I feel like it is the time to start collecting the list of politicians who obviously don’t want to retain their seats after next elections.
I mean mostly those incompetent professors of blah-blah-blah science who back internet censorship project. As an IT professional I do not need any explanations why it will not work (and it won’t indeed!), I rather more interested in real reasons what is their interest in it.
At a first glance, this comedy seems to be heated by those alternatively gifted persons who, should they get into WWW, see only porn there. That say, you get what you want. But guys, try to see the doctor, they say such sexual disorders are no longer lethal.
I use internet all the time, I’d say I do it for living, but I haven’t seen any porn for years. Probably, because I am not interested. Okay, what then I am worried about if porn (and, I assume, many of other things those politicians hide behind the word “illegal content”) isn’t in my area of interests?
Well, there are quite a few reasons. At first, the more you have, the more you want. Today they lock “illegal” contents, tomorrow they’ll want to read your email, day after they’ll want you to jump on one leg if they ask to. At second, I am also sure that some sites which were perfectly legal and did not promote any euthanasia or other stuff they want to block today will suddenly fall into filter black list and become unacessible.
But there is more and I suspect that may be the main reason: they may want to control people’s downloads. That’s right – they want to be sure nobody downloads “newest coolest song of Britney Spears” or “another one blockbuster” from famous Hollywood shit-writers and shit-producers for free. I would not worry about that as I can (and do) live without that crap, but if I am right, this would only mean that those greedy Hollywood’s shit-makers want to keep their hairy hands deep in our pockets and they try to lobby the means that will bring a lot of pain to us, legitimate internet users! Event more, if that plan is applied, we may lose P2P networks in an instant. Needless to say that today’s P2P networks aren’t synonyms of “piracy”, a lot of Open Source products use them as transport – compared to huge file servers, they cost almost nothing to run, are reliable, and very, very fast. Last time I downloaded Ubuntu install disk, I had it on my hard disk 15 minutes after download has been started.
Sad thing is they are comitted to spend more than 100 millions on this. Our millions. Instead of fixing public transport, building new hospitals or provide better education they want to screw the network that was created by community and works perfectly. Of course, there are many different things that can harm in internet. But there are many potentially deadly things in every kitchen – so let’s ban all knives and frame thier owners!
P.S. Here is the transcript of questionary where Senator Conroy failed to answer any reasonable questions regarding internet cersorship and especially ignored the question why he lied about countries like as Sweden, UK, Canada and NZ already having mandatory internet filtering in place. Nice, isn’t it?
Although some internet users are not exposed to inappropriate material on the web, he average age of exposure is only 11 years old… and in most cases occurs while doing homework! Kids and adults are forced to navigate their way around a minefield of porn traps such as kidpicks– a misspelled porn portal that catches kids and parents looking for http://www.kidspicks.com.
Like most, I agree that filtering should be done on the part of the user/parent. The government may better use its resources to educate people on the True Dangers of Internet Porn, and closing down the thousands of porn traps on the web that make it a minefield for children and parents who do not want to be exposed to porn of any kind.
Mr. M – My Internet Doorman – Block Porn Now!
11 years and above is the age when children start to discover gender difference. Ask any real specialist.
Internet is not the only way to get porn, there are heaps of sources around available. Classmates bringing adults magazines in school, you can continue.
And it is parent’s responsibility to get it right. People should not expect that anyone else will educate their children.
The problem here is that what they are going to do simply won’t work. Unless, of course, they want to build another “Great firewall of China” here in Australia, and even in this case I would doubt it.