Child protection groups undermine Aussie Firewall You know your child protection policy is in trouble when even mainstream children’s charities speak out against it – and this is just the latest in a string of bad news to hit Australian Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy over the last seven days. First up is the news that Save the Children and the National Children’s & …
This sounds to me like a killer argument:-
"We argue that the tens of millions of dollars that such a scheme will cost should instead be diverted to appropriate child protection authorities and police to prevent the abuse of children, and towards effective community-based education strategies that give children and parents the skills to protect themselves."
While, for me, it's not what it all fundamentally boils down to, it strikes me as being a killer argument against those who spout all that "if it saves even one child..." stuff.
The question for the "think of the children" brigade is this: should we forego the opportunity to save two hundred children in order to save one hundred?
We live in a world of limited resources. What shall we do with the resources we have available? The more we spend directly on trying to protect children, the less we have available to invest in developing more resources for the future. The more we spend in some ways, the less we have available to spend in others.
In other words: it comes down to economics. That, as much as the "think of the children" brigade might hate it, is the logical implication of their own "everything that saves a child is worth it" mentality. (But, as I mentioned above, it's not what it boils down to for me, since I don't have that kind of mentality to begin with. I have deeper, truly liberal principles. Some might say brutal. I vote Lib Dem.)
This (thumbnail sketch of an) analysis doesn't just apply to child protection, though. It's more generally applicable. Terrorism is another good example - especially as badly targetted investment in counter-terror stuff can actually work for the terrorists as a way of them getting us to dumbly burden our own economy on their behalf. The billions spent in counter-terror stuff are billions not being spent in other ways - hospitals, education, economic investment that would create more resources in the future, etc. Does it make sense to save a hundred lives from terrorists at the expense of two hundred lives that could otherwise be saved in other ways?
If we really are to "think of the children", we actually have to do that first part: THINK!
Beer (not warm), because that's what the Aussies (though not their government) deserve.
when having children charities speak against the planned actions.
There was a similar problem going on in Germany, when they were poking around with their new law, a few children protection groups spoke outright against the new (back then still planned) law, and they had hard facts at hand too, still, Stasi Germany ignored them.
Wouldn't be surprised if it'll be similar in down under.
The poor guy has been given a job wildly beyond his capabilities. This is cruelty to cretins and must be stopped. Perhaps someone should set up a petition to ask the Australian PM to stop this cruel and unusual punishment of the poor man and (at long last) sack him.
The whole idea of blacklisting illegal sites is absurd. Why not just shut them down?
Imagine if the police had a serial murderer on their hands, and made no attempt to arrest him, and instead bans people from associating with murderers. Sure in theory it accomplishes the same thing, but it is completely arse-about backwards.
Can't shut down, can't block, can't prevent. Sad, but that's the way things are: It's not a technical problem like an exploit to be patched - child abuse is a problem with society, not teh intertubes.
The following is a very revealing letter regarding the industry and the rampant and gratuitous fuckwittery that constitutes governmental "efforts" to fight it, such as operation Ore*.
https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/An_insight_into_child_porn
*http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/74690/operation-ore-exposed.html
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