have seen a few, not every person is a holly roller but we all know what is appropriate behavior. I have two children and have managed to raise them without harm through any internet or warped perception of what is or is not, that is why we have laws. If anything all of this filtering is just another grab at control another way they might squeeze another dollar out of us in the future, access charge lol. I tell you what, if you want to be filtered have a filtered feed and an unfiltered feed and charge all those who want the filter the money it cost for the stupid idea.

skindoc4

13 Dec 2008 10:32am

Censorship V Child pornography. The reality is that Censorship will cause much greater harm than the Internet transfer of Child pornorgraphy, even if it were possible to prevent. The experts, if you would listen to them, keep telling you that no amount of filtering will prevent the transfer of content, yet damage legitimate use of the internet.. Child pornography will be defeated by an attack on the circmstances in which it flourishes, not by this silly attempt to deprive ordinary Australians of a functioning, censorship-free internet. Or is the kind of civil society Mr Conroy would like to see in Australia the kind they have in China where censorship is a way of life at every level?

Miriam Lyons

13 Dec 2008 10:36am

CraigT makes a great point that it's possible for group blogs to have a strong voice - just look at - even the url has personality! And you've got to admit the few posts so far from 'Digital Economy blog team' would pass the Turing test (could use a better handle tho guys - 'Digecon' perhaps?). [[[IMAGINARY

HERE]]]But I'm interested in teasing out this question of whether anyone below department secretary level would ever be able to blog in his or her own name. We might be able to have a useful and engaging conversation with Digecon, but I think most people would get much more of a buzz out of having a conversation with individual public servants - the kind of conversation that is usually reserved for interest groups or those with a more specific claim to 'access' than just being a citizen. When an individual public servant speaks in public it's usually pretty clear whether we're hearing the department's view or their own personal view. How is blogging any different? [[[IMAGINE A

HERE]]]On the other hand, some public servants do develop very public personalities. I know that Treasury Secretary Ken Henry cares about the future of the hairy-nosed wombat, for example. Is that a breach of the APS code? It's a matter of public record that he's personally passionate about intergenerational policy thinking. Does that compromise the APS value of providing 'impartial' advice? And if, like me, you think the answer is 'no', then why would the answer change for anyone further down the departmental hierarchy? [[[ANOTHER

HERE]]]No department is homogenous - like the rest of us, public servants see the world through a frame which is shaped by their own experience and by those around them...memes spread through departments, probably relying as much on social networks and charisma to spread as they do on inter-office communiques. It strikes me that the challenge public servants face in negotiating the blurring boundaries between public and private, objective advice and subjective opinion, is a lot like the challenge that journalists are facing. Some savvy journalists (Margaret Simons comes to mind) manage to play their traditional role of public-interest informer while also acknowledging personal biases and commenting on the changing nature of the role itself. I wonder what a Margaret-Simons-equivalent would look like on a government blog? Probably something like Andrew Leigh if he ever got to start blogging again...

Stainless Steel Rat

13 Dec 2008 10:38am

Seekthetruth it would be nice if you actually spoke the truth. 87% is not an insignificant speed reduction, few ISPs in Europe have adopted these filters and the filters won't stop one case of child abuse, they will however push such material even further underground than it already is. As to the AMCA blacklist not being used to filter out anything else, Mr Conroy stated "unwanted" content, unwanted by whom? As the blacklist is secret how can we know what is on it? Rather than wasting money on something that will not work, use it to fund the AFP who seem to be able to catch those that need to be caught.

NonSequitur

13 Dec 2008 10:42am

Well, it didn't take long for this blog to turn into an incoherent mess. Every tech expert in the country is against filtering, and anyone who says anything supporting filtering at a technical level really just doesn't have their facts straight. They are ignorantly pushing their agenda and beliefs onto people who don't want them. I would prefer to be able to look after my children how I see fit, not how the government, or any religious group tells me I should. Leave the rest of us alone and use a home based filter that won't slow down the internet, break banking encryptions, block legitimate content and cost the taxpayer millions upon millions of dollars.

Klaw

13 Dec 2008 10:43am

@SeekTheTruth: It is clear that you have no idea about what is proposed or how the internet works. You claim that "peer-to-peer and vpn networking will not be blocked, but most families and children do not use these anyway" but the truth is that young people are the biggest users of P2P networks and that P2P traffic accounts for more than half of all internet traffic. You also claim that "No one is being stopped from viewing anything legal" but the proposal clearly calls for both illegal and "unwanted" content to be filtered. Euthanasia discussion sites and gambling sites are already in the firing line and they are NOT illegal. Furthermore, ACMA can add any sites they deem "unwanted" without warning, without trial, without recourse and without notice. If you want filtered content in your home, go ahead! The Government has a free program for you to install. Your family will be safe from the nasties...unless they use P2P of course. But don't force your own morality and values on every Australian citizen or defend this absurd, ineffective and unwarranted policy.

Truetejas

13 Dec 2008 11:24am

I read about your proposed internet filter in the New York Times (I live in Texas) and was compelled to comment on this "blog". I'll resist my temptation to respond to this at length and just offer a few points I think should be considered as one small group of people wish to control the actions of a great many. 1. Freedom is about the ability of an individual to make choices. Censorship (filtering) removes choices and thus restricts freedom. Is this really the path a free people want to take? 2. Your government asks "How do we maintain the same 'civil society' we enjoy offline in an online world?". The short answer is that no society in history has been completely civil and to think regulating the internet via filters will curb access to uncivil content is absurd. Pornographic pictures can be embedded in almost any type of file. Free speech was never meant to be "civil" and the internet is a perfect vehicle for freedom of expression (at least up till now). 3. If your digital economy is truly the focus of all of this, and if, as admitted by Senator Conroy, 3% of all internet traffic is unjustly trapped in the proposed filter, then you are reducing any economic benefit the internet may have by that same 3%. Making the pie smaller just doesn't seem like a good idea. I have no doubt that the proposed concept of filtering internet content is well intentioned, but it is a draconian solution that is doomed to failure. The best way of curbing illicit material on the internet is by controlling its source. First define what is illicit, next, force the sites with that content to operate on a fixed block of designated bandwidth, and finally regulate that block of URLs. Interestingly enough, that very proposal was voted down by ICANN (see here at ). In closing allow me to quote from an old Chinese proverb: "You can't teach a pig to sing. Its impossible, and, it annoys the pig." . Translation: "You can't legislate morality. Its impossible, and, it annoys the voters." . Note: I made up the Chinese part ;-)

NullDevice

13 Dec 2008 10:48am

Would it be too much to ask that you use real blogging software that doesn't make us look like uneducated, semi-literate idiots? The lack of paragraphs is detracting badly from readablility.

tryittoo03

13 Dec 2008 10:50am

A feedback forum is a gesture. Whether it is more than an empty gesture of "virtuous openness" where in fact experience and real knowledge from the community carries little weight, remains to be seen. I am not hopeful when we see our politicians still so in love with aggressive cliches of Protection, Security and Pious moral virtue. We have had the last decade to ponder its many toxic consequences, but its shameless peddlers have shown little interest in ceasing to do harm or questioning their own behaviour. I teach elementary computing in the community to struggling beginners with their computers and the internet. They certainly do need to know how to be prudent and "savvy", and make sound judgments; and they often are using old computers that barely cope with their security software. The people I teach are not helpless or passive and they do learn to deal with their IT environment. As I see things, the ISP filtering plan not a solution to anything, except as propaganda and political theater.

Joffa

13 Dec 2008 10:54am

Please - no internet filtering, no meddling with our rights and freedom to choose. Let law enforcement agencies continue to investigate and charge those that do break the law that this filtering is supposedly going to stop (but never will).

smokey

13 Dec 2008 6:57pm

"We hear you..."? Drop the filter and then I'll believe you. Why is it that with such overwhelming opposition to this from all sectors of society you seem to have dug in stubbornly and pretty well slapped your hands over your ears. There's no face to be saved from this one, you've gone too far down the path of not listening. We were led to believe you actually knew something about cyberspace in the election, now we find you're about as smart as a self absorbed neanderthal. BTW I voted for you in the election, I'll be voting Greens next time.

VampirZ

13 Dec 2008 7:04pm

There are a number of problems that have been highlighted in this blog regarding the implementation and use of an ISP filtering program. Apart from the fact that this is yet another form of censorship that the greater population does not want, there are many technical hurdles and problems that will be generated by use of such technology.

A filter such as this has already been shown to reduce available bandwith, limiting an already slow medium when compared with other nations such as china and america. We at least need for broadband technology to further develop and for speeds to increase for this filter not to create a greater impact on current speeds.

While I can understand the wish to limit the availability of inappropriate content being able to be accessed by children, this is and should remain the domain of the parent(s). We have a ratings system in place for media content (just don't get me started on the gaming ratings system), and while this cannot be applied to the internet, this is where programs such as Net Nanny come into their own, and while still a falable program, they provide the first level of defence for our children.

The government should devote the time and money to be spent on an ISP filter technology into research and development of a home user program that can filter and prevent children gaining access to inappropriate content. I speak from the view of a parent who works with computers all day and can see the various pitfalls that will doom the current outlook. I have software on my PC's that has this ability and am also able to lock down the program so that my children cannot disable/change the settings. Ok, it doesn't always get it right, but that combined with me keeping an eye on my child's use of the computer (it is in the loungeroom) severely limits this content from being provided to them.

Phoneboy

13 Dec 2008 7:10pm

pacifist

13 Dec 2008 7:16pm

Who on earth really thought through with an understanding of all the concepts and thought this scheme was a good or feasible idea?

There are a multitude of fundamental reasons why this is a terrible idea, on many wildy varying fronts including technical, financial and societal.

