In last year’s budget, the federal government introduced a $9.8 million program to assist ISPs in offering voluntary filtering measures. In last night’s budget announcement, that program was scrapped. Turns out, nobody actually wants internet filtering… More »
Australia loves censoring and filtering things on the internet, but its government hasn’t had its fill yet. Next up: blocking BitTorrent in the entire country.
Here’s a perfect example of why Internet filters just don’t work. Our New Zealand cousins across the ditch living in a place called Whakatane were given a rude shock when they discovered – thanks to an interested tourist – that their town’s name was being blocked by an American internet filter.
The reason? In Maori, ‘Wh’ is pronounced like an ‘F’. So that you understand the problem, say it out loud: Fakatane. Say it again: Fakatane. Do you see the problem? It sounds like ‘Fuck-a-tarny’.
So because of some phonetics, an internet filter blocked an entire New Zealand town. Sure, it has now been sorted out, but this is still a great example (and yes, we’re talking to you, Conroy) of why internet filters just don’t work – 9 times out of 10, they filter out perfectly acceptable stuff.
[via News.com.au]
