Citizens are considering whether they are willing to surrender their ability to judge the remainder of internet material for themselves and their children to government – certainly childish or apprehensive people who have unrealistic ‘faith’ in government may be comfortable with that, particularly if they have not taken the trouble to enlighten themselves about filtering options available to protect them from whatever it is that scares or offends them. To insinuate, as our government has, that adults are unable to make their own judgments about whether or not they want to click a link and should be protected from such decisions smells of a nanny state. Does ‘idealism’ come into this? Democracy is a living, growing organism which occasionally, perhaps, needs fertilisation with the metaphorical blood of politicians who seek to destroy its ideals.

History has taught that even the most inspiring ideas can be corrupted and the internet is only the latest. Certainly I am inclined to the same idealism admired by many of your correspondents, but I am not so impractical as to think it is achievable.

Freedom of religion and freedom of the internet are uncomfortable bed-fellows. The first has found it necessary to lay down its laws and principles in books, because faith has no objectivity. Your free internet supporters also have no objectivity. Their principal is one of unrestricted freedom, something that has been shown to be an ill-conceived and futile goal. Lopping off a hand or a good old fashioned burning at the stake will deter those who may be given to evil acts on the internet. But in the interests of moderation we may choose to settle for something more civilized, what-ever that means.

Users who do not conform are chastised by the moderators while their sad lackeys simper along in their wake. No doubt Senator Conroy would find a lot of supporters in certain restricted areas of Whirlpool.

Conroy was nauseatingly obtuse on Q and A and wasn’t much better on Insight – he brushed nonchalantly over pertinent workability issues, blurted about his blacklist conundrum and those daring russian mafia and refused to elucidate his actual plans, let alone the desirability of having incompetent government pervs projecting their incompetence upon us as to what is and is not good for us ‘for the sake of the children’.

Asher Moses catches some of the gaffes – I had to chortle when Conroy simpered horribly when latex was mentioned. He does that thing with his mouth that reminds one, as some evul person has said, of a cat’s b-m. Stilgherrian has a good dig at his question dodging as well. I noticed during Insight that Conroy started waffling about parents who will ‘have more choices if they want to filter more things’ – not sure if he is signalling a partial backdown from the optout filter – to have an optin one instead? or perhaps a secondary blacklist as well as an optout? I had the distinct feeling he meant the former – perhaps he’s working out a fallback policy in the face of such massive, angry criticism from the Australian public. We’ll see. David Marr touches on relevant Australian post convict mentality fallout in his article in the SMH today. Also good reading is Jack Marx’s article from 2006. Far too much of our country is sickeningly ignorant, passive/aggressive when it comes to making choices to do with free speech and individual liberties – no wonder we still have such a brain drain – we still live, many of us, in mental chains.

I horoughjly disagree with his core argument, and left a comment on his blog saying why. Here it is:

>>> So the government has decided that we need to be stopped from seeing the illegal stuff. And that’s one of the things we elected them to do. No, really.

Huh? We elected the ghovernment to govern well and wisely. At least, that’s what they said they do.

The Rudd Government has no mandate for its proposed Internet censorship scheme. It slipped in under the radar. There was effectively no debate about this in the lead up to the last election.

I agree with other folk who’ve commented that in order to devise a ’solution’, the ‘problem’ must be clearly defined. What is ‘the problem’? It’s not clear to me that if you get any two proponents of censorship together they’d agree about that.

That’s a problem… with censorship.

Mr Bolt seems to want ‘jihadi sites banned’. Conroy says he only wants ‘the worst of the worst’ child porn banned. ACMA applies God knows what criteria – and whatever they are, does so incompetently. Jim Wallace would doubtless have another hit list. So would Hamilton.

To say “we must solve the problem” is like saying, at the time of the Salem witch trials, that if you don’t like putting witches on trial, come up with another ’solution’.

As we now know, with the benefit of hindsight, the solution was to stop inventing witches.

Mark Newton: I think it takes a special kind of terrified, trembling bedwetter to believe that the internet is such a dangerous thing in the first place

Mark Newton: ACMA research: http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib101058/media_and_society_report_2007.pdf More parents believe TV is the number one risk for their kids than the internet.

Is Conroy paranoid? what is the meaning of this?

The Federal Government will begin trawling blog sites as part of a new media monitoring strategy, with official documents singling out a website critical of the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy.

Tender documents issued by the Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy reveal it is looking for a “monitoring service for print and electronic media”. The department later attached a clarification confirming this included “blogs such as Whirlpool”.

Whirlpool has strongly criticised Senator Conroy’s plan to filter internet content and his handling of the Government’s $15 billion national broadband network. It is a community-run forum devoted to discussing broadband internet access.

Senator Conroy’s spokesman said: “Whirlpool … covers a wide range of topics across the telecommunications sector. It and other web sites provide valuable insight into the industries in which we work.”

Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin claimed it was “extreme” to expand media monitoring activities to blogs.

“Blogs such as Whirlpool provide an open forum … and do play an important role in our democracy. Moves to monitor this space seem an unacceptable use of taxpayers’ money,” he said.

I’m not quite sure what direction your comment is aimed at? Are you supporting the view that governments, not parents, should be responsible for the upbringing of children?

sherie blackwell