Labor Plans to Restrict Internet In Australia

In the news today, Labor has put forward that they want to force all ISPs in Australia to filter all traffic. The plan is to filter all internet users, unless they opt out of the filter. The result of this, is that all uneducated computer users will be prevented from seeing websites that our government don't want them to see. Child protection has, of course been raised as the reason for this.

"That is not good enough when research suggests that the exposure of children and others in the community to this sickening content can lead to aggression towards women and child abuse." said Kim Beazley. What research? Who paid for that research? When was the research done? What was the nature of the study?

Too often the mainstream media sweepingly quotes "research", and that is not good enough. Government sponsored research is a crock at the best of times. We only have to look at the "research" that says I'm more likely to die if I'm breaking the speed limit by 5 km/h. It's not research, it's bollocks put forward as research to support their method of revenue raising.

Australia already has some of the tightest internet regulation in the world. Many sites were forced to move off shore because of our draconian internet censorship scheme, taking jobs with them. These wern't all porn sites either. These planned changes will bring us even closer to China.

There are already filtering program available to parents. The government's excuse is that these are too hard for most parents to install. Well, if parents are stupid enough to let their kids loose on the internet, and they don't know how to use it themselves or watch what their kids are doing, then they are negligent. I'm sorry but I just don't buy it. This is nothing to do with kids, it's about restricting information.

I don't care about the filters, I will just use encryption via a proxy, and most kids will do the same. I know of school kids that are more proficient on computers and the internet than myself, and I've been doing this a long time now. It's almost scary how good some of them are. Once everyone is using proxies, the ISPs and the government will have no way of knowing what data is being transmitted and recieved, let alone where it is going.

The internet is the last (first?) medium of free information exchange among the world's citizens. Lets not let the clowns who run this place into the ground destroy the internet for us aswell. Hopefully Labor will not get elected federally. We can only hope the rest of Australia will see what Labor has done to NSW and not let them do the same to the whole country.