[LINK] Now even the child protectors think it stinks

[Jon Seymour]

With extremists like those, who needs moderates?

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 10:15 AM, Jan Whitaker <jwhit at janwhitaker.com> wrote:
> [I guess a govt program is really Really bad when those who the govt
> think they are appeasing are against it.]
>
>
> Children's welfare groups slam net filters
>
> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/11/28/1227491813497.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
> Asher Moses
> December 1, 2008 - 9:21AM
>
> Support for the Government's plan to censor the internet has hit rock
> bottom, with even some children's welfare groups now saying that that
> the mandatory filters, aimed squarely at protecting kids, are
> ineffective and a waste of money.
>
> Live trials of the filters, which will block "illegal" content for
> all Australian internet users and "inappropriate" adult content on an
> opt-in basis, are slated to begin by Christmas, despite harsh
> opposition from the Greens, Opposition, the internet industry,
> consumers and online rights groups.
>
> Holly Doel-Mackaway, adviser with Save the Children, the largest
> independent children's rights agency in the world, said educating
> kids and parents was the way to empower young people to be safe internet users.
>
> She said the filter scheme was "fundamentally flawed" because it
> failed to tackle the problem at the source and would inadvertently
> block legitimate resources.
>
> Furthermore there was no evidence to suggest that children were
> stumbling across child pornography when browsing the web.
> Doel-Mackaway believes the millions of dollars earmarked to implement
> the filters would be far better spent on teaching children how to use
> the internet safely and on law enforcement.
>
> "Children are exposed to the abusive behaviours of adults often and
> we need to be preventing the causes of violence against children in
> the community, rather than blocking it from people's view," she said.
>
> "The constant change of cyberspace means that a filter is going to be
> able to be circumvented and it's going to throw up false positives -
> many innocent websites, maybe even our own, will be blacklisted
> because we reference a lot of our work that we do with children in
> fighting commercial sexual exploitation."
>
> Doel-Mackaway noted the claims by the internet industry that the
> filters would be easily bypassed, would not block content found on
> peer-to-peer networks and chat rooms and would be in danger of being
> broadened to include legitimate content such as regular pornography,
> political views, pro-abortion sites and online gambling.
>
> Laboratory test results released in June by the Australian
> Communications and Media Authority found available filters frequently
> let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly block
> harmless content and slow network speeds by up to 87 per cent.
>
> James McDougall, director of the National Children's and Youth Law
> Centre, expressed similar views to Save the Children.
>
> He said the mandatory filters simply would not work and children
> should be able to make decisions for themselves. Concerned parents
> could easily install PC-based filters on their computers if they
> desired, or ask their internet providers to switch on voluntary filtering.
>
> "This is called a child protection measure yet the vast majority of
> all serious child abuse does not occur on the internet, it occurs in
> the home," said McDougall.
>
> "I take issue with the minister's perspective that children are
> themselves the danger in a sense that we have to make this decision
> for them because they are not capable of making it for themselves - I
> think there's very little evidence to support that and plenty of
> evidence to show that children are responsible decision makers given
> the skills and information."
>
> Other childrens' welfare organisations, such as Child Wise and
> Bravehearts, continue to support the filters, saying the flaws are
> acceptable as long as they help block some child pornography.
>
> Yesterday, as political activist group GetUp announced its plans for
> an elaborate anti-filtering campaign, 70 ISP filtering stakeholders
> converged on the University of NSW to examine the merits of the
> proposed censorship scheme.
>
> "There seemed to be some consensus that the proposed mandatory filter
> model would not actually be directed at the real channel of child
> porn distribution, which is not the blacklist of known web sites, but
> via various other internet protocols and tools," said David Vale,
> executive director of UNSW's Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre.
>
> "The idea of doing whatever was possible in stopping the problem at
> the source, including education of parents, kids, teachers and
> politicians, and serious law enforcement efforts at detection and
> prosecution of perpetrators and distributors, was seen as probably
> as, or more, effective than a filter initially aimed at preventing
> inadvertent browsing of child porn on the web by young people.
>
> "Another aspect was the potential for the filter, once in place, to
> become the subject of a repeated bidding war, depending on which
> minor politicians had balance of power in parliament, or who had the
> 'moral panic of the day'."
>
> Senator Conroy's spokesman, Tim Marshall, has consistently failed to
> respond to requests for comment on the issue.
>
>
>
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
> business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
> personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
> blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
>
> Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or
> sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
> ~Madeline L'Engle, writer
>
> Writing Lesson #54:
> Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for
> guests. - JW, May, 2007
> _ __________________ _
>
>
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