There has been a bit of chatter online about the Rudd government’s Internet Filter. Basically the Government wants to dictate what is appropriate and inappropriate for Australians to see. It is for the safety of the children. Or something.

Now the pollies are tight lipped about what is going to be filtered. Perhaps it won’t be as bad as one government department that looks at all incoming photos and if there is ‘too much skin’ an email is sent to the recipient as to why they need to see that photo. Happened when I sent someone holiday photos of our kids together at the beach. And they were wearing sunshirts.

Yes, children need to be protected, but by making something taboo you really are just encouraging people to explore what it is. Rate a movie M and you have an army of 7-15 year olds dying to see it. Good marketing really.

What are we going to do? Put plastic bags over web sites? Dictate what words are appropriate and what are inappropriate? And what will it achieve? I suspect that the areas with the greatest level of violence and crime are lower socio-economic areas where there is limited access to the Internet.

These are just my random ramblings. Mark Newton is a lot better with words than me! See this. So is Stilgherrian. What is left is for us to contact our local members. Go on, do it now!

Tags: clean feed, internet filter, protest

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 9:02 am and is filed under activism, technology and stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.