- As a technologist I'll lay out now, there is *NO* technical way you can block bad content being on the internet; it was designed to be decentralized and resistant to attack and though it's less decentralized than it once was there is still no way you can filter successfully; see 'WASTE'(encrypted peer to peer) VPN(virtual private networking - encrypted links), freeNet(see wikipedia) and many others, worse, it seems that no less than 3% of legitimate websites *will* currently be blocked; that's a *HUGE* number, and unlike connection troubles you wont be able to simply try and reload the page.. the legitimate page will *never* work. Good going.

- The ridiculous expense that will be incurred as a result of this disaster will destroy parts of a budget that might actually subsidize the future of the children you wish to protect; see climate change, it's a much greater threat, and you'll actually achieve something spending that budget on renewables.

-This filtering scheme can't stop bad stuff from being on the internet, but it indeed it will certainly also be used in some cases to block or attack something legitimate; not neccesarily by the government rather by third parties, I'm not being a conspiracy theorist; simply by people using an anonymous connection through TOR people could upload child porn to a legitimate site (wikipedia? a comment on blogs/smh?) and get the legitimate page blocked, all with the filter doing nothing to stop it, but the filter doing everything to enable the attack. Additionally as others have mentioned, is free speech on abortion or euthanasia going to be blocked?... because that is certainly something it should not be doing. I'm sure some of the closed-minded un-tech-savy groups that pushed for this burden want that, but the internet is the best place for free speech. Are we to become as 'free' as China?

- In the end nothings changed from five years ago, it's the place of the parents to raise their children, not the government, having it implement something like this is just... frankly an horrific waste of funds... and enough to have me convinced I shouldn't vote for Rudd next time round despite all his other good work.

This farce has to stop; it'll be doing great damage, and despite it being unlikely to work, if they magically fix the kinks and it does, that'll be a greater sin than if it doesn't.

paul walter

13 Dec 2008 7:18pm

The pro-filterites just don't "get" it, yet. If you can filter out one type of material , you filter out other types, eg politics, religious, philosphy etc. If you don't want the kids at your computer, put your PERSONAL internal filtering in!!
But don't let them use ' teh pron' as an excuse for Chinese style censor ship capabilities.
They couldn't be trusted over Haneef and the security laws and they ( one lot or the other in government ), will ( eventually ) be tempted to misuse increased censorship in a similarly self-seeking way, if an issue allows them to self- deceive sufficiently.

Slatts

13 Dec 2008 7:40pm

Politicians can't stand the fact they can't control that internet thingy, so they'll do whatever some snakeoil-selling "IT expert" tells them will bring the net to heel. Ain't gonna happen stupid. And all you're going to do is p*** off a lot of people who might otherwise have voted for your party. I can just hear them: "Yeah, Senator Conroy, the doofus whose main achievement as telecommunications minister was to introduce stupid filters that reduced the net to tractor speed." And don't give us that crap about protecting kids. Rockspiders will get around your pathetic filters - they operate PtoP, anyway. Another politician once justified draconian measures against liberty because they were in the interests of children. He said: �The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.� His name? Adolf Hitler.

After Grog Blog

13 Dec 2008 7:45pm

Internet filtering? Like, LOL, dude.

Richie

13 Dec 2008 7:56pm

I am a 27 year old male from Melbourne. I don�t have children but I would like to one day so I care about their welfare very much. In this letter, I would like to express concern over the proposed �internet filter�.

First and foremost it can�t be guaranteed that a child will not be able to view harmless material after the implementation of this filter because as the government tests have shown, harmless material still gets through.

Secondly, blocking pornographic websites will do little to hamper paedophiliac behaviour as most of them use other internet methods such as chat rooms and computer to computer transmissions to target children (so I have read). A website filter will do nothing to stop this behaviour.

These are the two main reasons why the Government�s proposed filter is fundamentally flawed. The whole purpose of the filter would be to stop children accessing pornographic material and to stop paedophile activity. As you can see, neither of these things is guaranteed. Also, there are ways to get around internet filters on an individual machine if the child is any good with computers.

Other reasons why the proposed �filter� should be banned:

1) Slows down the internet between 2 and 87% (results of Government tests)

2) Parents should play a more active role in their children�s lives, not a less active one. By implementing a filter, parents will be lured into a false sense of security about their children�s safety.

3) Legitimate sites will be blocked (shown in Government tests). For example a site that provides educational material about breast cancer may be blocked because it contains the word �breast�.

4) Slow down legitimate web activity e.g. commercial and educational websites, making Australia the laughing stock of the world. Slow internet speeds and blocked legitimate websites could also have negative effects on our economy if our internet does not perform on par with other countries.

5) So far, millions upon millions of dollars have been spent on this internet filter that will not work at the most basic level. Please stop squandering our hard earned money.

Australia already has slow internet compared with other countries. Whatever happened to the high-speed fibre-to-node internet network promised by Kevin Rudd in his speeches in the run up to the election? Would that not be a better option to spend all these millions of dollars on?

Let�s make our country more competitive and at the forefront of internet technology. I would like to be proud of Australia�s internet network, not embarrassed. Internet censorship should be done in the home through education and supervision.

Our Government has a huge responsibility and with responsibility comes power. Please Mr Conroy, do not abuse this power and do what is right for the citizens of Australia.

Take our country into the 21st century not back to the dark ages.

Greg Tannahill

13 Dec 2008 7:59pm

This post is a step in the right direction!
Group blogs can work but it needs to be clear who's speaking. Perhaps a link on the right that says "Who are the communications blog team?" with some info. It's inevitable that those people are going to take some personal abuse from the less polite commentors, and while that kind of abuse is not acceptable behaviour it's an inevitable part of the process, and contributes to what makes online discussion so passionate and lively. The benefits of showing some personality outweigh the drawbacks.

nick_f_93

13 Dec 2008 8:02pm

It is clear to me that you have absolutely no idea of what you're talking about Senator Conroy. Internet Censorship will NOT work. In fact, I can get through my school's filter in less than 30 seconds through proxies, and I can do the same with your proposed Clean Feed. I can also use a VPN at home, which can bypass any filter you put in place. By using a VPN, I can get uncensored access of the internet from the United States, and it's gives me complete anonymity, meaning neither the government or my ISP can see or control what I see and download. This will slow the internet down enormously, and this is proven by an ACMA report when tests were done in Tasmania. None of the tested filters were successful, but the one that only slowed down speed by 2% was the most inaccurate. None of the filters were very accurate at all. The filter won't stop P2P or Bit Torrent programs, as the filter can only block websites and those in other countries can email .torrent files to people here, and are able to download illegal content. Filters cannot block P2P traffic as filters cannot block the flow of information from one computer to another. Kevin Rudd promised us faster internet access, but that hasn't happened, has it? We still have slow speeds here, and Regional and Rural areas suffer the most. The filter you are proposing will chuck that promise out the window for fast internet access around Australia. There was a phone poll on Sunrise a month ago and a majority said no to internet censorship. Senator Conroy, check it out on YouTube and se how many people don't like your idea. Australia prides itself on being a democratic nation but people like you and SA Attorney General Michael Atkinson ruin that reputation. This topic on Internet Censorship is right up there next to the R18 Game Classification. We have rights, and we don't need people like you and Michael Atkinson telling us what to do. It was bad enough under a Conservative Government.

wj32

13 Dec 2008 8:45pm

The Internet is a free world and will always be controlled by the users. You politicians have absolutely no knowledge of how the Internet works and clearly aren't users of the Internet.

What is "illegal content" defined as? What is the point of laws or censorship in the Internet if no one wants them or respects them? What is the point if people can easily bypass this using things like Tor? What is the point of blocking "illegal content" that is spread through P2P networks?

wj32

13 Dec 2008 8:47pm

And also... what's this blog about? Is it about the government using blogs or is it about the strongly opposed internet censorship plan? How about you give us some responses to our concerns instead of posting useless nonsense about "government blogging"?

Scott Kilmartin

13 Dec 2008 8:57pm

Minister Conroy,

Your internet censorship initiative has fatal flaws, it simply will not work. Please abandon it immediately.
Regards
Scott Kilmartin
CEO haul 03 9486 7810 City of Melbourne Business of the Year 2008
http://www.b3000.org.au/winners_2008.html

Haggis

13 Dec 2008 8:59pm

the govt should pursue achievable targets, not some dolally bullshit feelgood rubbish that wont work anyway; unless the govts aim is to piss people off. Now thats working

Adrian

13 Dec 2008 9:03pm

Get over it! Anything that can be done by the government to protect children from the rubbish that the porn network and similar want to inflict on our children should be supported! Adults can adapt to their needs, but children may never recover from the trauma. Let the government do what it has to do, even if it doesn't fix all the loopholes - just make it harder for those who peddle porn!

Learnscape

13 Dec 2008 9:18pm

There is no need to try and filter the net when education is the way to go. Use the money for filtering on developing an education approach for adults and children.

Tony Eleninovski

13 Dec 2008 10:16pm

Most people here fail to acknowledge that the Internet is not a playground for kids, which is the preferred platform the government is using to debate the merits of its social controls and censorship. The Internet is for everyone. Why do the majority of people for whom the internet is used for sacrifice their liberties? Why isn't the debate rather shifted to whether children should even be allowed to access the Internet. Why should the Internet have an 18+ ban applied "at the source" for everyone involved? Educate the parents. Don't patronize the Australian public on what we can and cannot access, arguing that our kids should be an example to us all.

