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back to article Aus gov, ISPs book seats for firewall demolition

With the future of the great Australian firewall once more up for grabs, major ISPs are seeking to forestall government plans by announcing a filter of their own. However, unlike the government’s proposed filter, this one will apply specifically to sites identified as hosting child porn. Of three major ISPs identified by …

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  1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    WTF?

    "Refused Contect" is enough to exclued?

    Some nutter suggested this in the UK. It was then pointed out just how *much* content is out there and did he *realize* how *long* it would take to view it all?

    IIRC YouTube respond to DCMA requests but "We don't like it" is not really enough for them to care. So block YouTube or view *every* single video?

    Mind you the fact such a proposal is brain dead and once explained in simple terms *should* be recognizable as such is *no* guarantee that it will be killed.

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  2. Pablo
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    Not such a good thing

    So this is going to be an IWF style arrangement then? That's better than putting the government directly in control, but assuming this is still something end users get no choice in, serious issues remain.

    First of all, who makes the list, and who will be allowed to audit it?

    Second, how do they define child abuse? Do they mean child porn, or are they using the Aussie definition that includes drawings of Bart Simpson, videos of acrobatic Russian circus babies and women with small breasts?

    Finally, wasn't one of the big criticisms of the filter that it would slow down the internet? Does that change just because they're blocking less content? I don't know if the UK's internet is slow or not, but I do recall IWF screwed up Wikipedia and the Internet Archive on separate occasions.

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  3. Tim Bates
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    "Child abuse"?

    Please, please, please don't let them enact a law with a vague definition like "child abuse"!!!

    "Child abuse" could cover:

    * smoking in a car with a child.

    * calling a child names

    * hitting a child

    * the stuff they keep talking about - child porn

    Now, I'm very much against the last one on the list there. But to me, it would seem a little extreme to block websites that have pages containing photos of a child in a car with a smoker.

    Again, this is NOT a good filter - Conroy is Conning again.

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  4. General Pance
    Megaphone

    Ban it now

    Porn should only be available in jail itself.

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  5. Malcolm Boura 2

    Sensible debate

    Define child pornograhy and then there is some chance of a sensible debate. Of course the censors and the politicians in search of a band wagon don't want rational debate so they will make maximum use of an undefined emotive term instead.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Here's a definition, or at least the start of one.

      Personally I'd define it as "images depicting sexual abuse of children (well) under the age of consent". That's not "sexualised images" or "images depicting provocative stances and/or actors looking to be below the age of consent" or even "cartoons" or anything else. But then for me the only thing I care about is actual harm to children, and bringing justice to perpetrators of such. I *don't* care about people's darkest dirty fantasies acted out on paper or by adult, consenting actors, or even 16 or 17 year olds exploring and capturing that on their cell phones. Of course that leaves a grey area, but at least there's two clear lines and a clear purpose.

      The purpose is not controlling perverse thoughts; it's bringing justice to abusers and through that preventing further harm. None of that brings on censorship. In fact, cencorship would sooner hide such, and make the bringing to justice part that much harder. The downside is it denies what that censorship so very seductively offers, for it so conveniently swipes all the (listed) bad things (and a few also listed good things) under the rug. But we weren't in it for our convenience, but to bring justice to those who would harm children, weren't we?

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