NOCENSORSHIP.INFO

Investigations by Whirlpool community user xFoadx has found that political websites are anything but immune to the ACMA ban-hammer.

Anti-abortion advocacy website abortiontv.com was submitted to the ACMA by xFoadx as a phony complaint. Unfortunately, the ACMA fell for the deception and added the site to its blacklist.

Further information can be found at:

• Websinthe
• Stilgherrian
• TechWiredAU

Australian Christian Lobby resorts to hypocrisy to promote the filter

Managing Director of the Australian Chrisitan Lobby Jim Wallace has written an article in the Sydney Morning Herald accusing the anti-censorship lobby, in particular the GetUp! foundation, of cherry picking statistics and misleading the public.

He then choose to fight this by cherry picking statistics and misleading the public.

Further information can be found at:

• Geordie Guy - Geordie Guy fires up about the blatant hypocrisy in Jim’s article
• Websinthe - Websinthe rebuts the article point-by-point
• Stilgherrian - Tears shreds out of the political childishness and lies in the article
• Letters to the SMH - Letters to the SMH show that readers truly disagree with Jim Wallace

Netspace survey shows Internet users do not want the ISP filter

Australian ISP Netspace has conducted a survey of nearly 10,000 of its customers asking questions about the government’s proposed filter.

The results were a statistical bombardment of the government’s claims that the Australian populace actually wants the filter.

Further information can be found at:

• Netspace - The survey results
• TechWiredAU
• Somebody Think Of The Children

*Links in order of post order

“The Labour Government’s plan to stamp out child pornography online might hold the moral high ground, but it is sorely lacking in other credentials”

This months Rolling Stone magazine (released today) has a three page article on internet censorship and those opposing it. 

It’s definately worth reading, with interviews from Senator Ludlam and DLC’s media man Jerry Hutchinson, iinet’s CEO Mark White and dismissive comments from Senator Conroy’s office.

It mentions the protests, ACMA Black list, filter trials, March in March, Bernadette McMenamin’s “heartwarming” stance on those of us who oppose the filter, international filters and Conroy’s well known views on opponents to his plans.

If you’re out and about have a look, Rolling Stone is available at most newsagents.

Since the early days of the Censorwall issue, the DBCDE and Senator Conroy’s office have been supplying Labor MPs with a pro-forma response to questions from the public. Time and time again these responses have been debunked, disproven or shown to be misleading by numerous sources both in Australia and Internationally.

Despite this, Labor MPs continue to sign their name to the form letter.

Mark Newton of Internode has released his own form letter into the public domain to be mailed to MPs by citizens unhappy with the photocopied response they received. This letter completely tears the government position to shreds. Mark uses reasoned argument, technical evidence and well supported academic references to show that each and every point of the government position is wrong, misleading or downright harmful.

Download this letter, print it out, fill it out and send it to your local MP.

Conroy maintains 2008 line despite public outcry

Today Senator Conroy opened the 2009 ALIA Information Online conference in Sydney. His opening speech, his first speaking engagement for 2009, was attended by members of the Australian Twitter community including Crikey columnist Stilgherrian.

Senator Conroy was greeted by polite applause from a conference of people that in 2007 voiced serious concerns about the freedom of speech aspects of filtering online content.

The Senator attempted to play down the technical difficulties of ISP filtering, willing only to concede that “Broader, dynamic analysis filtering of Internet content… has raised some issues in the past.”

Again today Conroy has used the misleading term ‘live pilot’ to describe the in-house prototyping that the DBCDE will be foisting onto ISPs at some undisclosed point this month.

In another of his attempts to avoid answering public fear of civil rights infringement, he claimed once again that “the Government does not view this debate as an argument about freedom of speech.”

The Senator can view this debate any way in which he so wishes, the point remains however, that as an elected representative, his duty is to represent, not dictate. If the Government maintains this view then it is in blatant ignorance of national movement against the filter on exactly those grounds.

The public say no to government interfered Internet and it is their duty to represent that.

We, the voters, say that this is a freedom of speech issue. Regardless of political ideology, the Government is patronising voters in the most rude and irresponsible way by so arrogantly disregarding the overwhelming opposition the Censorwall has faced.