Wild West Internet Forum
Is the Internet the Wild West...
And can the Government tame it?
Live stream of the event will be at: http://www.livestream.com/efa_oz
Twitter hashtag: #wwnet
The Government contends that only it can save the internet from the anarchist nerds who want to keep it as the "Wild West". Come and hear how successful we think the self-appointed internet sheriffs are going to be.
Join us in Melbourne on Friday, 25th of June for a free event dissecting the Rudd Government's mandatory internet censorship plan.
Location: Village Roadshow Theater, Entrance 3, State Library of Victoria (Latrobe St, Melbourne)
Time: 6.00pm - 7.30pm Friday, 25th June
A lively panel will shine a light on the plan and engage in a discussion with local audience and twitterers watching everywhere.
The Panel:
Scott Ludlam
Greens Senator for Western Australia
Marcus Westbury
Columnist and Commentator
Catherine Deveny
Columnist, Comedian and notorious twitterer
Colin Jacobs
Chair, Electronic Frontiers Australia
The event is free to attend, but please RSVP here if possible.
Update: Audio from the event
Nice idea but we all know what conroy is going to say, "your misleading the public". Anyone who disagrees with him is according to him.
BTW, any chance of a live feed for those that can't make it in RL?
Question submission
To the Right Honourable Senator Conroy.
The legislation to implement Internet Censorship has not been drafted, whilst the The Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill 2010 is currently working it's way through Parliament, do you think it likely, and/or do you intend, that your Internet Censorship legislation should be put to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights when it is created?
You have stated that the Internet Censorship legislation has been delayed due to the need for further consultation, has that consultation included the Attorney General as to possible scrutiny by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights as established by The Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill 2010?
Are there any "pro" filter people on the panel?
Was an invitatin sent to Conroy, Clive Hamilton or the ACL??
I'm sure that Senator Conroy is more than welcome to come along and correct anyone who tries to be misleading. Or at the very least send a departmental delegate.
If he's REALLY concerned about the public being mislead, that is.
A live feed is in the offing.
I admit we haven't called Clive - though we will try and get some pro-filter arguments addressed on the night.
It would be good if you did at least invite some of the pro-filter 'heavy hitters'...it would give the event some balance. Being very much anti-filter myself, I know how frustrated I get whenever Conroy appears unopposed.
Colin...will you be taking questions before the event..?
@L: If anyone wants to submit questions beforehand that would be great, I'll see to it they get a look-in on the night.
@Kingsley
I've a question for you, I've lost count of the number of different people you have tried to pretend to be on these forums, a concerned parent, network technician, law expert, etc, never the ACL parrot that you actually are. You have repeatedly posted the twaddle that you have in your question, and have been repeatedly answered by numerous people (including myself), and the problems with what you have posted have been likewise repeatedly pointed out to you by numerous people. My question to you is are you actually going to LISTEN to the answers to your question this time?
@Kingsly
That won't make 40 000 people accessing illicit martial per day for several reasons.
One; the population of Australia is much lower, you should at least adjust your estimation based on relative population.
Two; even if you did that you assume that the same percentage of Australians want to access that stuff and don't consider that maybe this is more of a problem in the UK, or less, you have no way of knowing.
Three; you take the ISP's word for it that that is the case and don't provide us with a list of those sites so we can even know if it's true or not. It's completely speculative.
Anyway you miss the point. People looking at it causes no further harm, the problem is the content was created in the first place and that is where the resources should be going. The content is created because people want to look at it, not because they can. Stopping people looking at it won't stop there wants and wont stop the child abuse, that is the job of law enforcement and would be a better use of the money for the filter.
Additionally the UK is already something of a police state with more CTV cameras than people. Your country is exactly the kinda of example we don't want to follow.
Isn't the panel a little one-sided? How will there be an effective debate without two sides being presented? This will easily be brushed off unfortunately.
Are there any people on that panel who are not members of the Australian Greens?
We went through this debate many years ago. I maintained that the public would be concerned if a government authorized reading of mail, censoring of phone conversations, voice or text messages and so on, but are led by media to believe that the net is a scary place and must be censored. I have no problem with net filters available to people or schools who believe they need them - some people won't have a phone or TV set in their houses - but for all of us, how we use the net is our own affair. There are probably no more criminals using the net than using phone or mail services or making arrangements over a back yard barbecue. All is communication and part of our free speech rights. Once few politicians knew how the net worked - all their Internet and e-mail matters were handled by their more knowledgeable staff; maybe there are still politicians who don't know what they are talking about.
In the UK, over 98% of residential broadband connections are filtered by UK ISPs against a list of known child sexual abuse URLs.
One UK ISP, BT, blocks 40,000 access attempts to known child sexual abuse URLS every day. In Australia, that would amount to 40,000 unique preventions of a criminal act occurring everyday.
Well, no, Kingsley. The population of Britain is 70 Million. 40 Thousand people represents less than .0000018 of the population. So, if you're going to extrapolate on crimes not committed based on numbers alone, it'd be .0000018 of the current number of Australians. Of course, the filter the Government is proposing will block far more than just illegal material; it'll block legal material that is RC as well. And we won't actually know what's on the list, or how to get incorrectly identified sites off the list. And then there's the fact that most people who are into child porn don't use websites to find it anyway. So, run along and do a bit of maths, and a bit of thinking.
Jen,
The filtering schemes in the countries you mentioned are all voluntary, not compulsory like Mr Conroy's one. Even in the UK, you can opt out by choosing one of the 2% of ISPs who don't filter.
And as to ISPs not doing enough to combat child pornography, that's like complaining that your police won't give you cheap broadband. It is the job of an ISP to provide access to the internet. Many of them also choose to offer family-friendly filtering, but censorship is not their job. The people whose job it is to combat child porn are the police. And they do it will less and less money every year while we waste time and money on a filter which is not going to work, and which will damage our freedom.
But really, all the cant about child porn is just a smokescreen; a lot more would be blocked by this filter, in secret, including material is is legal to own and view. Children would not be protected from most of the material that can harm them, as R and MA15 material would not be targeted, nor would cyber-bullies, who constitute the biggest threats to the welfare of the young online.
@vian
"Jen"'s comment has been removed. The commenter is a known PITA who masquerades as an EFA member or other person visible in Australian technology policy, then makes noise by demanding back fictitious donations or publicly rescinding their membership or declaring their rethink of censorship and how it's now a good idea. They're not welcome here.
Womp, "Kingsley" is the same person as "Jen", their comment has been removed.
Umm, I have heard that the government is trying to introduce a law that allows them to keeps a log of every single website and individual visits. Is this actually legal? Isn't there privacy laws that prevent this and deem such a law as unconstitutional.
On the issue of balance: Others have been approached - including the other parties - but no takers so far. I am hoping to have some more diversity to announce in advance.
I heard about that law a few days ago too...They calling it the 10-year-data lockdown outside of australia. All of these current policies are scarin the hell out of me...I thought the point of laws were to scare crims not the people. Isn't there a single polly out there that understands tec?
You should Invite Andrew Bolt he's a keen supporter of the Internet Filter and he's in Melbourne
I couldn't make it to the forum and the live stream doesn't seem to be archived. Can I watch the discussion or listen to a podcast somewhere? (if it hasn't been censored...)
@Hamish: I'll get the video from the video volunteer and try and get it up on youtube in the next couple of days.
Colin,
Thanks. How did the session go? I didn't see any comment anywhere.
@Hamish: Went pretty well. I quickly threw up some audio - see above.