Anna

14 Dec 2008 11:16am

The proposal is unworkable and doomed to fail.

david

14 Dec 2008 11:17am

Mr. Conroy, I have no doubt that your heart is in the right place - you wish to protect Australians from the blight of internet exploitation of minors among other evils. However, it's a slippery slope you wish to lead us down. As you are no doubt aware, outside China a search on the words "Tiananmen Square" will provide 1,180,000 hits, the majority of which relate to the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters. Inside China the same search yields less than 300 hits, all of which are officially sanctioned historical or tourist sites, none of which mention the massacre that the government continues to deny to it's citizens. Is this kind of censorship the path you wish to lead Australia down, in the name of "doing the right thing?" I won't even go into the technical issues, but you must be aware by now that filtering HTTP sites will not prevent those intent on obtaining illegal material from doing so. That fact raises suspicions that you really have an ulterior motive, that of making sure that the technologically illiterate (who tend to use HTTP as their only conduit for internet access) are to be restricted for dictatorial political purposes. Do you really want to be remembered in history as "Conroy the Communist"?

jaccerz

14 Dec 2008 11:20am

im 25, i dont need a government to decide what is safe or not safe for me to view on the internet. Instead of implimenting a stupid filter, why dont you educate the parents of the children who are looking at the porn that the government feels it needs to block. Teach them to take their kids tothe park or go play outside instead of sitting them infront of a computer. like duh

Windtorn

14 Dec 2008 11:22am

Moderation is a funny term as it can many things to many people. Yes I am definately against child endangerment and exploitation, but censorship will not solve this problem nor will it go away. Censorship is purely about forcing anothers viewpoint on what is right onto another, and while I hate to do this but didn't a certain German do this once when he forced others to burn some old books??? As an adult, as a rate payer, as a tax payer I do not remember voting for any form of censorship. i would also remind people that isn't it funny that as a current young Australian we do not have the same right to watch tv shows that our elder Australians watched when growing up - in particular number 96 which would not be shown in the same time slot as it is way too racy for the younger generations. Again no to censorship as there is always another way.

John

14 Dec 2008 11:23am

It's good to see the Labor-Rudd government honouring it's pre-election promise. This policy is one of the reasons I voted for Labor. It's of imperative importance that a safe environment on the internet is provided for all Australians; especially the children who reguarly access the internet but their parents lack the technical know-how to setup internet filtering software. This is also a great initiatve by the government as it shows pre-emptiveness when it comes to dealing with crime; by eradicating potential sources of information which can be used to harm others. Excellent work Conroy and Rudd! Remember, a few internet-freaks may be disappointed but the majority of Australian families support this move to secure the internet.

Net User

14 Dec 2008 11:27am

Not1 viable reason has been provided as to why the majority of net users are to be severley penalised for the so called protection of a very few. This is a strictly political decision to make it harder for the majority of the population to find out the truth. Note the sites banned will not be named. ,andthe whole idea of high speed internet goes down the drain and all without consultation with the end users.SHAME

saraswati

14 Dec 2008 11:29am

Hi Senator Conroy I have no concerns at all if you chose to provide an opt-in filter to parents. That way if parents chose not to have their children view certain material, that's their choice. However I am totally opposed to your mandatory filter for a number of reasons. 1) We've been advised that the list of banned sites will be secret. There is therefor no accountability or transparency about what is banned. So we have no way of knowing whether all of the banned sites are actually illegal or not. 2) Barring terrorism issues, it is not ok to ban people based purely on point of view. The idea of banning someone for running an euthanasia website is antithetical to how a free society operates. This issue in combination with the above concerns about a secret list has everyone incredibly worried that this list will creep out to include unpopular political viewpoints. Such a move would mean the beginning of the death of Australia as a free society. 3) I work in an IT department and I know darn well, filters don't work. You can either block something based on objectionable words or skintones or you can block specific urls. In the first instance you will often find that it will block the wrong things. A painting sold for Breast Cancer awareness week will get blocked for the presence of the word "breast" in the title for example. In the second instance, it's incredibly difficult to keep up with people who do the wrong thing because they change their URLs so quickly. I know from experience it takes very little time to register a URL (around a day) and you cannot block them all without spending massive resources that could more effectively spent elsewhere. 4) The government has no business imposing a regime primarily designed to protect children on households where there are no children, only adults. Especially considering your own tests show that these filters slow down speeds between 35 to 80 percent. We're already behind the rest of the world, we don't need to fall further behind. If you really want to spend this money, go out and explain the dangers of cyberspace in plain language to parents. I find myself doing that to my family. I explain to them to watch what their kids are doing, to know who they're on MSN with and to seriously limit the time that they're on to half an hour to an hour a day at most. I also advise them of the more dangerous programs like ICQ that they need to disallow on their pc. These measures and educating parents on an individual level are generally FAR more effective than any technologically based solution. You need to start listening to the technical experts and providing solutions that actually work. Regards Kathleen

phdstudent

14 Dec 2008 11:30am

Please, I beg of you - don't do this. I'm looking forward to a career in criminological research. Without relatively unfettered internet access as we now enjoy, my current Ph.D. would come to nothing. Terrorism laws killed off a lot of good terrorism research - don't do the same to the rest of criminology. I have children, and I think what you need is education for parents. Most parents don't know how to monitor their child's online usage, or have any idea where to start. If you did this, children wouldn't be able to get into situations that they are not ready for.

GR

14 Dec 2008 11:31am

Yes Yes Yes, I have 3 teenagers who have all fallen victum to unintentional porn, ISP filtering is a must, Adults who want this stuff can OPT IN. easy as that. I hear wireless broadband will be up to 21mbps, so any marginal slowdown by a filture will not be notice even while downloading video Posted by Phoneboy / 13 Dec 2008 12:44pm / Permalink Hate to tell you Phoneboy, but they are teenagers... You may not want to believe it but chances are it wasn't unintentional that they were looking at porn!

Lewis

14 Dec 2008 11:32am

@Adrian: You are putting forward the idea that putting this filter in wont fix "all" the loopholes. The fact is that it wont fix any! I'm still in school (which means I'm under 18 whoops not meant to be posting) a very respectable school in Perth, which defiantly has the money to impose a very secure and up-to date Content Keeper. Yet even the the not so brightly light bulbs can still get around it by simply opening a program and waiting 10 seconds. The filter will not shelter anyone. If you are a responsible parent get some courage up and discuss the issues you are putting forward take some responsiblity as a parent not let the government baby your children or take the over controlling parent route and put up a filter I.e. Norton which will probably make them curious and lead them to the stuff you try but failing to hide from them! Again, i tell you it wont work! If you read nick_f_93's post it will show you why the government is about or already wasted millions of dollars on nothing in an effort to control us. If any one in a position of power is actually reading this please (for use of a better term) pissing my mother and my fathers money into the wind! Yes i have consent to express my opinion on this site!

snabul

14 Dec 2008 11:35am

If something that useless is that expensive, I would take a close look on who is getting the money. You know already who is paying...

Cynic

14 Dec 2008 6:08pm

i think rather than banning porn we should be banning religious sites whom publicly admit to targeting children.

How predatory is that?

Kjic

14 Dec 2008 6:11pm

You think the first internet filter introduced by Howard worth 85 million to service 29,000 that actually used it would be a big enough waste! But no, Rudd wants to spend another bucket load of cash, I would like to know if the people getting paid for the filter are mates of Kev�s, as you would think the money would be better spent on drug and alcohol testing and for mental health for those who run our country and for those who can�t properly raise their children, that need the government to keep them out of harm�s way as our government has such a good record they did such a bang up job of the lost generation and those in governmental care we should appoint them guardians lol maybe they should appoint Mr. Hollingsworth seems he had all the morals needed to be a religious leader and a GG until we all complained. Or even the ones with an addictive gene based on a fairytale. As it must be small mind that thinks we all sit watching porn all day how do we squeeze it in between work as a hookers and porn directors while looking after our children and also writing the many letters in the hope of stopping extreme believers taking yet more of our freedom away, what next make us pray five times a day or be beaten, we know who the sick ones are they already sold their souls to appease their own minds into thinking there is more, get over it being gay is a birth anomaly and we are all accountable for our own actions no easy out clauses, Just sensible approaches with a factual base and hard work.

Ryan Ruckley

14 Dec 2008 6:13pm

I think the real question with this blog is whether the government is going to take on board anything that is said here or is this just a exercise in good publicity to offset the bad caused by the current communications minister?

This blog is all well and good at soliciting feedback from the public but if that feedback does nothing and goes nowhere there may as well not be a blog.

Kev

14 Dec 2008 6:18pm

If this goes ahead, the government will find itself in a perfect storm that will not go away! Once there is a "banned list' in Oz the Chinese will demand that Falun Gong websites be added to it, the Israelis will demand the same of Palestinian sites, the US will want sites critical of it added to it, the food industry will demand same for sites that discuss the additives that go into modern food, do-gooders will want sites for gambling, smoking, fast food & euthanasia added as well. This list will never stop growing and for the polies it will be a never ending headache as every group wants and demands additions to it. Junk the whole concept now before we become an Internet laughing stock!

kkfox78

14 Dec 2008 6:21pm

What is the go with this net censorship stuff? How can seriously think it a good idea? I don't understand your motivation for this move - you know the obvious that IT WILL NOT STOP PEOPLE LOOKING AT PORN AND CHILDREN ONLINE - all filters and whatnot will be got round some how or another if someone is determined... like everything online if some sicko wants to they will find it... only the good stay within set boundaries... And another point is that parents should have more responsibility for what their children see online. That is what you need to promote... responsible use not create a police state with a pathetically slow internet because you think you need to court the vote of working families... I don't understand...

