Actually I'm a little tired of having to defend myself from the "social Conservatives".
They are *not* conservative, they are radical and aggressive! It is the "concervatives" who favour Prohibition, some of the most socially destructive laws ever invented.
It is the same "Conservatives" who quietly allowed our schools to teach Creationism. (Teaching that which is known to be false is a form of abuse to my mind.)
The same ones that did not lift a finger when their church culture harboured child abuse...
Introducing censorship to Australia is not very conservative, it is a massive leap backward.
It is time we started calling folks who want a non-free society "radical anti-freedom", not "social conservatives".
Jonny Howard legitimised the "re-centering" of our culture to the radical Right. Time to claim it back.
I don't care how restrictive you want your own lives...back off from mine!

We all know that an internet site ending in EDU indicates that the site denotes an educational institution. GOV indicates a government agency. Why not have a XXX ending to adult sites?

It would be relatively simple for ISP's to control access to any site with a XXX ending. If all 'adult' sites could be so named - eg http://explicitpictures.xxx.au - ISP's could easily block or manage access; Adults would have to explicitly request for access to such material from their broadband provider. Parents would find that ISP's could block access to their computers to all such XXX sites if so requested. This new rating would mean that legitimate sites - eg say those dealing with breast cancer, etc - would not be impeded. It would also put the onus on the parents to seek appropriate action by their ISP without the 'censorial' big-brother action by government.

Yuri: "If all 'adult' sites could be so named - eg http://explicitpictures.xxx.au"

This proposal has come up over and over again, and has been rejected as many times. There are several reasons:

1. There are remarkably few sex sites in Australia, so just doing it here would have almost no effect.

2. If you did have a global '.xxx' domain it would be ignored if it actually reduced the traffic to the '.xxx' sites. They aren't charities. They need traffic to survive.

3. The same people who want the internet filtered worry this would have the reverse effect. Rather than reducing the amount of porn people see, it would increase it because it would become easier to find.

The suspicion is that most people who look at these sites do so because they enjoy them. This suspicion is almost certainly correct. It is unusual to come across xxx sites by accident. For example the major search engines (eg Google) filter them out of their search results by default. The reality is you are probably about as likely to find a raunchy "People" magazine in a waste bin as you are to accidentally hit a porn web site.

So the real thrust of this proposal isn't to prevent people from accidentally viewing sites they don't want to see. It is to prevent people from seeing web sites they actively seek out. It turns out that is much harder to do. If adults or teenagers (in particular teenagers) want to share things they will - via email, chat rooms, peer to peer, or whatever. Renaming bad sites to '.xxx' would have no effect - even if it was possible.

Completely ban all sex and pornography in all media and just stick to the nice family values or the children may see something.

Sex is naughty and nothing at all to do with families.

What?.

Are you sure about that?.

OH.

I do not know where the author gets his assumption that censorship is the preferred option of the right side of politics.

Anyone who has, maybe in a moment of folly, read any of my posts will realize I am not to the left of the political spectrum and my views in support of every individuals personal freedom of speech, freedom of viewing and freedom of creative interest are equally well documented.

My observation: it is the left wing of politics who have historically demanded to control how other people think and what they should be allowed to read and write.

Now to the matter of internet censorship.

This is an offensive interference by the ‘Krudd socialist control freaks’ in the civil rights of every adult.

Anyone venturing on the internet these days has to use a firewall and virus protection software or expect to have their PC rendered useless within 24 hours.

To manage this I use VET anti-virus software which comes with a child-protection system which intercedes between a person who does not have admin rights, via a password, and the internet to manage exposure to porn sites and chatrooms and the like.

To achieve absolute child safety, that is all that is needed. The VET system is reasonably priced, $70 pa for a 3 licence package (one each for three PCs).

The nanny state need do nothing else. The controllers of public morals do not have the right to censor my internet surfing and I resent their highhanded and arrogant interference and attempts to impose repressive regulations upon me and others who support libertarian values.

undidly said:
"Sex is naughty and nothing at all to do with families.
What?
Are you sure about that?"

Col Rouge said:
"Anyone who has, maybe in a moment of folly, read any of my posts will realize I am not to the left of the political spectrum"

Thanks guys, these gave me the biggest laughs I've had all week.

Col Rouge blames "the left" for being in favour of restricting free speech. He's right that it has become quite common for people claiming to be on the Left to be in favour of actively suppressing the views of people with whom they do not agree.

My difference with you on this is that I don't regard these people as genuine left-wingers. As a left-winger myself, I see the ideology of these people as quite reactionary. Their views are best characterized as "pseudo left".

In the case of the current attempt to censor the internet, the person who launched the whole campaign for this happens to be none other than Clive Hamilton. I've written a post detailing Hamilton's involvement here: http://strangetimes.lastsuperpower.net/?p=150

Fortunately with regard to the internet censorship issue, there's been a healthy tendency for many who hold pseudo-left views on other topics, to take a much better stand. I'm glad about that, we need to have as many people on side as possible. Nevertheless, as far as I can see, Clive Hamilton's role in the whole affair has remained unmentioned. The focus has instead been on the dreaded "Christian Right", who in fact only began lobbying over the issue after Hamilton and the Australia Institute had made a big media splash in 2003 and called for mandatory ISP-level filtering. Howard, restricted himself to a bit of sympathetic gesturing and the offer of free internet filters for those who wanted them. Not so with Rudd, as we all know.

I guess that internet censorship is a real life issue which can't help but arouse the ire of young pseudo-leftists who have grown up with the internet. Here's a case in which they themselves could lose some of the freedom that they have always taken for granted. (And they probably like their porn too..).

