Australian 'Net Censorship Collapses Under Weight Of Opposition

Logan Westbrook

Transform, Roll Out, Etc
Feb 21, 2008
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Australian 'Net Censorship Collapses Under Weight Of Opposition


The proposal to censor Australian internet content has effectively been halted thanks to a coalition of political opponents.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon has thrown in with the coalition of the Green and Liberal Parties in blocking any legislation required to make the effective censorship of the internet in Australia legal. Xenophon, who had previously suggested that he might support a filter that blocked online gambling sites, withdrew his support from the idea, saying: "The more evidence that's come out, the more questions there are on this".

The proposals have come under fire from a variety of groups, including ISPs and some Child Welfare organizations, and recent polls have suggested that as little as five percent of Australians want their internet access regulated by the government.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy originally presented the idea as a way to block child pornography, and despite technical advisors suggesting that the plan was flawed and unworkable, has pushed ahead with the idea, conducting trials with many of the country's ISPs. Conroy recently commented that there was a case for blocking other, entirely legal content that had been refused classification around the same time that government sources suggested that the number of blacklisted websites might be increased to around 10,000, going far beyond the proposals original purpose.

Nick Xenophon commended the intentions of the government, but decried their methods, saying: "I think the implementation of this could almost be counter-productive and I think the money could be better spent."

Source: Boing Boing [http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/26/australias-great-fir-1.html]



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Lord Krunk

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Mar 3, 2008
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Hooray! It's finally over!

...but wait. How did you know about this before me?

Mind you, pretty much every channel except for Ten is wailing "We can't wait for internet censorship, can you?" I could understand that they wouldn't want to reveal the 'sad' news to the general public.

What the hell were they thinking, anyway? Filters would have slowed down our internet further than it already is, which I might add is probably the slowest of all the countries that have internet. Not to mention it violates our (somewhat vague) freedom of speech.

Now all they need to do is remove the filters on school computers. The only sites you can go on? Google and Wikipedia. And the former is useless for obvious reasons.
 

MaxFan

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Nov 15, 2008
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Lord Krunk said:
Mind you, pretty much every channel except for Ten is wailing "We can't wait for internet censorship, can you?" I could understand that they wouldn't want to reveal the 'sad' news to the general public.

What the hell were they thinking, anyway? Filters would have slowed down our internet further than it already is, which I might add is probably the slowest of all the countries that have internet. Not to mention it violates our (somewhat vague) freedom of speech.
Mainstream media wanting the internet to be less useful so the public is forced to use them?

shock and horror

Good, hopefully this will stop other countries from going those ways, too.
 

kawligia

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Feb 24, 2009
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Lord Krunk said:
Not to mention it violates our (somewhat vague) freedom of speech.
I wasn't aware that Australia had ANY freedom of speech. Almost every piece of news I hear that concerns Australia involves, or at least references, some type of censorship.

At any rate, Congrats!
 

Aardvark

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Sep 9, 2008
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kawligia said:
I wasn't aware that Australia had ANY freedom of speech.
We don't. Not legally, anyway. It's implied and there's certain laws protecting certain means of expression, but there's no blanket constitutional amendment protecting freedom of speech as you find in the US.

I have no idea why they've only just decided that this internet censorship is dead.
With the Greens and the Coalition against it (Hooray for space commies), there weren't enough senators onside, even if the few piss-ant dissenters were onside. This thing was dead last year, when Brown and Turnbull both said, "This idea sucks and so do you!" to the moron who's still trying to push the thing, instead of quietly retreating to the backbench, where all failed politicians go until they can be formally voted out.
 

Dommyboy

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Jul 20, 2008
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I knew this censorship would of never came through . It was supposed to first start up in 2008 anyway. Did anybody here actually get the censoring trial with your ISP? I use Exetel and they're as illegal content friendly as you can get so I knew they would never let this happen.
 

Nimbus

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Oct 22, 2008
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Lord Krunk said:
Hooray! It's finally over!

...but wait. How did you know about this before me?

Mind you, pretty much every channel except for Ten is wailing "We can't wait for internet censorship, can you?" I could understand that they wouldn't want to reveal the 'sad' news to the general public.

What the hell were they thinking, anyway? Filters would have slowed down our internet further than it already is, which I might add is probably the slowest of all the countries that have internet. Not to mention it violates our (somewhat vague) freedom of speech.

Now all they need to do is remove the filters on school computers. The only sites you can go on? Google and Wikipedia. And the former is useless for obvious reasons.
Really? How slow? What would be the 'average' package that ISPs are offering?

Also, someone put a mark in freedoms 'win' column!
 

Mask of 1000 Faces

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Feb 28, 2009
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Nimbus said:
Lord Krunk said:
Hooray! It's finally over!

...but wait. How did you know about this before me?

Mind you, pretty much every channel except for Ten is wailing "We can't wait for internet censorship, can you?" I could understand that they wouldn't want to reveal the 'sad' news to the general public.

What the hell were they thinking, anyway? Filters would have slowed down our internet further than it already is, which I might add is probably the slowest of all the countries that have internet. Not to mention it violates our (somewhat vague) freedom of speech.

Now all they need to do is remove the filters on school computers. The only sites you can go on? Google and Wikipedia. And the former is useless for obvious reasons.
Really? How slow? What would be the 'average' package that ISPs are offering?

Also, someone put a mark in freedoms 'win' column!
*runs to his chalkboard*
 

Sigenrecht

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Mar 17, 2008
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Hehe... Xenophon...

Erm, but, it's a good thing to see freedom of expression and common sense won out.
 

stompy

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Jan 21, 2008
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Nimbus said:
Really? How slow? What would be the 'average' package that ISPs are offering?
TPG [http://iprimus.com.au/PrimusWeb/HomeSolutions/BroadbandInternet/]), then I haven't heard of it.

As for these news, 'bout fucking time (pardon my French **sniggers**). Seems Nick Xenophon is getting a lot of media coverage lately, what with his blocking of the $42b stimulus package, and now this. Hazzah for the Senate!

Note:
Lord Krunk said:
Not to mention it violates our (somewhat vague) freedom of speech.
Krunk, we have no 'freedom of speech/expression' in our Constitution. Like Aardvark said, we have some legal precedent (I believe this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Capital_Television_Pty_Ltd_v_Commonwealth] is one of the important ones) created by the High Court. However, all it takes is Parliament passing legislation, and that precedent is over-ridden, like what happened with the Mabo decision, the Wik decision and the subsequent legislation by the Howard Government.
 

Khada

Night Angel
Jan 8, 2009
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WHO-FUCKING-RAY~!!!!!!!

saves me the trouble of having to protest n shit... i like my online games... aint NOBODY taking them from me :mad:
 

seule

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Jul 21, 2008
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Xenophon is a very media savvy man. When he was in the South Australian state senate he was the same. So far he "seems" to be looking out for his constituents, but we'll see how it all comes out in the wash.