Top 5 reasons to fight government ISP filtering
As trials continue ahead of the introduction of mandatory ISP filtering sometime early in 2009, it's becoming clearer that the entire scheme is an ill-thought-out attempt for left-wing Labor to suck up to right-wing politicians. Here's six reasons why the concept is stupid and hopefully doomed to failure.
We can't say we didn't know it was coming. Prior to last year's Federal election, Labor had made it clear that it would introduce some form of ISP-level content filtering, but in the excitement over the National Broadband Network, no-one paid much attention to this detail. And given that its Federal Liberal predecessors had come up with the equally stupid and rarely used mid-1990s Internet censorship laws and the monumentally unpopular and now discontinued free filters for families scheme, it seems unlikely we could ever have escaped some attempt to crack down on Net nasties. But that doesn't mean the "clean feed" campaign — which will require ISPs to provide a Net connection with an list of material deemed undesirable for children blocked, and will require adults to opt-in if they want largely unfettered access — is anything but stupid. Here's 10 reasons why.
