Australia Abandons Mmandatory Internet Filter Plan
Nov 8, 10:11 PM EST
BY ROD MCGUIRK ASSOCIATED
PRESS
CANBERRA, Australia (AP)
-- The Australian government has abandoned its 5-year-old pledge to mandate a
filter blocking child pornography and other objectionable Internet content.
Communications Minister
Stephen Conroy said Friday that instead of a compulsory filter being imposed,
Internet service providers have agreed to block 1,400 child abuse websites on
INTERPOL's "worst of" list.
Three of Australia's
largest telecommunications companies - Telstra, Optus and Primus - have been
blocking the listed sites since 2010.
"We've actually
reached agreement with the industry to block child pornography and we think
that is a significant step forward," Conroy told Australian Broadcasting
Corp. radio.
Critics had said the
proposed legislated filter would have put Australia in the same censorship
league as China. Even the U.S. State Department expressed concerns about the
proposed regulations, which would have been some of the most restrictive among
the world's democracies.
The new plan has a
narrower focus on child abuse. The government's proposed compulsory nationwide
filter would have also banned a regularly updated list of sites that also
carried extreme violence as well as detailed instructions in crime, drug use or
terrorist acts.
Opponents argued that the
filter would slow Internet speeds, erroneously block harmless sites and
restrict free speech.
Anti-censorship campaigner
Geordie Guy welcomed the government reversal. He said the new agreement will
have little impact on the availability of child abuse material which isn't
traded on the open Web.
"While this is a much
better result than any of the previous proposals that the government came up
with, it's still really unlikely to do much good," Guy told ABC.
The Internet Industry
Association of Australia chief executive Peter Lee said he was "pleased
that the government has now moved on" from the filter and had narrowed its
focus to illegal child abuse.
The Australian Electoral
Lobby said the government's agreement with ISPs fell short of its cyber safety
pledge made during the 2007 election campaign.
"The government's
decision not to legislate to the full extent of the commitment is a great
disappointment," the Lobby's Managing Director Jim Wallace said.
But the opposition said
the government realized it had no hope of getting the filter legislation
through Parliament. The Greens party, a key government ally, joined the
opposition in condemning the mandatory filter proposal as a serious restriction
of free speech.
© 2012 THE ASSOCIATED
PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Internet access in America is held captive by powerful phone and cable interests. And regardless of what the laissez-faire editors at the Wall Street Journal think, doing nothing to protect people from getting ripped off is not an option.
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