Jim

14 Dec 2008 6:30pm

You're listening?! 73 pages of comments on your first post the majority condemning your proposed net censorship yet you fail to respond in your posts. Doesn't sound like you're listening very well. There were rallies around our capital cities yesterday opposing your filter. Anyone who wants this filter does NOT understand the net. If they did they would realise it is a monumental waste of money and will most likely destroy the AU Internet Industry. We teach our kids to cross the road. We don't get rid of the cars. We need to teach our kids how to use the net.

detspec

14 Dec 2008 7:10pm

I am yet to hear any mention of banned website getting reviewed periodically. If a website removes its "offensive" content, how long should it take before we can view it again?

gurujim

15 Dec 2008 11:15am

One of the strengths of a blog can be the immediacy of the communication - but this would seem problematic when the blog belongs to a Department - for surely then when it comes to responding to comments you are stuck with either regurgitating already public Department policy, or having to convene the appropriate team meetings in order to determine the appropriate response (unless those TV script writers have gotten it all wrong....!!) Most "good" blogs are interesting to the reader because they ARE personal - the author has something NEW, or EXCITING to tell us...and they are open and vulnerable. I guess I'm suggesting that if you want the Department blog to be "good", then you'll need to take more risks than traditional governmental communications generally do. But I applaud the attempt to "walk the walk". Like everyone else though, I wonder if I wouldn't be better heard if I booked a good old face-to-face with my local MP when it comes to critical issues like the filter.

SeekThetruth

15 Dec 2008 11:16am

In response to Stainless Steel Rat: You obviously haven't read the material - 87% reduction was the worst test (but keeps getting spouted). Other successful tests only show a 2% reduction. Like I said - get the truth not the hype. In response to Texinick; if UK ISPs are voluntarily implementing filtering, then that says something. It must be working and of value. As for why filter at all - why do we bother to classify literature and film and prevent certain ages from viewing 'unsuitable' material? Using the same arguement - who decides what is objectional for certain ages? Let's get the parents to do their own classifcation and drop the M and R ratings! It all does start somewhere - but that place does not have to stoop to the lowest common denominator. As for those who fear a moral policing - any civilised society needs to have some form of moral code and base from which to work or there would be chaos. And those chosen moral codes need to be policed one way or another.

Maltease14

15 Dec 2008 11:30am

No To Net Censorship!

We all know the reasons why this is a terrible idea for the future of Australia, so I won't go into them again.

If parents want a filter, create an OPT IN filter, or create and distribute one for them. Do not create filters for those who do not want it.

Chris

15 Dec 2008 1:52pm

As a member of the ALP, and also working in the IT sector, I would like you to know that I oppose your plans for Net Control. Our branch has recently passed a motion that will be debated at State Executive and have also sent a letter from the branch the Minster Conroy. This policy is one of the worst it has been my misfortune to be associated with. Listen to arguments against it and find a political solution that will not cause you too much loss of face.

Ben

15 Dec 2008 11:33am

Senator, the goal of your filter is to block illegal material.

The people accessing such material will have some grasp of internet usage.

You cannot stop people from accessing said illegal material using an anonymity network or peer-to-peer.

Thus your filter is a waste of time and money.

Please divert these funds to real police work.

Glen

15 Dec 2008 11:38am

The majority of Australians didn't vote for the Rudd/Labor party simply to have them shove down our throats that the government-of-the-day (and the independent politicians with agendas of their own who whole the balance-of-power) collectively know better than the parents of Australia what is good for THEIR children.

Past members of my family didn't fight and die for freedom of Australians during the time of World War 2 and axis forces, only to have Australia turn into communist China with draconian and slipshod media censorship at the whim of a politician who doesn't bother to even acknowledge what the industry (which know better than he and all the other politicians on their ivory tower in Canberra) does know: that this will cripple the broadband network of Australia and is as much of a waste of money as what Howard tried years ago to please _yet another lunatic and out-of-touch independent Senator_ (Brian Harradine) who held the balance-of-power then.

Either you listen to the people or you'll see the end of your government when you follow the road of Gough Whitlam after you all stupidly rouse the mainstream apathetic Australians into continuing to give a damn about the state of politics here in our country.

Rohan

15 Dec 2008 11:39am

A team can SO blog! Companies do the 'team blog' thing all the time - just look at the myriad of blogs by Google product management teams! These blogs are informative and useful, so don't feel bad about not being one person. I didn't expect a government blog to be by an individual anyway.

Meg

15 Dec 2008 11:46am

"we wonder if it is possible for the main focus of the debate to broaden out to consider issues relating to how the Government blogs and to the digital economy�"

No, it's not possible, because the intelligent people will realise you are trying to divert their attention from the REAL issue (control of their internet).

It's not YOUR internet, by the way, it's OURS.

So far nobody has come up with a good reason why I should pay good money for a second-or-third-rate service (thanks Telstra) to be turned into a fifth-rate service just to spare parents the burden of supervising their own kids.

Please bear in mind we are already paying a higher price for some of the slowest internet service in the developed (free) world. I type as one of the MAJORITY of Australians living in areas without ADSL2.

Please is it possible for governement to address the corporate blackmail where Telstra will only connect ADSL2 to it's own customers?

Blubber Boy

15 Dec 2008 11:47am

"The overwhelmingly response seems that government blogging is a good thing..."

From what I've read on this blog, the only overwhelmingly response thus far is that blanket internet filtering is a bad idea.

I'd also point out that Sen Conroy's attempt to link filtering opponents to child porn supporters was extremely disappointing from someone who undoubtedly knows better.

Rory

15 Dec 2008 11:49am

I can understand the fact that some citizens of Australia may want the government to produce some method so that their children do not unintentionally stumble upon certain unwanted internet sites (of which I agree there is many). But frankly, this should not be levied at an ISP level, and hence at every internet user in Australia is not just technically stupid (to be frank with the departmental staffers reading this), but also the antithesis of democracy.

On the technical side, we all know it will slow the end user internet experience, in direct defiance of the millions (probably billions) to be spent on the NBN. I won't go so far to use the oft quoted 75% slow down figure but I would easily expect ~30% experience with other ISP filtering services.

Any internet savvy end user will be able to bypass the filter with ease with the use of proxies, and if the governent wish to block this than serious issue of privacy are too be raised as well. Which brings me to the filter's supposed potential for blocking illegal activites. If one normal everyday internet user can work around the filter, then any criminal using the internet for nefarious means will also be able to easily circumvent the filter.

From my understanding of the detestful trading of child pornograhpy (which I despise to the upmost degree) and the trading of bank details etc, most of it occurs on peer to peer networks, FTP servers and VPNs, to which a filter as proposed could do nothing to stop.

More important than this however is the blight this decision is putting on Australia's democracy. There is no need to censor the internet I view because (for simple purposes of example) 30% of Australia don't want to view a page. 30% of Australia may not want to move to the Northern Territory, but we don't simply censor the NT.If people want internet filtering provide them with a working, updated and strong end user internet filter.

Miriam Lyons

15 Dec 2008 11:51am

Public service announcement

Hey folks, I know most of you have been finding the lack of paragraphs a bit frustrating. I just checked out what my post looked like and it looks like standard html is actually working.

Something to tide us over until Digecon takes all our good advice & sets up a separate site with some decent blogging software!

davewantsmoore

15 Dec 2008 11:58am

Minister,

An internet filter place in between the end-users network, and the destination network is simple to permanently circumvent using the same technology (encryption) that makes electronic commerce possible.

Your departments knows that the filter it proposes will be simple to permanently bypass for anyone who wishes to.

Given the fact that this filter can be so easily and permanently bypassed... what is it that your department is actually trialling? You do not need a trial to determine that this filter cannot possibly work in practise.

A much better approach to blocking content is to place the filter inside the end-users network. Becuase when done correctly in this manner, it becomes possible to implement the filter in a way that cannot be bypassed.

The most common version of this type of filter is filtering software, installed on end-users PCs. ie. Exactly the plan implemented by the previous government, which you are discontinuing. Please explain?!

---- Also:

How much money has been spent so far on this sham?

When will this money be returned to the taxpayer?

Will the minister appologise and resign over such an impossible plan?... or will it be his superior?

Dreamtime

15 Dec 2008 4:18pm

Ok i guess i will iterate the point i keep reading on this site, JUST FORGET ABOUT BLANKET(ISP) FILTERING!!! It's just a really bad idea, sites like anonymouse.com will bypass it anyway and it won't stop P2P (.torrent etc). If you want to protect the children like you say you do sen. Conroy then get your people to create something for the end user on their machine, there are plenty of programs like net nanny but if you want something for yourself then go ahead and program it. I personally will automatically bypass your filter if you EVER dare to implement it.

spike9

15 Dec 2008 4:22pm

Please do not filter out internet - I do not believe this will lead to any reduction in children "stumbling" upon unwanted sites, many filters are already available to parents from ISP providers. What about those with no children why should they have to take a performance hit that a blanket filter would produce? if this filter proves successful by any of the govts counts what next? a filter for news sites that don't promote their view? a ban on certain "political" topics we can see where this is heading the model is already in place in China.

Cynic

15 Dec 2008 4:23pm

I think the filter should include predatory religions that target children with their nonsensical, faith based lies. They have done little but permeate hatred of minorities within this country. The idea of so called child protection groups should also be looked at considering it is easily established Child Wise CEO Bernadette McMenamin is using false data to solicit government grants and to promote this filter. Shame on the government for not verifying her figures before giving her tax dollars.

Kathy

15 Dec 2008 4:24pm

I too am adding my voice to those protesting the internet filter. There are plenty of freely available softwares such as can be found on net alert to protect children from nasty sites and also monitor their usage. Seeing as this solution already exists, why are we implementing an expensive, rather futile non-solution that will serve only to annoy everyone using the internet?

MattR

15 Dec 2008 4:31pm

@SeekTheTruth:

Yes, 87% was the worst and 2% was the best. However, the 2% speed reduction also had the highest number of false positives and the greatest number of misses. The filter which had the acceptable false-positive/miss rates did slow the internet by 87%. If you are going to espouse truth over hype, you should really espouse all of it.

It [ISP-level filtering in UK] must be working and of value.

Sorry, that's a bit of a leap. Look at how the Wikipedia fiasco went down. I would say that is not working, when a page is banned for featuring artwork which is freely (as in speech) available on shelves in record stores in the same country.

As for why filter at all - why do we bother to classify literature and film and prevent certain ages from viewing 'unsuitable' material?

