NOCENSORSHIP.INFO

THE Federal Government’s proposed internet censorship regime is not the silver bullet to stop child pornography, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said.

A blacklist of more the 2000 websites, including child pornography sites, banned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), was published on the whistleblower website Wikileaks over a week ago.

Critics said the leak showed the Government should step back from mandatory filtering and that the plan would not solve the problem of child pornography, which is often spread over peer-to-peer networks rather than the web.

Senator Conroy said the Government had never claimed the filter itself would stop child pornography.

“We’ve never tried to pretend that this was a silver bullet, we’ve never tried to suggest this was the sole solution,” Senator Conroy said.

The aim of the proposed filtering is to block material that is already illegal and is refused classification, he said.

Senator Conroy said other forms of technology could be used to crack peer-to-peer pedophile rings.

“If I stood up anywhere and said ‘hey, this filter will block peer-to-peer’ then rightfully I should be ridiculed,” he said.

“I’ve never said that … it is not designed to deal with peer-to-peer.”

Speculation about the Government’s plans to block political content was also incorrect, he said.

“I don’t want to block political content, (I’ve) never said we were going to block political content.”

Senator Conroy said he had been accused of introducing censorship.

“This is patently nonsense; if you read what is actually in out policy (which) we took to the election, if you listen to what people claim we’ve said we’re going to do, the gulf could not be wider.”

 

Senator Conroy has stated that the Government never said the filter would stop child pornography and that he is not introducing censorship.  Also, keep in mind that not all refused classification content is illegal. 

The policy that Labor took to the election is available here. 

“Labor recognises that cyber-safety today is an important part of children’s overall health and well-being, yet it is one that is not being adequately addressed by the Howard Government. That is why Labor will: Provide a mandatory ‘clean feed’ internet service for all homes, schools and public computers that are used by Australian children. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will filter out content that is identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The ACMA ‘blacklist’ will be made more comprehensive to ensure that children are protected from harmful and inappropriate online material.

If the policy was intended to ‘protect the children’ why is the filter now mandatory for all Australian peoples over the age of eighteen, who do not have children within their dwellings at any time?