Back in October it was revealed that the tidy sum of $125.8 million AUD would treat Australia to the world’s first nationalized internet content filtering in a democratic first-world nation. Under the terms of the plan, Australian residents would be forced onto a nationally-mandated blacklist that filters illegal content at the ISP level. Users would be further given the choice to opt into an “unsuitable content” filter that panders to everyone’s love of children in filtering of pornographic and other “sensitive” content.
Fast-forward to today where an executive of iiNet, Australia’s third largest ISP, has elected to opt into the program only to demonstrate how terrible an idea it is. Describing the filter as “ridiculous,” iiNet exec Michael Malone has nothing but bad things to say about the national filter.
Malone goes on to say that the government is being unreceptive to both business and consumers, so he’s turning to statistics to aid in the war. “They’re not listening to the experts, they’re not listening to the industry, they’re not listening to consumers, so perhaps some hard numbers will actually help,” he said.
After an Australian senate questioning session did little to air the details of how the technology might work, Malone had sharp words for the Communications Minister. “This is the worst Communications Minister we’ve had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed,” he said.
It is expected that the filters will significantly impact network speeds, be easy to bypass, and do little to remedy the issues the filters are supposed to address. Meanwhile, Australian ISPs Optus and Telstra have been slow to demonstrate any concern for implementing the filters.
Articles RSS