The Australian governments plans to filter internet use have being rebuffed by Australian ISP's (Internet Server Providers). According to the BBC Telstra, which is the largest ISP in Australia has stated that it will not be joining trials for filtering. Which this blog spoke about in an earlier post regarding the planned filtering of Australian internet traffic. The initial trails of the filtering technology was due to take place before christmas. But with major ISP like Telstra going against it, this may be just the spanner in the works that the general public has being hoping for.
On the opposite side of the fence Optus has stated that it is going to take part in the trial in early 2009, but they said that they would only apply the filters to block access to 1300 sites hosting illegal content. This brings up the question of who is going to deem the sites that Optus is blocking as illegal, and what type of guideliness are going to be used to determine what is illegal and offensive. By doing such a thing is just going to open up a whole grey area of what should be blocked and what should not be blocked. Again it raises the question of who is to determine what items are on the blacklist that the Rudd government is keeping secret from the general public.
Optus has also stated that it would not block access to the 10,000 sites that the Rudd government is demading. Nor will will Optus impose the second tier of filtering that blocks sites deemed to be unsuitable for childern. It seems what Optus is really saying here is that they are going to use this filter on their terms to block what they fill needs to be blocked. On the other hand they are not going to block other items that they deem to be ok. So basically Optus is sitting on the fence and only taking the bits that Optus likes.
At the end of the day it is great to see that Telstra is taking a stance against the filtering of the Internet. Once the Internet starts to be filtered you lose your right to the freedom of information. This leads me to the question does Rudd what to filter the internet like how Internet filtering is done in China?
On the opposite side of the fence Optus has stated that it is going to take part in the trial in early 2009, but they said that they would only apply the filters to block access to 1300 sites hosting illegal content. This brings up the question of who is going to deem the sites that Optus is blocking as illegal, and what type of guideliness are going to be used to determine what is illegal and offensive. By doing such a thing is just going to open up a whole grey area of what should be blocked and what should not be blocked. Again it raises the question of who is to determine what items are on the blacklist that the Rudd government is keeping secret from the general public.
Optus has also stated that it would not block access to the 10,000 sites that the Rudd government is demading. Nor will will Optus impose the second tier of filtering that blocks sites deemed to be unsuitable for childern. It seems what Optus is really saying here is that they are going to use this filter on their terms to block what they fill needs to be blocked. On the other hand they are not going to block other items that they deem to be ok. So basically Optus is sitting on the fence and only taking the bits that Optus likes.
At the end of the day it is great to see that Telstra is taking a stance against the filtering of the Internet. Once the Internet starts to be filtered you lose your right to the freedom of information. This leads me to the question does Rudd what to filter the internet like how Internet filtering is done in China?
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