Well, I always tought Rudd was a holy-roller wowser and he has now proven it. Sadly, far from looking after "the working man" (whoever he may be) Labor has increasingly been dominated by wet behind the ears intellectuals who think they alone have the nouse to make intelligent decisions. This attempt to have a bunch of clergymen and other assorted wowsers tell us what we can and cannot access on the net is a typical stunt born out of their need to try and control every aspect of our lives.

However, dropping my blood pressure a few psi I can offer something constructive and here it is: http://nocleanfeed.com/takeaction.html is a website dedicated to collecting signatures on an online petition to tell the Government to back off. You just join (quick and painless)enter your vote and the job is done. There are also links and email and snail mail addresses of some key politicians who you could also write to if you so desire.

It may be water off the duck's back but if enough people scream loudly enough Rudd will listen as the only thing he hates more than porn is anything likely to cost him votes. Remember his majority isn't that great -a helluva lot of the seats Labor won at the last election are held by pretty skinny margins and it wouldn't take much of a swing to make him a one-term Prime Minister.

Here's hoping sanity will prevail and this nonsense will be allowed to sink quietly into richly deserved oblivion.

A very thoughtful article, thanks David Jackmanson.

I was horrified to learn from keza that Clive Hamilton and the Australia Institute have been pushing for this outrageous law. Whilst I generally agree with the Australia Institute and even agree that there is too much emphasis on sexuality these days, I think it is another matter for them to support this crude and costly form of censorship entailing such obvious dangers to free speech.

I have e-mailed them to let me know of my feelings and hope that they will come to their senses on this.

Yes David, there are alternatives.

But not to a Prime Minister who sees himself as God's right arm. He wouldn't use the internet himself so wouldn't know what it has to offer, good or bad.

This Rudd guy has one major flaw. He's religious. We must be sure we never again elect anyone with religious convictions as they take their election as a sign from that non existent deity to do what they think they should. Not what we want.

Johnj” Thanks guys, these gave me the biggest laughs I've had all week.”

That was part of my intended objective : - )

Keza… whilst our declared politics might differ, I am pleased to see we both support the notion of freedom of the individual in their use of speech and the internet.

A simple analogy,

Keza likes strawberry icecream,

I prefer blue berry icecream.

Krudd is intent on us not being allowed to taste icecream, except from his van –

and the only flavor on offer is

beige.

Freedom to read what we choose is as fundamental as freedom of speech and freedom of association.

Margaret Thatcher wrote “To be free is better than to be unfree - always. Any politician who suggests the opposite should be treated as suspect."

Internet censorship is a direct attack upon individual freedom.

And MT is right, Krudd & Co are acting ‘suspiciously’.

Its not only about censoring porn, anything deemed "illegal" will be off limits. No longer will Australians have the right to understand any subject the govt deems illegal, such as Euthanasia, medical marijuana,anorexia, pornography, and no doubt atheism. Such is the level of influence of religious lobbyists over this prime minister.

Be scared very scared, no longer are we a democracy , we are well on our way to becoming a totalitarian state.
This issue needs to be maintained, in the media,to put pressure on Mr Rudd to reverse this ridiculous decision, and more importantly for him to disclose just whom he takes advise from in such matters.

Thanks everybody for your comments. Sorry I'm only responding now but the Net has been off at home since the Brisbane storm on Sunday night.

Col Rouge, I think you might be misreading my article - I definitely don't believe that "the right" is the problem, rather those right-wingers who are socially conservative and wish to censor are part of the problem, and so are pseudo-leftists like Clive Hamilton. Libertarian right-wingers are part of the solution.

Oh, and beige ice-cream? Truly a horrible idea :p

I imagine that rstuart is right about Yuri's idea, but I'm glad that Yuri bothered to think about a possible solution - please keep on doing that.

Your Domestic Bliss is right to point out that anything the Government decides is "illegal" could possibly be banned. In theory, they could try to ban everything they haven't previously approved (although I think that's unlikely).

I published an article along these lines last week and Gold Coast blogger Danu Poyner published this article in response:

http://www.danupoyner.com/2008/11/14/how-to-defeat-internet-censorship/

And if anyone wants to join in the protests against the Government's plan to censor "unwanted" material, you can join up here:

http://nocensorship.info/forum/index.php

Or on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=mb#/group.php?gid=42559583383

The Brisbane protest will be held on Saturday, December 13th at 11am at Brisbane Square in the city. Other protests are to be held in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Hobart (so far).

Also, after discussing this article on Twitter with Michael Meloni (the blogger at someonethinkofthechildren.com) I'm going to have a look at more of the stuff that's been published in the mainstream media and see if I've been unfair. I'll leave a comment here about what I find.

This is a wonderful piece that addresses the awful manner in which most left oriented people deal with issues that offend them. It also brings me great Joy that the Liberal Party are not supporting this foolish and ill-informed idea. Victorians such as myself are all currently under the rule of potentially the stupidest governments in the history of our Nation Brumby driving us into the ground with his backwards policies targeting youth culture and Kevin 747 off on another trip while his backbenchers push through ridiculous plans that would constrict the liberties that we all hold dear. All Australians Left and Right alike should thank their lucky stars that Turnbull as the opposition leader, lest we be given some religious right wowser hell bent on enforcing his/her views on us all.

"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." Ronald Reagan.

Today (10 Dec 2008) Conroy's Department put up a short post on the following website http://www.dbcde.gov.au/communications_for_business/industry_development/digital_economy/future_directions_blog/topics/digital_economy_benefit.

Those concerned about the many problems of the Conroy/Labor/Rudd policy of FILTERING are having their say. Checkout the link above.

While most comments thus far are against filtering Conroy will use the comments as an indication of support if comments swing in favour of the quaint Luddite and expensive idea of Filtering.

So have your say on the site above.

Pete