Clean feed or Church feed?
Senator Conroy is basing this on a Church-circulated petition that he brought to parliament: http://stilgherrian.com/politics/petitions_drove_filtering_policy/
The list of sites to be censored, and the identity of who will make the decisions are questions that the Senator has refused to answer. He has said that the policy is to make a deep inspection of every internet packet for any content relating to real violence, cruelty and sexual violence, because he claims that these are already illegal content in every other media. All adult pornography would be banned. Family First are pushing for gambling sites to be banned as well, and the Churches and right-wingers are lobbying for more and more extensions. Senator Conroy also refuses to rule out ruling out anything for future censorship. Of course if they can't tell what's in your packets, then they will assume they are naughty packets and block them. Too bad if you're testing new technology.
If this was extended to TV, all news, current affairs and history would be banned content. High school curricula would be banned material. Rape victim counselling, etc, etc.
Besides, if this is all to protect children from child porn, is there any evidence of children searching for child porn? The Federal Police have found that disrupting the social networks, not the technical networks, is how they most effectively fight people who make and distribute child porn. Its has nothing to do with censorship.
This is a purely right wing religious ideological push for total control of the Australian internet experience. Child porn is a red herring, to distract from their political censorship. There are no checks or balances planned to make sure politcial sites are not "accidentally" blocked. Its all secret closed room stuff like China, Syria, and Iran. There is nothing stopping further stuff being blocked, and its invisible, because its digital machinery. Voice over IP would be included packets, so be careful what you say, or your phone call will drop out.
Its about Churches taking over what Australians can see and discuss on the internet, by only allowing content that they deem safe for children. This makes children of us all, with somebody else's secret Church as our parents.
MP3