Australian Net Filtering - Why is this not a big issue?

You're right. This SHOULD be a big issue - and is to many, believe it or not. S&F

There are a number of more and less active related threads on ATS now:

Controlling the Internet

Cyberattack Drill Shows U.S. Unprepared

French net filtering plan moves forward


...imo - the world's international mega-corporations are turning up the heat right now to ensure that standard 'harmonized' trade terms are applied to the Internet. All the "corporations are people too" bafflegab is tied in too, big time. We're looking at the end play of the global corporate government takeover - they're just dotting the last i's and crossing the final t's.

Definitely a good time to start fighting back.

I've been reading ATS for a long time, but this issue finally made me sign up and post.

As an Australian, i am completely baffled by the total lack of awareness about this issue by the general public on the street. I don't know if it's because 2011 seems so far away, that people are just sitting tight and waiting to see if it gets scaled down or abandoned... or people just don't know about it.. or perhaps they are scared they will be labelled a "kiddy fiddler sympathiser" if they voice their dissapproval? Well guess what, there were kiddy fiddlers and terrorists before the internet and they aren't gonna disappear just because we put a filter on and pretend they are all gone. If anything, monitoring traffic to such sites has helped CATCH them.

Of course no-one wants their kids to be exposed to the nasty stuff on the internet, but here's a thought.. put the computer in the FAMILY ROOM so you can see what they are doing.

I was also going to comment on the merits (safety issues, personal accounts) of sites which discuss the usage of illicit drugs and how filtering out drug use is, as 'Southpark' would put it, a "drugs are bad.. m'kay?" approach.. but then i read the ATS terms of service..

2e.) Illicit Activity: Discussion of illicit activities; specifically the use of mind-altering drugs & substances, engaging in computer hacking, promoting criminal hate, dicussing sexual relations with minors, and furtherance of financial schemes and scams are strictly forbidden. You will also not link to sites or online content that contains discussion or advocacy of such material. Any post mentioning or advocating personal use of illicit mind-altering drugs will result in immediate account termination.

2e.i) Narcotics and illicit mind-altering substances: Due to abuse of the subject matter by some (promoting various aspects of personal use, and discussing actual personal use), no new topics on this subject are allowed in any form.

Hahahahaha.. irony much??


But anyways, at the end of the day, my biggest issue with the whole idea is performance.. There is no way they can implement a filter system without it slowing Australias already pathetically slow internet to a snails pace

Originally posted by Silver Shadow
Banning the worst child porn sites, or terrorist sites that incite fanatics, tell how to make homemade weapons or explosives are a very different thing.

Yeah but i like small breasted women, female ejaculation, and some cartoon porn. But they're all on the censorshiplist too..

But somehow that related to bomb-making, terrorist plots, and weapons and explosives?

And if they're on the list now banning female with small breasts, next they'll be banning me, a male with small breasts. My sister reckons im too fat and have an A cup. I certainly never agreed to the censorship on female ejaculation... It's a natural thing. Women do it all the time!

You don't think there are not levels of this happening in other places already???
Even here in the good ole USA?
This is a matrix not a free netllusion...

The reason it's not a big issue is that Australia has fluoridated drug addled brained populace and the truth is they don't care about anything anymore! A first rate country with a second rate people!

reply to post by Funk bunyip


Turning ATS into a pro-drug site and hang out for druggies would endanger the boards existence. Unfortunately there are many Trolls who don't give a damn and demand to discuss their illicit pleasures regardless of the possible consequences.

This is a privately owned and financed board, not a public site. We are here as guests. All we are asked to do is comply with the T & C. It would seem to me that those who are unwilling to do that deserve the title troll among others. The fact they have no respect for the board that is kind enough to host these topics at no charge to us, pretty much sums up who they are. That is why that rule is in place.

On topic -

reply to post by SilentShadow


The real question is what are you doing about it?

We do not live in Australia and therefore can do nothing. You live there and you can do something.

