As I feared, the internet filtering issue has now been taken up by special interests. The conservative Christian political party Family First, run largely by the Hillsong evangelical denomination, has one senator, but the balance of power is so tight they wield disproportionate power, and as PM Kevin Rudd and several of his cabinet colleagues are themselves religious, the FF interests are likely to be pandered to, as they were by the conservative Howard government. Senator Steve Fielding wants the filtering to include pornography and gambling, both of which are legal for adults in Australia. The worry is that this and other special interest claims may end up finding their way into these "filters", with no public oversight.
And further reports on the performance hits the filtering is likely to impose: from 25% to 75%. I think it is more likely to end up at 300% - that is the hit I suffer at the University of Queensland, which has been trialling filtering for the past year or so. Just to look up a URL takes as long as a minute. I do all my internetting at home for that reason. Why does it take so long? Well, they probably have only a couple of boxes doing the looking up. There are some 50,000 users at the university. Okay, you say, that's a trial, but ask yourself this: would an ISP, which has nothing to lose if its performance is as bad as everybody else's, spend a lot of money setting up fast filtering servers? Only if they get you to pay for it, surely.
Last week there were ten items in Google News on this; today there are 40. I hope this gets increasing coverage and we can stop this stupid, paternalistic and demeaning,and ultimately useless piece of posturing by politicians and bureacrats.
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The Hillsong denomination? Like the one featured in The Adam Hills' Song?
Alas, no. I couldn't see it anyway... must be something filtering it.
Man, this is absurd. Even the US hasn't gone this far yet. It's almost like a kind of virtual martial law is being imposed - like China. Well then, they should force all religious sites to be filtered as well - too much potential sedition and mind-control there.
I really hope the coverage takes off as (if?) they get to debating this drivel in parliament.
I don't know if anyone has explained to these people yet that this kind of filtering is just not possible (that is, without breaking the intertubes).
Hillsong church used to be Christian Life Centre (Balkam Hills), which was started by Brian Houston as an offshoot of Christian Life Centre, which was started by his father, an old paedohile named Frank Houston.
I was a member of CLC back when it had a couple of hundred and met in a rented hall at Double Bay.
Actually, family first has nothing to do with Hillsong. Family first is an independent party, that is comprised of several Assemblies of God members, however, none of them go to Hillsong as far as I know. Hillsong is not involved in any leadership of Family first either.
May want to check your sources!
Not my sources, my brain. You are absolutely right. I am confusing my religious political movements.
John, the UK has bigger problems, perhaps.
Newly returned from stealing as an EU commissar, newly enermined Lord Mandeson (retired in disgrace three times under Bliar) is again a member of the goverment and cabinet, something to do with business.
His department has asked the British group who allocate domain names for .co.uk to "justify" their position and why they have the users vote on who is on the board and no input from other stakeholders (I despise that term, it is newspeak for liebor having control). Quite bluntly, they are stating that it should be under goverment control "for the good of society".
So Australians aren't alone, you join the UK and rest of the EU in witnessing attempted state control of the intertubes. The worst case is the Germans asking for the extradition of an Australian, arrested whilst in transit at Heathrow, for what he has published on a web site hosted in Australia. The judge threw out the case, but the poor man is being held in jail (£100,000 bail required which he doesn't have) pending further attempts by the Germans to appeal and he is also banned from talking about the case.
Oh, the law broken is solely a German/Austrian law so why he was even held in the UK is worth asking. Do we now have to obey the laws of every country?
I'm afraid the West has forgotten about liberty, except for politicians and their fellow travellers.
if this filtering issue turns out to be advantegous to everyone. why not give it a shot...