Australian Government’s Opposition to Internet Filters

* The internet is the fastest growing and largest tool for mass communication and information distribution in the world. It can be used to distribute large amounts of information anywhere in the world at any time. The Australian government revealed a plan to put in place a compulsory filter on the internet to prevent access to inappropriate material. In 2011, the people of Australia and its politicians alike have expressed major concerns over this introduction of a censorship, as the vast amount of ethical and practical problems associated with this scheme are triggering the debate. Good morning, my name is Amanda and I strongly oppose the introduction of internet censorship in Australia for multiple reasons. * Firstly and most importantly, the concept of censorship opposes our basic rights as people living in a democratic society to choose what we want to be exposed to. This filter will give the government the right to choose what is or what is not appropriate for us to view based on the decisions of a couple of politicians and their own individual beliefs. How can we be completely sure that the filter will not be taken advantage of to give support to the politicians own interests or that they will not add content to the filter that they personally disagree with? It does not give them the right to decided what is appropriate for mature adults, and it is not their business what other people access on the internet. What the politicians should be concerned about in relation to what people look at on the internet is illegal material such as child pornography, which is obviously the main priority of the filter. However, that is an issue that leads itself to my next argument. * Putting in place a filter for something such as child pornography will be unsuccessful. The government is making an attempt to block individual websites that contain illegal material, but the reality is that the internet is such a gigantic place filled with plenty of information that it is impossible to eliminate all traces of it from Australian computers. The filter would also be ineffective against peer-to-peer file sharing where child pornography can be found. This makes the filter ridiculously unnecessary for anyone who is really dedicated to viewing illegal content. To argue that internet censorship would be useful to prevent people from involuntarily coming across illegal activity is also wrong, because illegal material are not things that someone can simple Google and click on. This disgusting material such as child pornography is found in the pits of the internet where no ordinary internet user wanting to research their history assignments or socialise on Facebook would ever manage to stumble across. Australia has some of the worst broadband in the world. It is considerably slower and much more expensive than any other developed country due to the outdated and inadequate infrastructure. The introduction of a filter will slow our internet down even further, and in trials this slowing has occurred in amounts up to 86%. Anyone who has ever been frustrated by a download proceeding at snails pace would never stand for such an infuriating s ide effect of this already useless filter. It is unthinkable that such a thing could happen in a country that claims to be fortunate and free. * Those who support internet censorship in Australia, claim that it is an effective way of protecting children from the disturbing material on the internet, but as you’ve already heard, the filter is not an effective way of doing anything besides making our internet slow like a snail. Moreover, protecting children from adult content is a terrible excuse for a filter. Whatever happened to just decent parenting? It is the parents’ responsibility to monitor their children’s internet usage. It is the parents’ responsibility to ensure their children learn how to use the wealth of information on the internet responsibly. Introducing the filter teaches parents that they are not accountable for their children’s’ welfare, but the government is. A filter is not a replacement for parental supervision of young children on the internet, nor is it necessary for children mature enough to understand what they encounter. It is a false sense of security for parents who will happily criticise the government at every opportunity but are simply too lazy to supervise their own kids. Furthermore, it hardly seems logical that a filter would be enforced to protect children when the majority of Australian households don’t even have any! * One of the likely reasons why this filtering scheme has caused such debate may be the fact that virtually no one actually desires this proposal to be implemented and yet the Politian’s are continuing to enforce it down our throats. Both the Liberal party and the Greens do not support this scheme and the idea infuriates numerous Australians. This is evident through the petitions and discussions made by outraged Australians attacking the idea of a compulsory filter on the internet. The Labor party are the only people who truly support the plan and some family-orientated groups are also encouraging it as they have children, but they are forgetting the reality that there are many citizens without kids. The main reason this proposal hasn’t been completely discarded yet is because the Labor party is determined that we as Australians require this for our own benefit, regardless of the number of countless people that disagree with it. The fact that our own government will not take into account the opinions of the people that are actually affected by their ideas is extremely alarming. Despite being almost universally condemned by the public, ISPs, State Governments, Media and censorship experts, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is determined to force this filter into your home. What we want to avoid is to degraded into an almost autocratic-like system of government similar to countries like China, Iran and North Korea where internet censorship is extensive. * Ill conclude by saying that the internet censorship in Australia is not an effective way of blocking out illegal material from Australia computers. It is doing nothing more than making our internet cumbersome and sluggish. It is not the government’s job to babysit our nation, Thank you