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Senator Stephen Conroy has called upon ISPs for volunteers for the clean feed program. They want trials to go ahead by xmas.

Despite his earlier promises that Australians would be able to opt out of any internet filters, Senator Conroy said the first tier would be compulsory for all Australians and would block all "illegal material", as determined in part by a blacklist administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

The second tier, which is optional, would filter out content deemed inappropriate for children, such as pornography.

Now the bans will include not only "illegal material" but also "unwanted content". Unfortunately Senator Conroy is not willing to answer just what that "unwanted content" is exactly, although senators representing special interest groups have suggested options such as porn, anorexia sites, online gambling, euthanasia material, politically related material. One wonders just where this blacklist will end. One thing's for certain, the government will NOT be sharing that list with the general public.

Unfortunately filter programs are not perfect and up to 12% of illegal material will get through and up to 13% of legitimate sites may be blocked accidentaly. Sites such as youtube may automatically be blocked because the filters can't sort out which videos are illegal and may classify them all as suspect, there are concerns that facebook, myspace and other social networking sites may similarly be affected.  

At first this filter was supposed to be about blocking kiddie porn, but now it seems they'll be blocking all sorts of things and not even telling us what they've chosen to block... for our own good.  

While taking away our freedoms the filter may also take away our surfing speed, the Government's own laboratory trials have found that presently available filters are not capable of distinguishing adequately between legal and illegal content and can degrade internet speeds by up to 86 per cent. Senator Conroy is not willing to discuss this and yesterday he even tried to have one ISP representative silenced on the issue.

And the worst bit?? The filter can't block person to person, so just like the gun ban only took guns from the honest people leaving criminals armed, the net censorship will only block honest citizens who wouldn't have looked for it anyway and the pedophiles will still be exchanging disgusting photos and arranging to abuse kids in secret as they always have. And this will cost us $150,000,000 while our economy's going down the toilet with the rest of the planet.

I voted for Labor, I always have. I'm sorry for that now as freedom is one thing that's very important to me. Two of my great-grandfathers and one grandfather gave their lives to defend our freedoms, and bit by bit they're being taken away.

Quoted from 7243

Once established it will be ever so easy for  future governments to start censoring political and other content unfavourable to themselves.

Quoted from SBro

Can anyone say Big Brother.

Quoted from SBro

I don't think the censorship thing is just Labor Supporters though.  I believe "Family First" seem to be interested in making people think a certain way as well.

Quoted from SBro

I don't understand why we have R18 for movies/DVDs but that they can't do this for games.  Seems strange that it's okay showing someone getting beaten up/head chopped off when it's in a movie (live but if you make it totally fiction (in an animated game) it seems that that goes too far....

Quoted from Futurama quote

FARNSWORTH: 55? Aw... now I'll need a fake ID to rent ultra porn.

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Mandatory ISP filtering legislation will be introduced around the middle of 2010, after which there will be a one year period to implement and activate the filtering technology.