It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything about Mr Rudd et al’s internet censorship schemes and so on, so I had been starting to hope they had realised that it would just be digging their own grave.
Apparently not.
It’s no big surprise that the Rudd Government claims the NetAlert software that was pushed by the Howard Government was a failure (from the Sydney Morning Herald website).
Of course they would say that. They want their scheme to take over and give them more control over what people have access to. Hey, I don’t want to see porn, but guess what, I don’t go looking for it, so I am not exposed to it. I see more on TV and in movies than on the internet, simply because as I said, I don’t try and find it. I don’t have to use filters, nor do I want filters.
Yes, sure, NetAlert was a $189 million program with over $15 million spent on advertising it, and it was expected to be in use in 2.5 million homes, however it was only downloaded or ordered on CD 144,088 times, and it is estimated only 29,000 copies are still being used. So what, I’d rather my taxes be used on something like that than on a filter I do not want in place.
Sure, put the filter in place in schools and public access points if you want, though the majority of these places already have systems in place that work perfectly well for them, but leave private internet connections alone.
As the Liberal communications spokesman Bruce Billson was quoted as saying, “the Rudd Government was rushing to criticise the NetAlert program to set the scene for a “harebrained, half-baked policy dreamt up in the lead-up to an election”. I can’t agree more.
Following that he is also quoted as saying, “Proper supervision should be front and centre of any efforts to protect children from inappropriate material on the internet; supported by additional tools such as content filters, not some mandatory and ill-conceived ‘clean feed’ measure by a government that believes only it has the authority to decide what’s appropriate or inappropriate content for computer users.”
Again, this is very, very true. Mr Rudd et al, it is not your job to parent the countries kids, go look after your own and leave my parents to parent me. They did an excellent job of it, and I have been on the net since I could type with no content filtering.
I do have to admit I find it very amusing that the Tom Wood kid gets labelled as “The Porn Cracker”, is that a label anyone really wants?
By rights, that means anyone who bypasses nanny software is looking for porn and is thus a “Porn Cracker”. Wow. I really have nothing to say to how stupid a label that is, and how stupid it is to assume that he was the first kid to get around it.
While I am sure, at 16 and being able to “crack” a filtering program, Mr Wood is a real internet prodigy, I am certain there are better qualified people to help come up with a better idea than him. Given the current suggestions of your party Mr Rudd, I am also certain that there are better qualified people then you and your ministers. I know, as many people have already said, including myself, and I will say it again, leave the internet alone.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.