John On Web Stuff » censorship

Is Online Censorship On the Rise?

John — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:26:23 +0000

Censorship of the Internet is definitely alive and well in countries where oppressive government regimes seek to control the flow of information, such as China, Uzbekistan, Cuba, and Iran. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found that there are 125 journalists behind bars around the world as of the start of this month. That’s actually a drop of 2 from 2007, but given that 45% of imprisoned journalists are bloggers or work exclusively online it is clear that the rise of the Internet as an information source has led to a parallel rise in censorship. SitePoint » Is Online Censorship On the Rise?.

Australia’s Net Censorship Sparks Outrage

John — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:28:34 +0000

One of the most important Internet stories in Australia right now is that country’s federal government’s plan to start requiring ISP level censorship of the Internet. As part of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s AU$125.8 million Cyber-saftey plan. The plan requires that ISPs deliver a “clean-feed” web service to homes, school, and and public web access points. The government will maintain two blacklists, one that filters out illegal material, mostly child pornography, and another that filters out objectionable material as determined by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The first list will be mandatory, while users will be able to opt out of the latter. SitePoint » Australia’s Net Censorship Sparks Outrage.

Net censorship plan backlash

John — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:41:50 +0000

As opposition grows against the Government’s controversial plan to censor the internet, the head of one of Australia’s largest ISPs has labelled the Communications Minister the worst we’ve had in the past 15 years. Net censorship plan backlash – BizTech – Technology – theage.com.au.

Just an update to the previous article about Conroy asking for Expressions of Interest. At least one ISP will participate in the trials, iiNet’s Michael Malone said he would sign up for the trials, mostly to give the government some real evidence that the entire filtering system just doesn’t work.

Conroy calls for filter pilot volunteers

John — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:14:10 +0000

The federal government yesterday called for expressions of interest from internet service providers to conduct a live pilot of the controversial internet content filtering pilot it is planning. With the pilot hoped to be commenced by 24 December 2008, the expressions of interest (EoI) document has been peppered with what appear to be small enticements for ISPs to join the trial. Conroy calls for filter pilot volunteers: News – Software – ZDNet Australia.

Haha, good luck with that Conroy! I’m sure you will have lots of ISPs that want to offer their customers a lesser service.