Reserved Words

Senator Conroy - the Internet is special

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censorship filtering interent openinternet politics technology

In April 2010, Senator Conroy was quoted by Fairfax media (Sydney Morning Herald, The Age etc.) as asking "Why is the internet special?,"saying the net was "just a communication and distribution platform" (see article). Here are my reasons why I believe that the internet is special (and therefore a heavy handed approach to filtering content is unjustified). The internet simultaneously: hosts audio and video which can be broadcast or narrow cast acts like the postal system (with email replacing…

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Conroy fails to defend mandatory internet filter on 7PM Project

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censorship media openinternet technology

Senator Conroy appeared on The 7PM Project last night (Wednesday 24th March 2010) in an attempt to defend the proposed mandatory ISP level filter. Watch the video below and see if you think he was convincing. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2WBsjOspNo&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=enUS&feature=playerembedded&fs=1] It was typical spin that tried to keep the focus for RC material on child pornography when the scope of RC material is much wider than that. To be fai…

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Censorship begins at home for Conroy

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censorship politics technology

As reported here, here, here, here and originally discussed here on Whirlpool, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy has censored his own web site to prevent the term ISP Filtering appearing in the site’s tag cloud. Here is a screenshot of what the tag cloud looks like as of 26 Feb 2010: Clicking on any of these terms executes a search on the web site for articles that contain that phrase. This tag cloud is apparently based on frequently searc…

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Follow up – useful info on the proposed government mandatory internet filter

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censorship nocleanfeed openinternet technology

Following up from my last post I’ve pieced together a bunch of relevant articles and arguments for anyone interested in some further reading on this issue. Conroy’s filter will not make the internet safer A good article by Suzanne Dvorak from the ABC the chief executive of Save the Children in Australia about why the filter will not make children safer. The synopsis is that we’d be better spent teaching our children how to be safe: *The best way to protect children from harm is to teach them t…

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Australian Government Internet Censorship plans

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censorship nocleanfeed openinternet technology

OK this is serious. It’s been bubbling along for quite a while now but it looks like the Government and Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy are pretty committed to filtering the internet to prevent any material that is ‘refused classification’ from being accessed in Australia. Why am I against this? I think it’s being driven by ideology rather than common sense The kind of material that it purports to protect us from isn’t out in the open anyway…

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