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Aussie Opposition Party: 'Mandatory Net Filtering Offensive to Parents'

By soulxtc

Liberal Party says the underlying message is "that parents cannot be trusted to mind their children online," and furthers by saying that "there is no technological substitute for adult supervision and it's irresponsible and misleading to infer otherwise." Australian Senator Nick Minchin, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, member of the Liberal Party, and leader of the opposition in the Senate, has posted an excellent op-ed piece on the Sydney Morning Herald online criticizing the govt's plan for mandatory Internet filtering. Internet filtering began as a voluntary effort to "protect children," but quickly spiraled into an all out attempt by the Australian govt, spearheaded by Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy, to make it mandatory for ISPs to filter the Internet of all "inappropriate content" and "offensive and illegal material." The heavily criticized plan threatens to reduce Internet connection speeds by up to 87% and institute a system of censorship with no oversight. Senator Minchin takes the argument even further, observing that the underlying message of a compulsory filtering system sends the patently offensive message "that parents cannot be trusted to mind their children online.

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on January 26, 2009 (boomark / email).