How about so parents can determine what material would be appropriate for themselves and their children?

Using the same arguement - who decides what is objectional for certain ages?

It's call the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). I'm sure you've heard of it.

Let's get the parents to do their own classifcation and drop the M and R ratings!

Those two are not mutually exclusive. Parents are entitled to decide what their children will watch; it is perfectly acceptable (in a legal sense, although caveats exist) for children to watch R18+ movies. Classifications are in place to aid parents in making that decision and to prevent minors from accessing said material without parental consent. Since it would be impossible for every parent to watch everything, we have the OFLC. It's not perfect (just look at the games which have been RC'd this year -- thanks Atkinson) but it's still a reasonable advisory board on the whole.

It all does start somewhere - but that place does not have to stoop to the lowest common denominator.

That's the first point I agree with. ISP-level filtering would force a lowest common denominator approach, though.

As for those who fear a moral policing - any civilised society needs to have some form of moral code and base from which to work or there would be chaos. And those chosen moral codes need to be policed one way or another.

Again, you seem to have missed the point. No one is suggesting we should let child pornography run rampant; the complaint is that the ISP-level filter is an ineffective and highly inefficient way of attempting to prevent illegal activity. It will have absolutely no positive effect; in fact, it is likely to drive such activity further underground, making it harder to police. Furthermore, the ACMA blacklist is not publicly available, and is complaints driven, so there is no way to determine if sites have been incorrectly added to the list. This is the 'moral' concern: there is currently no transparent accountability and no way to know if a site has been added to the list or why.

Steve Hodgkinson

15 Dec 2008 5:18pm

This initiative is to be applauded - there is only one way to learn how to do online participation and that is by doing. The ISP filtering issue seems to have hit a nerve! It may be worth considering a trial of an e-petitions facility in the blog - and in this case launching two petitions, one for and one against filtering. That way at least there would be some order to comments instead of a lot of duplication of the same point of view? Number10 Downing Street has an e-petitions facility with a large number of petitions on different topics. Not all are for weighty policy matters. My favorite is �Ban broccoli as an edible foodstuff and reclassify it as a toxic substance� � though this was rejected as beyond the Prime Minister�s remit and powers! As well, I support the much expressed view that the sequential two-way monologue nature of a blog does not really work for consultation - maybe better to try a forum with topic threads? Anyway - keep up the good work ... we are keen to see where this trial travels to next.

Mark Elliott

16 Dec 2008 11:33am

A key learning from the development of and being involved with FutureMelbourne.com.au was that large organisations are not set up to respond to collaborative consultations. Specifically, individuals typically do not have the authority to respond on behalf of large organisations. (thx Miriam Lyons for reporting on HTML working - hopefully mine does too!)

This also works in reverse (as can be seen with this blog) with large organisations not giving authority to individuals to represent themselves at the front end of the consultation process.

Identity, reputation and personality (by screen name (real or imagined) or avatar) contributes considerably to driving online interactions through the same dynamics we rely on in the real world - trust, familiarity and community. Therefore it is *very* important that individuals are represented in this process.

And, I'm happy to report that this is not impossible.

If you Google "future melbourne team" the first hit tells you exactly who was behind that collaborative consultation - including nicely personalised (read: humanised) pictures with more details if you go to their profile pages. (The same approach is being taken with another state government run online consultation we are involved with which I will mention here after the launch announcement later this week.)

Of course I understand it is tricky from a process point of view to attribute individual identity to posts that were probably written by several people, then vetted and signed off on by a gaggle more. Never the less, providing human faces of the "The Digital Economy blog team" will likely engender higher quality responses, as people will feel more like they are talking to humans as opposed to the facade of a major institution (which often inspires 'rage against the machine' type responses).

Btw, there's nothing new in or wrong with a collaborative blog - eg, BoingBoing etc, it's a great model that's widely used.

SmSpillaz

16 Dec 2008 11:10am

I agree with everyone else here on the comments. It is clear here that the government really does not care about what it's citizen's want. How can it be justified to introduce an assult on freedom of speech 'in the interest of families' when over 90% of opinion poll voters staunchly opposed the filter. I never saw anything about this during the election, how is it fair to attach 'fine print' such as this to your election promises. I would at least say, hold a referendum asking whether Australians would like thier basic rights assulted before introducing legislation like this.

kat

16 Dec 2008 11:14am

They better not be censoring our comments!

Liam Vickery

16 Dec 2008 11:25am

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy. That should be updated 'The minister for Dial-Up internet speeds, Controlling, monitoring and limiting Communication, and Sabotaging the Digital Economy.' That would be more accurate in my opinion... What a red herring and waste of 84,000,000 dollars!!! Is this what your career is all about? Limiting the internet?? SPEND $84,000,000 On better trained I.T police and InterPol, things like that... Not blaming the ISP's for the content. Is Australia Post responsible if someone sent you Anthrax? Or the sender? Should they open every mail in case there is 'naughty words' people wrote? Redeem yourself here, admit that the whole thing is a waste of time... And go from zero to hero. Or leave the Labor party with a horrible scar as you undermine their credibility. I won't vote for you Conroy, you are ignorant and egotistical to not have canned this already.... Hear all these angry people? Hear that banging? That's the nails being driven into your political coffin.... Liam Vickery. (No pseudonyms here... I want people to know my thoughts on this matter.)

Pasta

16 Dec 2008 2:42pm

Hi, as a follow up to an earlier comment by me, I was hoping somebody could pass this article onto the relevant people regarding the highschool laptop project. It details the immense benefits of using open-source software (e.g. Ubuntu) instead of proprietary, closed software such as MS Office or Microsoft Windows. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/16984/1141 Further, I'd like to again remind you that netbooks (such as the Asus EEE PC) are a far superior (and importantly far cheaper) alternative to normal laptops in schools. Many of them already come supplied with open source software, too (and Ubuntu has released both a Netbook edition and an Education edition).

ZeroZeroOneFive

16 Dec 2008 11:32am

Listening eh? No, you are not. Look at the damn comments and read what people are saying. They sum it all up better than I ever could. APC also had a good rundown of this 'blog', which is less of a blog and more of comments on an obvious badly designed government website. If you really want to reach my generation, you need a little Web2.0 and much much better feedback.

jason

16 Dec 2008 11:32am

I would prefer we left law enforcement to the professionals and the money from both the filter and Childwise grants be used by the AFP to remove anyone whom propagates real child porn anywhere, not just online.

Nick

16 Dec 2008 11:34am

Senator Conroy, Get a life! It's people with pathetic policies such as yours that give hard-working politicians all a bad name. You don't rule over the Australian people, you REPRESENT us!!! So why don't you do some listening for a change?

texinick

16 Dec 2008 11:35am

@SeekTheTruth "if UK ISPs are voluntarily implementing filtering, then that says something. It must be working and of value."

The problem that I have as an opponent of the proposed Australian filter is the manner in which it is happening.

Don't get me wrong, Child Pornography deserves to be eradicated, but this is not the method to do it. Technically it is flawed. As MattR pointed out, it WILL have a massive impact on our internet speed. And it will NOT stop the people getting that material via the methods it is currently distributed.

In the UK, it is not mandatory. The ISP's are voluntarily taking the IWF's URL list and block these URL's at the ISP level. This means that a) there is no slow down on the internet because material is not being filtered and b) there are no error's in blocking sites as all reported sites are assessed manually.

The IWF are not using their system to potentially censor the internet from ANY material someone sees unfit, there have already been mumblings of other topics being added to our blacklist, and we have no way of reviewing this. This can't happen with the system in UK.

The IWF is an independent group, it is not run by the government who are trying to control censorship and score political points. As I said... because I oppose the filter here in Australia, it does not mean that I support child pornography, totally the opposite. It is the proposed system that I disagree with, and the amount of money being invested in something that is technically flawed.

Richtea

16 Dec 2008 2:23pm

"Finally, in responding to the many comments on the blog to date (over 900 to date), there are a lot of comments related to the issue of ISP filtering. As we indicated in our introductory page, we plan to blog about this issue and respond to many of the issues you�ve already raised in the comments in an upcoming post and welcome anyone who has anything new to add to topic to respond to that thread. We are reading all of your comments. And while we won�t go as far as FDB suggested and insist on relevance in comments to the topic, we wonder if it is possible for the main focus of the debate to broaden out to consider issues relating to how the Government blogs and to the digital economy�" So, let's SEE your blog post on ISP filtering then. It's clearly what everyone wants to talk about! Deal with that one, and you never know, you might get people making more relevant comments to your other posts!

Student

16 Dec 2008 2:35pm

I feel that protesting the proposed filter is directly related to our digital economy. The filter will either have low speed impact and high chance of false-positives and negatives, or will have high accuracry with huge speed impacts. For the improvement of our digital economy, to nurture small business, and internationally accessible sites and services, Australia must be able to provide fast web access. As the filter will not achieve its' goals without risking over 80% of our speed, many aspects of our growing digital economy will flounder and sink. We must be able to offer competetive services, and we simply will not be able to. Customers and business will move to countries that offer faster web connections, and those that are not choked by filters such as ours. This is only one of my many concerns about the proposed filtering. I feel that before we attempt to address accessability of broadband, infrastructure, or our digital economy, we need to ensure that we are not supporting counterproductive measures and ignoring the ways that the current planned filters will render slightly faster connections and business infrastructure potentially moot. Not to mention that there IS a developed home computer-based firewall/filter available for free to all Australians that is more efficient, effective, and given, say, a letterbox install CD drop to every home, be a much cheaper way of delivering safe and clean internet solutions to Australian families without jeapordising other aspects of IT development, broadband improvements, and our hopeful "digital economy".

Eddie

16 Dec 2008 4:01pm

"We hear you..." If you truly are hearing us and not ignoring us, you'll drop the stupid net censorship plan.

