Public Activist site GetUp IS making a difference in the battle to convince Canberra that Internet Filtering as proposed would cause major access problems without doing the intended job.
The site is for aussies interested in using online people power for specific causes and social justice in general.
The people used GetUp effectively to pressure the Australian Federal Police and Political establishment ( gee that sounds Bolshy, doesn’t it! ) in the case of the supervision order for Guantanamo survivor David Hicks.
The Australian Council of Social Services also had an online way for ordinary people to lobby ahead of each budget – I’ll check and see if it’s still going.
My point is, have your voice heard somewhere – have your say.
I am looking forward to posting an appeal for books to go to a village in the Phillipines where a friend has been doing some good work. More on that to come.
Our campaign to ‘Save the Net’ is gaining momentum faster than all expectations, as the Government’s ill-considered plans to slow down and censor the internet is “facing a major backlash”, according to media reports.1
Their internet censorship proposal goes further than any other democracy – making the internet up to 87% slower, more expensive, accidentally blocking up to one in 12 legitimate sites, and missing the vast majority of inappropriate content.
Only a massive public outcry will make the Government see sense on this issue. Please take a moment to sign this important petition:
www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet
More than 55,000 fellow Australians have already signed the petition to Communications Minister Senator Conroy, against “draconian government restrictions on the internet that will hold back the digital economy and miss the vast majority of unwanted content.”
His plan has even been slammed by children’s welfare groups, who say the filter is “fundamentally flawed” and simply will not work. Join children’s welfare groups, internet providers, consumers, engineers, network administrators, and 55,000 everyday Australians in defence of our freedoms and internet:
www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet
At a time of financial crisis, the Government should not be introducing measures that will hamper our economy for no real benefit to the protection of the community from material that is already illegal.
Stand up in defence of our rights to prevent Australia joining Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and Burma in an undemocratic club of governments who view the internet as a threat.
Thanks for being part of the solution,
The GetUp teamPS - 55,000 Australians have signed the petition to save the internet from being slowed and censored. Click here to join them.
1‘Children’s welfare groups slam net filters’, The Age 1 December 2008
December 16, 2008 at 11:54 am
Posted by a,,,
Proud Australian,
Who is not a pervert,
And who loves free speech,
Look at Google, Yahoo and You tube for evidence of where this filtering will truly be used.
Some of the only You tube and Google videos that constantly have their ‘hit counts’ reset or bumped down dramatically relate to content that is ‘alternative politics’.
Hit count reductions by these internet media servers IS A FORM OF CENSORSHIP. Any thing that acts to remove from public view a popular or rising world view IS CENSORSHIP.
I’m talking about 911 Truth, Anti GMO videos and investigations into the sinister nature of the New World Order. These are all very valid political ideas with a huge growing global following and are continuously de-bunked by the mainstream media who are paid puppets.
Here’s the QUESTION: Why if Google, Yahoo and You-tube are getting more hits on this content are they resetting hit counters on only these videos? Why are they trying to boot these videos out of their top viewed videos? This is counterproductive for them as they SHOULD be elated by increased internet traffic, after all this is their aim isn’t it; to increase their internet traffic to compete with their rivals??
ANSWER: Because in this world, ‘censorship’ makes more money for media networks than ‘advertising’.(Which Google & You tube are also). Someone/Some group is either pressuring or paying for this service of already active censorship.
What will happen if it is allowed to infect our entire ISP network for absolute information control?
Why is it you are not aware of this? This is because advertising is blatant whereas censorship goes on behind the scenes and is compartmentalised; You just simply never get the information in the first place and your not even aware that it has been censored.
I went to the Perth WA rally and will continue to protest against the destruction of liberties that is happening all around us.
The fact that the government has to use ‘child pornography’ as a red herring to push a subversive political agenda through parliament in order to achieve a censorship mechanism to be used for a much broader range of information is shameful.
This filter will not even prevent the censorship of child pornography at large as 99% of it is transferred on secretive file sharing networks (which will never be covered by the filter) in order to evade any officials that might be monitoring them- after all, they know very well that they are criminals and avoid allowing anyone who is not a paedophile to see what they are sharing like the plague.
This filter will also slow down EVERY internet search and access request which will greatly effect business productivity. This is why the ISP’s are resisting it. ALL IN THE NAME OF PREVENTING THAT WHICH IT DOESN’T EVEN MANAGE TO ACHIEVE.
Wake up people…..this is a political agenda that has nothing to do with the safety of our children, but which at large will be counterproductive to our entire nation.
If you want to filter the internet for you children, install private software on your computer that filters just for your childs user account (be a responsible parent for Gods sake), don’t support the carte-blanche censorship the entire web.
This is ludicrous and the Rudd government should be ashamed with itself for this proposal.
sincerely,
FREE CITIZEN OF AUSTRALIA
(and now former Labor Party supporter)
December 12, 2008 at 1:38 pm
G’day, folks
One reason that Australia is heading down the censorship road, even racing ahead of the USSA (Union of Socialist States of America) is that we appreciate better than most that Internet images are where censorship meets national security.
Is it believable that international law-enforcement agencies targetted pornography because of concern for childrens safety? Or is it far more likely that pornographic images were once considered likely carriers of subversive messages?
I say “once considered” because it must now be grimly obvious that *any* Internet image might simultaneously be a vehicle for pornography or a terrorist’s bulletin board.
When I’m asked these days what job will be important in ten years time, I unhesitatingly reply “forensic mathematician”. We are almost certainly going to need to be on top of the art and science of steganography ( http://www.garykessler.net/library/fsc_stego.html ) and quantum encryption ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography ).
Why the need to be on top? Well, somebody might get the idea they don’t like our armed forces sneaking around in their backyard, kidnapping and killing.
“Report immediately all sightings of Taliban submarines and aircraft-carriers!”
Eric Carwardine, in Perth, Western Australia
December 7, 2008 at 10:49 pm
G’day, folks
Australia will find itself kicked back to re-join the rest of the field just as soon as somebody (probably America) realises the counter-productivity of what we’re doing.
The Internet regards censorship as damage, and sets to work to build a path – or paths – around it. What might have been “nasty” – but locatable – is about to get a whole heap nastier. What is worse, we will need extraordinary efforts to even locate it, let alone decipher it.
It’ll be the Internet equivalent of the cluster bomb. We shall see the rapid expansion of “forensic mathematics” as we struggle to detect hidden images and messages, without too many false positives. I can confidently predict that it will become extremely illegal to encrypt cake recipes or shopping lists.
And who will be developing all these cunning counter-measures? Why, our school-age children, of course. At least the pro-censorship movement will be credited with a general rise in the standard of mathematics
Eric Carwardine, in Perth, Western Australia
December 4, 2008 at 9:57 am
ive heard vaguely about this in australia, and i must admit im suprised that you are ahead of the usa on this dangerous path