The federal government has decided to put the internet filter on the back burner until after the election. While they try and sort out the current classifications system, Telstra, Optus and iPrimus have all started voluntarily blocking known child porn websites. The question now is whether that’s all we really need?
Over the past three years, every time Senator Conroy has spoken about the filter, we’ve heard the term “child porn” on high rotation. The senator was hoping that just like Pavlov’s dogs, we’d begin to associate the idea of a filter with child porn and start thinking it was a good thing. It obviously didn’t work.
Now that the filter has been delayed by at least 12 months, three of the largest ISPs are voluntarily blocking child porn websites. It’s a solution similar to the ones in Europe, where ISPs voluntarily restrict access to child abuse material. It’s a solution that many anti-filter advocates don’t have a problem with.
So the question is this: Are the voluntary filtering measures adopted by Telstra Optus and iPrimus all we really need? Or do you think that filtering of any description is too much (or not enough)?
[Fight the filter]