Stu

16 Dec 2008 9:33pm

Senator Conroy, Get a grip man and listen to the people. Anyone with half a mind doesn't want your filter. The rest don't know enough to make an informed decision. For a clue on why internet censorship is a bad idea, why not visit an internet cafe in in the DPRK or PRC. Or is that what you had in mind anyway?

sarmajor

16 Dec 2008 9:39pm

I note Stephen that you do not like your job. Don't worry as that will be fixed shortly. As a lifelong labour voter you can thank me (and many others like me) for you being able to use the ministerial toilet. I (and probably many others like me) will not make the same mistake again and will try to ensure that a party who will listen to the overwhelming views of the public will be elected to rectify the damage that you will do to the Australian internet. You cannot even design a decent comment page and yet you profess to be an expert on the net.

Ian of Perth

16 Dec 2008 9:43pm

Whilst I'm not sure whether the 'powers to be' will actually read any of this feedback (rather than being drip fed by their minders), I do want to add my 2 cents worth. And that is there are already laws and policing and prosecutions against child pornographers and we certainly don't need some unaccountable faceless bureaucrat controlling our lives via a secretive 'blacklist! I would also state that it is parents responsibility to monitor their kids, not politicians. Give it up Mr Conroy, I'm not sure whether this is genuine on your behalf or whether this is a smokescreen. Either way get on with what you are paid to do, provide GOOD government.

Steve C.

16 Dec 2008 9:44pm

It's hard to know which makes Senator Conroy look more stupid -- the plan to censor the Internet or the plan to deliver "next generation" broadband without involving Telstra. Others have presented the arguments. I merely wish to add my name to the list of protestors.

Chris

17 Dec 2008 9:12am

Thank you Senator Conroy for removing Telstra from the NBN process. For too long that company has been the bane of many Australians and a proverbial ball and chain on the telecommunications industry. Competition comes through choice and in the heart of Melbourne it frustrates me that I don't even have that, also my parents in Adelaide have a similar problem, yet they cant get basic broadband service. We can all choose our gas and electricity providers and change them if we so choose without lengthy down times let alone the 10-14+ days I would have to go without internet even if I had the choice to leave Telstra. An open access and independant network is worth to much to all us to leave in the hands of one corporation.

Mitch

17 Dec 2008 5:09pm

I look forward to seeing Senator Conroy dumped during the next cabinet reshuffle, and his stupid censorship policy and broadband failure with him.

Steve

17 Dec 2008 5:13pm

There is only one problem with the Government's plans to filter the internet. That problem is that a single group of people, namely school children, will be the best equipped to get around it. As an IT professional I know several ways that would probably work, but many mums and dads would not. Unfortunately I know that ways around the filters will be found and the techniques for doing so will be distributed in the playground. Alas, we will be teaching schoolchildren to use the same techniques used by others who try to hide their tracks on the internet. We will essentially be pushing our children into the company of *exactly* those from whom the Government is seeking to protect them.

Retiring

18 Dec 2008 9:57am

Senator Conroy is obviously angling for a position on the Chinese Communist Party politbureau with these policies. Whatever happened to parental responsibility? It is time we got rid of this nanny state complex that is obviously a hang over from our convict past and told the government to stop telling us what we can and cannot do!

Karl

18 Dec 2008 9:57am

Censorship? I love it! "1984"? Bring it on! Only kidding, Senator. You don't get my vote.

Darren

18 Dec 2008 10:02am

One only has to look at the recent blocking of wikipedia by England's filter to see how easy it is to stuff this up. Honestly, how blind can Sen Conroy be? You want an example of our "digital economy"? Look at the great firewall of China.

Aaron

18 Dec 2008 10:05am

Senator "Dictator" Conroy you really need to start listening to the people who gave you your job, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also needs to listen as we will ensure that you pay for this mistake at the next election. With Australia already being behind the rest of the world in terms of cost and speed for the internet your plans for this filtering will just make this worst. You are opening up Pandora's box here, do you think you can control it once opened? Australia has fought in two world wars to protect our rights for freedom and with one idiotic thought you are disrespecting those the died for our country. How about you spend the money on more important things rather than imposing your values and what you think we should use our internet for.

Frankly

18 Dec 2008 10:06am

The following is a comment sent to my ISP on the inadvisability of the Governments internet "Blocking Policy". Senator Conroy, please look at this from a law enforcement standpoint (not just national but international). Such a decision will also impact upon the "digital economy" that you are supposed to be the minister of... My comment was as follows.. "The forced blocking of sites like child pornography will make it harder for the law enforcement authorities to track these arseholes as they will have to resort to other means of distribution. There is no such censorship or checking on such material going through the post and it is harder to track down the source of posted items that internet sites. This is typical governmental reaction to being lobbied by the stupid and uninformed. DO NOT BLOCK BUT SEEK OUT THESE TWISTED ARSEHOLES AND STOP THEM. There should also be approval for the adoption of all porn sites to change to ".porn" as rejected by the bush government. This would make child filtering so much easier !

Oglen Langden

18 Dec 2008 10:08am

I think that the proposed clean-feed or ISP level mandatory filtering is an absolute joke, and one of the most ill conceived plans ever produced by an Australian government. Why on earth would you waste millions on a project which is destined to fail? Get a grip Senator.

Oglen Langden

18 Dec 2008 10:16am

townsy

18 Dec 2008 1:46pm

That censorship of any form of media is on the agenda of a government of a "free society" is the most baffling thought of all. Please, Senator Conroy, listen to the people you are supposed to represent. Democracy does not end once the election is over.

Anthony

18 Dec 2008 1:47pm

Don't waste the money that the taxpayers of Australia contribute to deliver something that simply won't work properly and is not wanted by the majority of your constituents. What the 'clean feed' will do: it will inhibit access to innocent information, have a chilling effect on information access, damage the internet economy, open the gate for future governments to interpret 'inappropriate' to mean 'things I don't want you to see', damage the perception of Australia as a future-oriented and free society, and cost jobs. That's only a subset of the negative impact of this embarrassing proposal. Just stop it.

Nicko

18 Dec 2008 3:45pm

It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done. Minister, you are to Broadband and the Digital Economy what King Herod was to the Bethlehem Playgroup Association. Good luck at the next election. :)

Phil Adams

19 Dec 2008 2:31pm

"Please note that all comments are subject to moderation before publication. Please refer to the moderation policy for this blog."

Moderation is also a form of censorship. Just can't help yourselves, can you?

Steven77

19 Dec 2008 4:22pm

The digital economy is ony a subset of what's required by a nation to prosper. There are many more important things such as bullet trains linking capital cities and mass rapid transit systems within Australian capital cities. With efficient public transportation, you can achieve more for each $ spent and increase productivity faster.

Robert Andrews

22 Dec 2008 9:10am

I sincerely doubt this will be posted, but here goes: I have just emailed this to Senator Conroy. I'll be intrigued as to whether I get a response... Dear Mr Conroy I write to express my heartfelt concern and deep horror at your unprecedented attack on the free speech and rights of the Australian people. Your hell-bent, passionate course of exercising state control over the internet is something I would never have expected any freely-elected Member of Parliament of Australia to introduce. It is the most un-Australian piece of proposed policy I have ever seen. The fact it will make our nation the subject of international ridicule is irrelevant next to the destructive impact this ill-considered, unwarranted act will have on business and individuals in Australia. I own a business that provides income for the families for 12 people in Australia. Our entire business is based on internet communication, the dissemination of news and views on business topics via the internet, and e-commerce. Your incomprehensible desire to implement state control over our primary form of communication will, by the assessment of independent, apolitical experts on the internet and technology, slow the nation's online traffic, place strain on the internet infrastructure, and mask or block numerous sites which are legitimate and legal. I have this morning checked online the definition of the term 'fascism'. Never would I have ever believed that I would have cause to use the term in describing an elected member of the Australian Parliament, a member of a political party holding power. But Wikipedia provides the following definition: "Fascism is an authoritarian or totalitarian nationalist ideology." I cannot think of a better description for your personal political stance on this issue. In the face of enormous opposition from the very people who put you into office, you are over-riding their concerns and arguments in a personal crusade hell-bent on enforcing state control on the internet surfing and e-commerce activities of every Australian. I have never previously supported organisations like Get Up!, which I previously considered extremist and marginal. But this week I found myself joing a growing list - in excess of 85,000 the last time I checked - who have publicly stated their opposition to your fascist crusade. And for the first time in my life I am now contemplating joining a street protest. I will march on the streets arm in arm with ordinary Australians and do everything it takes to fight your fascist ideology, Mr Conroy. It is a truth that very few people in this nation have tolerance or acceptance of child pornography. I am certainly opposed to it and never want to view it. But there are far better ways of addressing this than censoring the rights of ordinary Australians to utilise the most revolutionary communications medium in history. Just talk to people who actually understand the internet and information technology. Clearly you know nothing about it personally. Please, for the sake of law-abiding Australians once protected by the right to freedom of speech, do not allow your fascist agenda, to ruin our rights and taint your democratically-elected government's standing. This draconian, deplorable policy will have no positive benefits in reducing the circulation of child pornography - if you truly believe that you have no qualification to hold the role of communications minister because you clearly have no understanding of technology or the internet. The very people you are trying to block this obscene content from will be able to access it by other online means, off-web. The rest of us will be forced to endure slower internet connectivity, the blocking of innocent sites, and the very real prospect that this and future governments will start to expand the use of the 'technology' to block other views and content contrary to its own agenda. For the sake of the freedom and prosperity of Australia, drop this ill-conceived nonsensical policy as soon as possible. Or forever hold your head in shame in the knowledge you have personally ruined the sacred right to freedom of speech, commerce and expression that you, of all people, as an Australian should hold dear. Robert (Surname withheld) Ordinary Australian resident.

