So if you thought that the new Government actually had some common sense when it came to censoring the Internet, you’d be very, very wrong. The Australian is reporting that Communications Minister Conroy has given the green light for ISP level filters to be trialled in Tasmania.
The filters are designed to filter out those net nasties that could possibly harm your children, like porn and swear words, and are originally planned to be operated in a closed environment by Enex Testlab. The closed test is expected to be completed by June 30, with Live trials to happen after that.
If you do happen to be a Tasmanian, the news gets a little bit worse. The trials aren’t opt-in – you’ll need to opt out if you want to spend your days watching pornotube the freedom to choose what you want to experience online.
The Government has decided to go ahead with the trial, despite the fact that a report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority conceded that the filtering would probably be ineffectual against Web 2.0 services, and that education was ultimately the best way to protect children from online nasties.
But I think Ars Technica put it best when they said:
The pilot program in Tasmania will undoubtedly expose the flaws in the
program, but there is no guarantee that lawmakers will listen. The
Australian government’s complete disregard for the prior studies on the
inefficacy of ISP-level filtering make it seem clear that this
filtering plan is politically motivated rather than inspired by
legitimate concerns.
Don’t you just hate politicians?