What percentage of your population agrees with this? Any poll numbers?

If most agree with you, then you have plenty of power. If you are in a tiny minority, then that's the price you pay for living in a country with a representative government.

What are you doing there in Australia. Are you getting petitions signed, talking to others about it or just posting to a board where most members are not in Australia? How about a letter drive to get other Australians to send letters to your representatives in government?

Originally posted by DaRAGE

Originally posted by Silver Shadow
Banning the worst child porn sites, or terrorist sites that incite fanatics, tell how to make homemade weapons or explosives are a very different thing.

Yeah but i like small breasted women, female ejaculation, and some cartoon porn.

After reading that, perhaps they have good reason? One can only hope your not sitting there, towel in hand right now

reply to post by MOTT the HOOPLE


Kinda!

But its more factually based on Television and the media. The MSM is oh so controlled and censored its ghastly. Thats what we should be complaiuning about. The dumbing down of the western world via crappy brainwashing TV.

Originally posted by Blaine91555

After reading that, perhaps they have good reason? One can only hope your not sitting there, towel in hand right now

AHahah no im not but thats not the point. There are plenty of small breasted women. Trying to censor small breasted women is ridiculous. Same as Female ejaculation. It's a perfectly natural human thing.

The thing with this internet censorship is that they started out "we will introduce this censorship to ban terrorist websites, explosive making websites, etc", and people supported that, but of course they want to add more thing to censor like small breasted women. It's bloody ridiculous. What are they going to censor next? Gay porn? How to make solar panels?, conspiracy website forums? game reviews on games not rated in australia? Who decides? It seems to be the telecommunications minister, and obviously whatever he's tacked on to the list wont even be known to the australian public? Why? Because we'd be up in arms about it thats why!

I'm already mega pissed off about it.

Originally posted by paraphi
Well, as a father I happen to agree with what Australia are doing. They are filtering out the extreme stuff which is an affront to civilized people. You may think beastaility is fun, but I don't and I certainly don't want my children to accidently (or through curiousity) have access to it, nor sexual vioence, nore child abuse...

Regards

Thats how a good parent does it. Sits back and lets his kids do whatever they want and then blames someone else when their kids do something they disapprove of.

Way to go.

Now, make sure you leave your front door open and then you can blame the neighbour when your kids run out and break his windows.



[edit on 18/2/2010 by badw0lf]

reply to post by Blaine91555


- Blaine, i wasn't suggesting that people can ignore posting rules on a private site. Their house, their rules.
Nor was i advocating ATS becoming "pro-drug" (why polarise? Just because someone isn't anti-drug, that doesn't make them pro-drug by default, despite my double negative ;-p ) ..i just happened to pick that subject as an example of things to be censored by the Australian government aside from porn and terrorism...
It was just a lighthearted poke at the irony of not being allowed to discuss the full spectrum of issues related to internet censorship, which i found amusing!

Peace

Bad bad bad!

I would not say I have explored the "depths of hell" in regards to the internet, but through all of the times I have been on it I have seen some disturbing and "rotten" (reference to a website) stuff.

But I am not a crazed psycho killer nor am I a pervert or any other harsh lingo you can think of. All of this information though has certainly let me become much more open minded and in contact with the cold hard facts of our world.

While it may harm a few people, it harms the general population even more. As others said, restricting the flow of information is bad.

Only learning the good makes one naive. Only learning the bad makes one corrupt. A combination allows one to make acts of maturity that perpetuate real world BS.

And here we are, parents ADMITTING they don't want to step up to the plate and prevent their own kids from viewing "nasty" material and will just let the government do it for them.

Disgusting.

I am not worried in the slightest about this filter. As soon as they implement it, I will begin using proxies and set up a VPN to the states and then sit back with a beer and laugh at Conroy jumping up and down crying that his filter is being circumvented.