Greg Sky

22 Dec 2008 9:11am

I never thought I would see a Labour Government censor freedom of speech! Mistakenly, I thought the Rudd government had a commitment to the things that matter, not just to the opinion polls! Now, it seems Rudd and Howard are closer than I thought!

Geoffrey - Melbourne

22 Dec 2008 9:19am

A good case can be made that the Enlightenment in Europe created the environment for the rapid development of the West. Central to the Enlightenment was rational consideration of ideas and free speech. One alternative model of government, the awful and failed experiment of communism that required abolition of free speech was parodied by George Orwell in 1984: the stunted and limited language of Newspeak was an essential feature. To refer to internet filtering as �enabling� the digital economy is an excellent example of Newspeak. Another important element is a legitimate legal system, in which the presumption of innocence is an important principle. I�m simply astonished that the current government can consider Internet Filtering. It ignores the facts of history. It will be a technical nightmare. It will preclude Australia from becoming a centre of excellence in the world. Those who want to avoid the controls can do so easily. It makes us look archaic, not part of the modern world. It puts us on a par with China, surely a linkage very few would want. The principle of presumption of innocence is compromised. It makes me very concerned about the decision making process in Canberra. How is it that a number of presumably intelligent people can put their heads together and create ideas like this, and then attempt to force it onto the people, most of whom do not want it?

debs

22 Dec 2008 9:19am

It would be good if the blog, actually were a real blog. There shouldn't need to be such lengthy delays before comments are posted, and what about it being a two-way street? How about someone actually replies to the comments, gets in here amongst the general public whom you say you wish to engage? "we wonder if it is possible for the main focus of the debate to broaden out to consider issues relating to how the Government blogs" - you could start by putting a name to the post so you are not some nameless, faceless, anybody - some human contact, not beaurocratic distance, spin and a pre prepared statement is what I would like.

George F

22 Dec 2008 9:20am

Australia will be joining a motley crew of dictatorships with internet filtering, apparently ,oblivious to the company they will be keeping.Which is one reason why they can not be trusted with this thin edge of the wedge.

Chief

22 Dec 2008 9:35am

I had a great argument prepared about the proposed internet censorship but all I can come up with is a big fat raspberry. Rudd, Conroy, put this stupid idea out of its misery. Spend the money on something useful like a hospital. Or three.

Rob from Tasmania

22 Dec 2008 9:44am

You and Chairman Kevin will make China look like a bastion of free speech with this idiotic internet censorship idea. Luckily your government so far has only ormed committee after committee and it will probably take you a decade to enable this ill thought out mess to take place. Go back to the 50's where you belong

jw

23 Dec 2008 10:08am

If you back down now you are letting the kiddy fiddlers win

Ian of Perth

23 Dec 2008 10:18am

So, after the latest release from Minister Conroy - "In a post on his department's blog, Senator Conroy today said technology that could filter data sent directly between computers would be tested as part of the upcoming live filtering trial. " - we are now perhaps getting to the crux is the matter. Not as much to do with protecting children as protecing corporate interests; movies, music etc. Why can't these politicians listen to the people and not corporate money?

IRA

23 Dec 2008 9:28am

Now that I am lodging a complaint, AND you have my email address, I'm expecting that there will be a knock at the door and several of your comrades will be escorting me away for a "Thought Crime". I believe, as do most if not all of the people that I communicate with, that this package will be a complete crock of sh-t. It will attain the complete distrust of the public, everytime a page is blocked we'll be asking, was that a porn site, or was it against the government and its will. By all accounts I'm already a binge drinker, a religious heathen and without doubt I'll soon be blasted from the Internet for downloading some songs, or responding to a blog against the government, or worst still, for having opinions that are mine. Get out of my life I did not expect communist regimes to form in Australia, whoever gets into government. I wish you well in opposition, that is where you are headed, you will not be forgotten, wherever you aim in your career from here.

Jazza C

23 Dec 2008 10:12am

"I'm following the debate at sites like Whirlpool and GetUp and on Twitter at #nocleanfeed." � Senator Conroy

What debate? Every single site ive seen comment on the filtering issue has been largely one sided to NO FILTER. People DO NOT want filtering. If you were really doing your DEMOCRATIC job you would stop due to the public not wanting it.

Clearly you have alternative motives and agendas not inline with the public. But you know what, i wouldnt give two hoots about the filter if it was opt-in, but we know, Mr.Conroy, that minimal amounts of people will opt-in and it will be another flop like netalert.

Its not wanted.

robert

23 Dec 2008 1:54pm

you say you would like to broaden the debate, but you yourself have made this impossible by drawing the process away to your stupid and undemocratic ideas of censorship. Why dont you listen to the people ??

Andrew

23 Dec 2008 10:10am

if you do not want to SEE something that is ofencive to you Switch the computer off AND STOP TRYING TO FOIST YOUR SMALL MINDED IDEOLOGY ON ADULTS WHO CAN AND DO MAKE CHOICES

Janie

23 Dec 2008 10:34am

Dear Mr Conroy, My name is Janie and I am 7 years old. My daddy says you are going to ruin the internet by censoring it. Please don't censor my internet, it will make me very sad. From Janie

jojo

23 Dec 2008 11:29am

I can't believe that the Australia government is taking a leaf out of China's book and is taking away my freedom to seek information on any subject I choose or how I use my computer. I don't like porn of any kind but if parents want to protect their kids they should supervise their computer useage and also install the filters on their own computers. Just because a vocal minority complain about something should not mean I should not have the right to access it. Not every one has the same belief system. What has happened to personal responsibility? The government was not placed in power to be my NANNY. I have a mind of my own and I use it.

Nick Crow

23 Dec 2008 12:29pm

We need to vote these people out, we need intelligent educated people making informed decisions based on what the people of Australia want, and not force a censorship upon us If this internet filter is made mandatory we need to get rid of conroy, rudd and any other politician that has supported this legislation.

KerryJ

23 Dec 2008 1:19pm

This process is in serious need of transparency. If you want to credibly deny being overly zealous and restrictive -- then refusing to answer questions, keeping reports secret, starting controversial tests on Christmas Eve and future plans that include a secret blacklist are not the ways to go. In this Web 2.0 world - people use their networks to help them learn, find information and get results. Use your network of internet users, businesses, ISPs, geeks and techies -- don't just monitor the #nocleanfeed tag on social networking sites. Listen with respect and then share information. Open a dialogue. You've got a great network that would love to work with you. People are being disrespectful here and on the greater internet because you are not treating us with respect. Show that you're listening and share what you know. That's the power of the internet - to build networks of understanding and trust. Respectfully yours KerryJ

Sick of Electing Clowns by default

23 Dec 2008 12:52pm

Filtering the internet is like blacking out the windows in every house in Australia so citizens can't see the crime in the street. Whats next? Paint the windows on Australian cars black so they can't see traffic violations or accidents? The money (and our time but perhaps not yours) would be better spent preventing the actual crimes rather than preventing people seeing the evidence that society and government fails to address child abuse.

Hell, the kind of money you are throwing at this would be enough to monitor the sites you plan to hide and catch ACTUAL criminals - rather than chaining up and slowing the internet for the entire population, as if we were all criminals, with your stupid filter.

Stop treating us like criminals. Where does this attitude that the Australian public needs to be controlled come from?

The vast majority of us have no interest in those sites and your plan WILL NOT WORK ANYWAY. CAN YOU HEAR EVERYONE YET?. There is no need to waste our money and our limited internet speed on this foolish plan.

MsF

23 Dec 2008 1:08pm

Just another VOTER who will vote against Labor for

(1) making deals with Family First to inflict their prim wowser ideals on all Australians and bringing the church sneaking into politics.

(2) slowing down my net by putting this dumb filter on.

(3) Making me register as some kind of sex criminal so that I will be able see adult content on my net.

Do i need to add LEGAL adult content to that? I probably do, as the wowsers are all trying to make out anyone who is anti-Filter is somehow pro-child porn. (Child porn is illegal, and not hosted on ANY worldwide ISP - i think i need to point that out too. No protecting the kiddies going on with out government's net filter, just control of ideas and information. If they wanted to protect children, they could educate parents, children, and give more to law enforcement - who recently have busted people for child porn and abuse, and funnily enough, NONE of the abusers used the net for more than email, because, SURPRISE! child porn is illegal and can't be hosted on a normal ISP, so isn't available on the ordinary net.)

Sounds to me like it's the wowsers who are obsessed with child abuse - check their families first. After all, over 95% of child abuse occurs in families - often in very religious ones - we all know about religious hypocrisy, and how it masks perverted sexual urges.

As for the filter - I already have at least 3 filters working on my machine, (anti virus, ad filters, website filters) they SLOW IT DOWN. I don't know how to make it any simpler for you - you're about to slow the aussie net right down (and it's already among the slowest in the world). You're also going to destroy Aussie businesses who won't be accessible from the an Aussie ISP.

STOP THE CLEAN FEED (or whatever name you're rebranding it as so we all like the idea.)

Surely the minister isn't so completely computer illiterate that he honestly thinks this is a good idea? In 2008 could someone of his age be that ignorant about computers and how they work? Apparently so. This isn't China - why do we need their filter, the one Kevin (I'm a born again christian fundamentalist) Rudd protested against during the Olympic games. Hmm - do i detect the smell of burning? No - it's just rank hypocrisy. Must be another politician passing by.

Trent

23 Dec 2008 2:03pm

23/12/2008 Adelaide Advertiser Poll

Do you support the Rudd Government's plan to trial a filter of internet content?

For: 39 votes 4%

Against: 935 votes 95%

Total: 974 votes

Tim

23 Dec 2008 1:24pm

Dear Stephen Conroy, You lack of knowledge about the internet and your repugnant attacks that seek to label any opposing views as supporting child pornography are shameful and if you have any decency you would do the right thing and resign. Shame on you. Shame on Kevin Rudd.

