Cheers Severin- I personally treat any party that feels the need to intervene in what people can access to such a paternalistic manner to hold a rather frightening state of mind- and automatically placed on the southern side of the ballot- if that means placing the shooters 4th and 5th to get the others at the bottom, so be it!

No problem Briar- I fully agree. But I believe it would be fair to differentiate the two concerns of borders/filtering. One is the belief that eased border security would risk allowing dangerous persons into the country- the other (beyond child/bestial porn) is an obsession with what other Australians do in their own homes and what information they should be allowed to know, based on absolutely no course of logic.

Ditto Blue Cross and Stezza- also completely agree.

Niarbe- I also stated that children should not use the internet and why. You only support my argument and every statement around it. Also, navigating information on the internet requires a brain, critical-thinking. It's more like letting your children catch a bus and spend the night somewhere- if you don't think they can handle it you shouldn't LET THEM DO IT. On the internet you tell the stupid kids to NOT BLINDLY BELIEVE WHAT THEY READ- something they should be taught anyway. It should not rely on a (supposedly) impartial (and somehow omnipotent) power to split the truth from the lies, thankyou- it's up to the big boys and girls of society to learn it for themselves.

Conroy's policies are the most frightening breach of privacy I have seen outside of authoritarian regimes such as Iran or China.

Why is this not an election issue?

Western governments only decided they had an 'obligation' to educate people after an expanding franchise gave the vote to many people who had had no formal education. Since then they have been walking a fine line between educating people enough to vote rationally, but not quite enough to see through the lies and manipulations necessary to keep any party in power. Obviously the Internet represents a real threat to that politically optimal level of ignorance, and so governments have to try and assert their independence and control over it. Senator Conroy is only the latest -- certainly not the last -- in a long line of administrators desperate to keep control of their murky secrets.

Spot on, Greg Lees. The filter is highly likely to be a ploy to stop free flow of information about a whole lot of things,

and will not stop despicable child porn which is mostly peer-to-peer.

The comments here are enlightening

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/contributors/internet-filter-puts-the-common-good-first-20100729-10x38.html

One concern is the current influence of the Cathlic church in the Liberal Party, hence the chance they may run with "the Filter" if elected.

does anyone know their policy?

Briar Rose,

“I do know that there are categories of ignorance, and it doesn't do to muddle them all up.”

You really are a nasty little thing.

Severin,

Thanks for yet another lecture. I shudder to think that you might be somebody’s mother-in-law.

Unfortunately while I am competent with using computers I am not a techno-whiz as far as the intracacies of filters etc.

In principle I agree with removing illegal content from the web as it is not legal in any other form, child porn being the most obvious.

If the issue is the filter will not stop children accessing inappropriate sites or the scourge of child porn then we need to look at other ways to do this.

I have always argued for two feeds. One unfiltered and one filtered to exclude porn for those who have children where it is impossible to constantly monitor children on the Net as much as one tries between being a modern 'working family' and a 'contributor' to economic growth (taking tongue out of cheek now).

I do think some of the comments above about government interference in our lives is a bit OTT. We are not living in China and while the blacklist was definitely the wrong approach, any themes to be blocked should be totally transparent and should not include legal content that might be contentious or uncomfortable such as abortion, euthanasia etc.

The issue is choice for parents and I am biased as I have been a parent from the beginning of the Internet age and have experienced some of the problems and issues.