Stephen Conroy

Warning! Rant ahead with many links!

Anyone that is familiar with the proposed filtering of Australia's Internet will recognise the name of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. Well, he's made the news again on ninemsn, after an interview with Fairfax Media. He's once more defended the filter, referring to an internet without a filter (Such as, ooh, I dunno, the one we're using now?) as "a recipe for anarchy."

After they take our Anarchy, who's next? V? Red Bull?

Ummmmm....

No....

An internet without a filter is a recipe for free speech. That's just one of the reasons that people are against the filter. I suspect that this may also be the main reason that many politicians are for it.

Although free speech is a large issue, it isn't the only one by any means. There are also a few other issues that are being raised such as:

1. The filter will slow down Australia's already laughable internet speed. We have one of the slowest networks in the developing world and yet Conroy and Co. want to slow it down even further. One of the figures being thrown out there is seventy percent.

2. It will not stop the people that truly want to find the banned material. If the paedophiles, militant supremacists (of all stripes) and other criminals/nutjobs/sickos aren't put off by laws that stop them from engaging in these acts in the first place, do you honestly think that a second-rate filter is going to stop them from putting stuff on the internet?

3. The list of banned material will not be made public, which means that the Australian public has no idea of what they are REALLY being "protected" from.

4. We've been misled to in regards to what is being blocked. The "Refused Classification" line that is being spouted isn't quite true, it seems. According to The Age, of 1370 sites blocked, 506 would be be rated either X18 or R18, which means that they are still legal to be viewed in Australia. The Australian public was told that the filter was to stop illegal content.

I won't go into all of the reasons that there is for Australians opposing this filter, but if you're interested, I'd head here and here.

It's been made clear that Australia doesn't want its internet filtered, but Mr Conroy, with a sense of righteousness only previously seen in Magneto, isn't listening

See? We don't want it.

This kind of singlemindedness is not what protects children. This is the kind of bullshit crusade that ensures people that don't know any better are lulled into a false sense of security by a government that, unable to actually target the REAL threats, goes after something else in order to deflect recognition of the fact that they are powerless against the REAL threats.

MySpace. Facebook. Social Networking sites are where the genuine threats to children come from, but going after something that huge is just too much hard work. That's where half-baked ideas like the internet filter, marketed at parents too busy to raise their own damned kids, comes into play.

In closing, my thoughts to Mr Conroy are rather simply conveyed, so here's Mr John Constantine to express them.