In case you haven’t heard about it yet, the Australian government is still moving forward with a plan to install a giant internet filter on all traffic into and out of Australia.  It’s been proposed as a method of “controlling the access to unwanted materials,” i.e. block graphic pornography.  Of course, anyone who has worked with internet filtering technologies can tell you that they don’t work: they slow the transmission of network traffic significantly, and they frequently block content that should not be blocked while allowing lots of content that’s supposed to blocked.

Graeme Philipson of the Sydney Morning Hearld writes:

Senator Conroy’s insistence on internet censorship flies in the face of common sense and technological advancement, and puts us in the same league as China, Burma, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The Government is proposing a blacklist, currently comprising more than a thousand sites that can be expanded at whim, which ISPs will be legally obliged to block. Preliminary tests have shown the impossibility of doing this, but the Government is pressing on, and has now announced a large-scale test to demonstrate its effectiveness.

And also in case you missed it, the San Jose Public Library system in San Jose, California is still in the middle of fighting a similar battle over net censorship and filtering:

A proposal (PDF) has been brought before the Rules and Open Government Committee of the City Council recommending modification of the Library’s current Internet Access Policy and In-House Rules to require Internet filters on all library computers, systemwide.

This reminds me all too much of the repeat of The Family Guy I watched last night where the FCC bans real Peter in life.

Unfortunately, I doubt any of this will end soon.  There will always be people looking to act as the adversaries to the free exchange of information, whether it be for money, control of a society, or adherence to conservative religious beliefs.

Filed under: Consumer Web