Rosie Williams seems in favour of internet filtering to protect innocents from dangers lurking on the internet. Hmmm, how old are these vulnerable innocents? Unlikely to be under 8 years old unless they can follow the icons or are good readers. Children aged over 12 have always been vulnerable to wild experimentation. In my era some young lads of the local boys school used to earn good pocket money lurking around the public toilets until the local council locked the toilets after dark. Every one else settled for dog eared playboy magazines.

Granted it takes less effort to find out how to build a bomb and find peers to support you in your anorexia or suicide angst. Perhaps finding their are other people like you in the world makes the world a lot less isolated for the angst ridden teen. But mature adults can also find peers to explore euthanasia or their political persuasions and the current filtering would impede mature adults access to their peers.

Had no idea what this article was trying to achieve until the final sentence, which is barely related to anything that precedes it. If you're going to start by arguing that the debate so far has been superficial you're under some obligation to be a bit better than superficial yourself.

"Innocent sites can not therefore “accidentally” end up on an ACMA blacklist." Maybe not, but innocent sites can deliberately end up on an ACMA blacklist as the recent adventures over a pro-life site have demonstrated. The ACMA argument is flawed because the whole proposal is based on child protection linked to the ACMA rating system. According to this logic, the only material that should be available on the internet should be G-rated material suitable for any child who might stray onto the internets unsupervised.

"When all is said and done about the need to protect political rights from censorship it would be a shocking irony if the system developed for the protection of the US and its allies went down in history as the largest propagator of crimes against the most innocent of lives known to humanity."

Nothing emotive or superficial about that at all. It would also be a shocking irony if the system which, despite its origins, turned out to be the greatest facilitator of free speech in human history was choked because of a handful of criminals.

Pro-filtering arguments that use child protection as an excuse are always going to be superficial. While some are obsessing over the internet real children are being abused by real perpetrators who won't be caught partly because funding has been redirected from policing to the filtering project. That's not a superficial argument, it's a fact

'Nothing emotive or superficial about that at all. '

Haha. That's a gem:-)

Yeah, and we should rubber coat all the sharp rocks, put railings over all cliffs, put "Danger!" signs on all roofs, de-tooth all dogs and cats.
Laws need to protect adults from other adults, parents need to protect kids and educate them to protect themselves.
With enough love and knowledge they will develop their own BS detector and ethical compass to survive the "risks" of the internet. Most of these "moral guardians" seem to have issues with their own sexuality, so I'd suggest an open an honest approach to this too. (Teenage sex *increased* during the Bush "teach only abstinence" years. Hardline moralising *does not work*)
They have to learn about humans sometime...better the honest version than the hypocritical bulldust pushed by traditional media and the church.
If a perfect God came down and offered I'd accept, but so long as it is humans with a barrow to push...no thanks, I'll filter myself!

No doubt the same mob who oppose the reduction in child porn through filtering and argue about it infringing on 'their rights' will also support a bill of wrongs giving judges more power. They are happy to have no restriction of free speech unless of course it conflicts with their own humanistic dogma.

This is a matter of forcing the majority to conform to the governments demands to regulate for the peculiarities of a tiny minority.

Pedophiles, despite their vile preferences, represent a tiny minority of internet users.

I think every effort should be used to route them out and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, when discovered.

However, I will use analogy to illustrate my concern.

Suppose in the process of making the world a more friendly place for the disabled, we redesigned every door way to better accommodate wheelchair users.

So we make doorways wider but some government bureaucrat realizes that the height requirements of moving in a seated position, display that doorways only need to be and could be cheaper made by being 5 ft (152 cm) high.

So for those who happen to be in wheel chairs, they are “managed” by the new regulations but now, most people have to bend over double to get through the door.

What is happening is the government’s censorship (eg doorway) plan suites management of the perceived needs of a tiny minority but only by imposing a huge disadvantage to the vast majority (the non-minority) of internet (doorway) users.

I have written to Conroy and registered my objections to this pointless intrusion on my free, unfettered access to the internet. I did receive a standard (circular) response. I intend to vote against the sort of government who believes it is morally entitled to censor me.

I suggest anyone else similarly concerned do so too.