[LINK] Conroy vs Google

[Birch, Jim]

-----Original Message-----
From: Stilgherrian

>I am not at all convinced that the policy is Conroy's per se, or if it
is, that it was his idea as opposed to someone else's idea agreed to in
exchange for something else.

It's not Conroy's policy, it's government policy that they took to the
electorate last election, as I recall.  Governments have a duty to
institute policies they were elected on where circumstances permit.  I'd
be pretty confident that Rudd would be a firm supporter of filtering
being a Christian with conservative social values.  He won't be the only
one.  We haven't heard the "Liberals" decrying the filter, have we? 

The government is responding to public opinion (and fears).  In general,
the idea that any criminal/antisocial web site put up by anyone,
anywhere, for any purpose, should be available in our childrens'
bedrooms is wrong to most people.  We can't rely on authorities in other
countries to shut down nefarious sites.  Neither can we rely on
reputation as a means of control as we can - to some degree - with
conventional local media.

Most people would want at least some sites taken out even if they don't
know how. There's disagreement about what to block, how much of a
performance hit you're willing to take to achieve this, process
transparency, and whether it would work at all, but the basic idea of
that some level of media censorship is pretty common.

This isn't meant to be a defence of Conroy's personality or methods.

Jim    




CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER

The information in this transmission may be confidential and/or protected by legal professional privilege, and is intended only for the person or persons to whom it is addressed. If you are not such a person, you are warned that any disclosure, copying or dissemination of the information is unauthorised. If you have received the transmission in error, please immediately contact this office by telephone, fax or email, to inform us of the error and to enable arrangements to be made for the destruction of the transmission, or its return at our cost. No liability is accepted for any unauthorised use of the information contained in this transmission. If the transmission contains advice, the advice is based on instructions in relation to, and is provided to the addressee in connection with, the matter mentioned above. Responsibility is not accepted for reliance upon it by any other person or for any other purpose.