[MLB-WIRELESS] Government Internet Filter - What do you think?

[mw at freenet.net.au]

Hi Tyson,

> I have spoken with some "baby boomers" and found those I spoke to feel
> that anything that has to be installed on an individual PC is too hard
> for most parents to do, and that children are likely to find ways to
> disable it anyway.  This leaves the ISP as the next likely point to
> implement content filtering, but if the ISP doesn't want to provide
> filtering services what should be done?  It could be argued that the
> current proposed policy is an attempt at redressing this scenario.  How
> do we counter this argument?  What about the costs of maintaining and
> supporting the existing filter software?

Support, as always, is the job of the vendor.  Those software products are
hardly cheap, and that's because of the enormous task of maintaining and
managing the filter databases, and supporting the customers.

If you buy a virus-check product from dick smith, you don't ring up the
local store when you have a problem installing it.  If you do, they will
generally give you the number of the nearest support office.

Same goes with a govt funded netalert software - the government only
distributes the software.  They pay the vendor their license fee to support
it.

> You've failed to present any arguments supporting your statement.
> Please elaborate as to why not implementing any content filtering is a
> viable alternative to mandatory content filtering for all citizens, then
> we can form policy based on your supporting arguments.

Are you just being facetious there, or is there really policy development
going on here?  Does MW actually have documented policies on political
issues?  If so, is it ever debated?  Is it published anywhere?

> There are a growing number of parents with young children in Australia,
> especially since the Federal Government "baby bonus" scheme came into
> effect in 2002.  Many of the baby bonus children are now aged 5 years or
> older and are starting to use the Internet.  Parents want to protect
> their children, baby boomers want to protect their grandchildren... a
> significant portion of the public will eventually form strong opinions
> on this issue.  Public support for content filtering may be low at the
> moment, but public opinion may be swayed by the next round of propaganda
> by various parties with vested interests in content filtering.  I feel
> that this issue is not likely to go away in the long term.

I am sure you are right about that, but I will not be surprised if it all
goes the same way as last time when the libs wanted to get the GST through
so they made a deal with sen Harradine to implement an internet filtering
policy.  You probably remember how it started the same way, with ISPs being
invited to participate in trials etc.  Eventually, though, Harradine didn't
support the GST anyway, and so care factor vanished, and we got the current
client software deal instead.

Cheers!

Mike.