http://www.duncanriley.com/2008/01/02/heres-to-you-deborah-robinson-our-nation-should-maintain-free-speech-for-you-even-if-you-are-an-idiot/

I’m afraid he has lost all credability now if he wishes to taken seriously over this issue.

As far as porn and violence filtering on a national level goes, I’d be broadly in favour if it was adopted in the UK. The internet is a hugely beneficial development in terms of allowing almost infinite viewpoints to be expressed and discussed worldwide, but there is some content that is of no positive benefit to society as a whole. I’d not shed a tear, for instance, if websites showing videos of executions in Iraq and so on were removed from public view. Nor would I be particularly fussed if the endless stream of increasingly extreme pornography was closed off; having instant access to millions of depictions of unrealistic (and often misogynistic) sexual situations from an early age can’t be good for the development of a young person’s sexuality.

I’d even be in favour of an opt-out scheme for such filtering. However, my support would end the moment an *idea* was blocked from public view, rather than a harmful piece of content such as a violent video. Even the most unsavoury of political views should be kept in the open and discussed; it’s the easiest way to see them discredited!

In fact the points he raises – about the problems of implementing ISP filtering – make his post seem quite ambivalent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7165987.stm

The problem them comes determining what should and shouldn’t be blacklisted. I mean somebody might designate cridland.net if strong language were considered x-rated (you’ve used a certain f-word a number of times on this site).

Or perhaps all of Youtube since that has videos of violence including “happy slapping.”

I’m all for offering parents control, but it’s a fine line to start walking down censoring the internet for a whole country. They do that in a lot of middle-eastern countries and China don’t they?

The government in the last 12 months attempted to offer another software package, predominantly american but with high level australian support. The password protection in the program was cracked within a few hours of its release and broadcast over the net.

The introduction of this new system is in order to buy votes in our upper house of parliament from a party named ‘Family First’ – their only representitive holds one of the balances of power in the senate.

BBC News doesn’t have a story up yet, hopefully their reporting should clear this up.