Trent

23 Dec 2008 1:27pm

I was searching for naked DSL broadband plans at work and all the pages were blocked because of "inappropriate sexual content" I have reported this sort of thing to the IT department many times but they can't do anything. I regularly bypass the filters because surfing at work is often very slow. There are currently 27,020 proxy servers just waiting to defeat this stupid idea. Look at http://proxy.org/cgi_proxies.shtml

Mountaineer

23 Dec 2008 2:25pm

I just want to add my voice to the many others calling for the proposal for centralised internet filtering to be scrapped. This is a waste of money that will have no effect on it's stated goals, just as the gun buyback wasted millions of taxpayer dollars removing sporting firearms from responsible gun owners without effecting criminals in any way! I actually find it hard to articulate my anger over this stupid plan, I'd be more confident if Stephen Conroy announced he intended to fly by flapping his arms.

Darren Stokes

23 Dec 2008 2:45pm

Although the current Australian Government does not regard this as a question of civil liberties or freedom of speech I am afraid I do. You can not just wish away these aspects of the issue by saying you don't consider it a problem. The Australian people trust their government to undertake a series of tasks as outlined in the Constitution but to be honest there is not sufficient trust to carry it far beyond that. The concept of allowing the Government to conduct filtering of potential information sources, regardless of how well intentioned, is both repugnant and reprehensible in a democratic society. I do not believe this is currently being established as a mechanism of wider social control through information shaping, but it has the potential to be used as such in the future. Australins rely on a wide range of information sources to make informed and ethical decisions and anything that could endager that now or into the future represents and unacceptable risk. The whole concept of 'blacklisting' suggests a level of government intervention at the individual level which is undesirable. The responsibility for this control should remain with the individual who is capable of making informed decisions on behalf of themselves and those they are responsible for. It is not the role of the Government to make those personal decisions which can be reasonbly made by the individual without Government assistance. I regard ISP filtering as an unwelcome and unacceptable intrusion of the into my personal decision making juristiction and a source of potential risk for future misuse. Even if I could trust the current government I can not make informed decisions about my level of faith in future governments and am unprepared to allow them this potential tool of oppression.

Regards,

Darren Stokes

walroz

23 Dec 2008 9:42pm

What a Waste! I am a Software Engineer and PhD Student in Computer Science and so I use the Internet extensively for work and research. The current speeds and access are already hogtied by our limited broadband network. To add the restrictions of mandatory filtering and censorship will further hinder the software research and industry of Australia. The money being wasted on this dogmatic scheme would be better used on expanding the much needed National Broadband Network. The Internet is primarily a communications medium and the movement of information is achieved by many different methods. Criminals are fast at developing and exploiting new ways of using this medium, but government policy is slow to implement. The Federal Police are far more effective at identifying criminal activity than any Internet watchdog could be, as recent operations have shown. So the money being wasted on a filter would catch more criminals if spent on the Federal Police, such as the Australian High Tech Crimes Centre. Finally, the government is currently discussing the introduction of a Bill of Rights. When this happens it will almost certainly include a Freedom of Speech clause. Given the level and methods of exclusions that the government is proposing, the filter will almost certainly breach this clause. In this case the filter will have to be severely scaled back or removed completely. So, Internet filtering is bad for Australia: It doesn't work, it makes us less competitive, and it may have to be removed anyway. Far from an education revolution, this government is delivering an information dictatorship.

Laughable

23 Dec 2008 9:51pm

The title of this post is laughable (We Hear You ...) - you might hear us but this Government has clearly done a deal with somebody and is intent on not listening to the people on this. Sure, some lobby groups might be willing to risk our democratic right of free speech so they can say they are protecting children from abuse or anorexia, but we all know that content filtering will not achieve their goals. I'm sure even they are intelligent enough to know that. Conroy is clearly intelligent enough to know that filtering will not stop these people getting the content; we have seen how sophisticated and organised they are. What alarms me though is that any Government is willing to put the tools to control the media into the hands of future Governments. Once this infrastructure is in place there is nothing to stop a future radical right wing Government to just decide to filter the Australian Labor Party website, filter our all references to the party and completely control the media. Sure it might be hard to see that happening in 5 years, but who would have thought that the Howard Government would every have enough control of the senate to introduce the workplace and anti-terrorist laws that it did. There is just too much at risk here Senator. You are gambling with my rights.

Blue

23 Dec 2008 10:33pm

PLEASE stop the filtering of ISP's.

Bourkie

23 Dec 2008 2:43pm

Stephen, some basic questions for you: Why is the scheme shrouded in secrecy? Why don't you answer our simple questions with factual answers? Why has the Labor party been censored and only send out vague pro-forma stock-standard replies to specific questions? Why do you ignore all expert advice from both within Australia and abroad? What peer-reviewed evidence do you base the _need_ for censorship on? What peer-reviewed evidence do you base the supposed _effectiveness_ for current censorship technology on? Why do you take advice from biased lobby groups because they receive funding from the government? Why do you assume people will believe you when you say you will only censor 'illegal content', despite the fact there is no judicial oversight of the censorship process? Why do you assume that technology will one day, even in 100 years, be fast and accurate enough achieve your policy goals? These are simple questions a child has the mental capacity to answer, yet you continue to avoid or refuse. Be a real man, not a coward.

Corms

24 Dec 2008 1:20am

Minister Conroy,

I would like to add my voice to that of those here who disagree strongly with your proposed internet filtering. This is a massive issue that was never canvassed in the lead up to the last election. I recommend you reconsider your position lest you suffer that same fate which befell the former Government after foisting work choices on the Australian people without prior mention during the election campaign or official Government policy.

Australia is a free democratic society and we do not require the Government to control any information based on the internet. Moreover the potential for decreased speeds and incorrect filtering pose a major threat to our economic prosperity, our business infrastructure as well as education and research capabilities.

I strongly urge you to reverse this policy or I will be forced to change my vote to those who oppose this draconian censorship. Thank you.

Joe

24 Dec 2008 1:49am

Your blog starts with "We hear you..." It is obvious that you do not and that you don't give a damn about what people with more knowledge about the net say. You just follow your ideology.

Jason Byway

24 Dec 2008 5:46am

I work in the IT industry and know that the filtering you are planning is not only impossible but pointless. Do not introduce this filter as it is a waste of our taxpayers money and only teaches bad parents that they can rely on the government to do their parenting for them. Obviously you are realising that it is impossible too as you were not even able to reach your deadline of Christmas Eve to implement the filter. Or perhaps you don't truly understand the technicalities of a project of this size and expect that the ISPs that you are hoping will trial the filter will be able to just flick a switch and have the filter in place. Perhaps you should look at the root cause of Child Pornography and catch actual criminals rather than assume everyone is guilty and block our internet feeds. The Labor party obviously doesn't want to be in government anymore as they are heading towards a loss next election. Perhaps Mr Conroy should listen to the majority of people who actually understand what is represents rather than those people he can influence with scare tactics of Child Pornography and such who just blindly follow.

Not voting Labor ever again

24 Dec 2008 6:01am

As much as i'd like to resort to personal attacks on the senator for forcing his "Christian values" on the rest of the country i won't as i know it won't get posted so i'll just say that there is not a chance this plan of his is feasible. And now that he's included P2P filtering as part of the plan I wouldn't be surprised to hear if he was getting a little money to pay for this thing by the big movie studios and record labls, the resto of cousrs will be paid for by us, the tav payers who DO NOT WANT THIS, LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE FFS, THIS IS A DEMOCRACY! However i will be surprised if my comment is posted. I could wrote for a lot longer but this whole thing just makes me too angry.

Sam

24 Dec 2008 6:14am

As an IT professional working for a company that is built on a website, we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade our infrastructure, improve our codes etc. over the years to cope with user demands. In come the government to knock us back years of work and tens of thousands of dollars in one single swoop. I've helped vote labor into government last year as I was led to believe that they were going to build a better infrastructure. But instead they will waste all that money in a futile attempt to play internet big brother. It is no longer about block child porn or illegal site. It's just a blatant monitoring firewall/proxy. I foolishly helped voted labor in this term. I will be sure to vote them out the next.

Tony

24 Dec 2008 6:16am

Thanks for letting us provide feedback, hopefully someone in power is actually reading it. Please, please, please do not make us the laughing stock of the developed world. An Internet filter will do just that. Surely if protecting the children is the aim then the money would be better spent funding our Federal Police and other organisations who can actually do something effective with it? An Internet filter will only inconvenience the honest people.

Ed Tremble

24 Dec 2008 9:01am

First off I would like to say I think it is great to finally see some kind of public communication method such as this, having said that though.. Given the unwillingness to properly address or even seem to listen to the many and varied completely legitimate opposing views to the filtering proposal in the past, it would be naive at best to believe that people will not use this as an avenue to provide feedback about an issue that is going to affect their livelihood and potentially their freedoms-despite all assurances to the contrary.

I see a department and particularly minister concerned mainly about controlling the flow of all information, touting child safety or whatever subject or excuse best achieves the required emotional justification.

The fact that comments on this blog are filtered by a "moderation policy" BEFORE they are even posted speaks volumes and helps to illustrate where the priorities are.

We are not stupid, we can see for ourselves when people are being idiots on a blog and then watch as their comments disappear...

I have worked in the industry for more than ten years and I have never seen the government get IT so wrong, so many Australians wanted a change last year and voted accordingly, however the direction being championed by the current government will impact the industry in many terrible varied ways even the so hated AWAs from the previous Liberal government could not.

The economy is slowing due to current international factors and you want to kick the digital economy while it is down, using our taxes to pay for it all. Every other positive measure taken by this department will mean nothing in comparison to the proposed filtering if it goes ahead and will be the only thing on many people's mind come next federal election. So far it looks like AWAs all over again - democracy fails until the next government gets in on a promise to undo the publicly hated mistakes of a previous administration.