DISCLAIMER: No, I don't look at child porn or other crap like that, but given the utter failure of the filter in the trials, and the proof that it was filtering sites that it should not have been filtering, I fully intend to circumvent it anyway so I don't have the bother of having my favorite forums (like ATS) filtered because some government dickhead doesn't like the content.

What a bunch of complete and utter morons to think this is going to stop anyone with half a brain.

Yeah noone wins.
Those who would be inclined to look at 'bad' stuff would know how to circumvent it.
Certain programs can be obtained by parents to lazy too monitor kids internet useage, which filter out bad content.

It's just stupid on so many levels.

Originally posted by paraphi
Well, as a father I happen to agree with what Australia are doing. They are filtering out the extreme stuff which is an affront to civilized people. You may think beastaility is fun, but I don't and I certainly don't want my children to accidently (or through curiousity) have access to it, nor sexual vioence, nore child abuse...

Regards

Agree whole heartedly with you. no-one wants children stumbling across this stuff. Censorship is wrong, but there is no REAL harm done so far.

What i am worried about is the RC content extending to beyond the extreme perverted stuff and starting to include those who spoke agianst aagianst the governemnt. i woriied that this would be listed as anti-government/terrorist talk and that THIS type of stuff will end on the RC list.

Hence goodbye ATS (and similiar sites) for us Aussies - not good at all

Originally posted by rexusdiablos
I posted this thread a few weeks ago:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

It was a suggested method of how we, ATS members, could collaborate and combat this together.

One person was interested.

Most ATS members don't want to act. They just like to type and discuss things to death.

Such actions to combat these measures are certainly admirable, however (and i hate to sound so negative) if the govt wants to implement something, it will be implemented.

We can sing and dance bout it all we want - they never have and never will listen.

Sad, but as i see it, true.

Originally posted by paraphi
Well, as a father I happen to agree with what Australia are doing. They are filtering out the extreme stuff which is an affront to civilized people. You may think beastaility is fun, but I don't and I certainly don't want my children to accidently (or through curiousity) have access to it, nor sexual vioence, nore child abuse...

Nobody, absolutely NOBODY is saying that it is wrong to filter out child porn or beastiality. What we are worried about is when they start filtering sites like ATS because some government idiot doesn't like it's content.

Get back to us on how you feel about the filter when they block ATS - oh wait you can't because your precious filter won't let you get on ATS to tell us! Whoopsies!

Post a rumor that they going to filter cricket,rugby, and football because they are too violent and see what happens! See the speed at which my fellow Aussie's get of there collective arse's then!

It is puzzling. I live in the US and have a very good friend in Perth. I've asked him several times about it. He keeps telling me he hasn't heard anything about it. I recently sent him a link to an article in an Aussie paper and it was, like, no big deal.

Once upon a time the world was so large that what happened in one country didn't really have any effect on life in another country. It's not that way anymore. These days if it happens there it's only a matter of time before it's happening here.

Way back when Bill Clinton had the opportunity to restrict the porn and gore to particular domains which would have made parental filtering workable. But, one of his biggest campaign contributors was a pornographer and that idea died on the vine. Could the idea be resuscitated?

And, rexusdiablos, if you read this U2U me with your ideas. I need a worthy cause to try my patience.

Originally posted by OZtracized
I'm shocked the O.P. doesn't see my point. Not having a go, just shocked.

Me? Or did you get ATS user Silver Shadow mixed up with me haha.

Originally posted by DaRAGE
AHahah no im not but thats not the point. There are plenty of small breasted women. Trying to censor small breasted women is ridiculous.

100% agree. I cannot believe the female rights groups have not had a field day with this. They are effectively placing a legal size limit on women.

Originally posted by LightningStrom
I believe there is a very high probability that ATS will appear on the block-list...

...did a quick search of ATS and there were 411 hits on "euthanasia".

I am incredibly concerned with this as well. If Stephen Conroy has already asked Google to filter videos from Youtube concerning 'euthanasia', then i am afraid ATS will indeed be black listed.