Internet Filtering

I personally believe that there should be no filtering of Internet content. The reasons that shall be discussed are twofold. Firstly the rating of restricted content is very subjective in most cases and secondly by having this system in place it can be abused in the future.

Firstly, the rating content restricted over another piece is highly subjective. What should be restricted to one person could not be to another, but there is only one rater of the content (Internet Filtering, year unknown). Such content are anti-abortion and pro-euthanasia websites, they have been rated restricted content. The only way to know for sure if this should be restricted content is to use an objective test, such as a “referendum” type survey so all of Australia can put there view across. However due to the magnitude of blacklisted sites this would be near impossible due the amount of time and expense it would take.

When I was younger my parents had a filter installed on my computer to block harmful websites. However this filter also blocked lots of sites that I needed to look at to do assignments for school as the blocked categories were very broad and subjective. Therefore I had to get them to unblock it and then “reblock” it every time this happened. This was a sluggish process, however at least the sites I required were able to be unblocked. If this filter is implemented and blocks sites that are viewed by large audiences there will be no way to unblock this legally. 

In conclusion, I believe this proposed filter is very subjective and it definitely should not be put forth as legislation.

Internet Filtering, (Unknown). Problems with the use of filters. Retrieved from: http://sites.google.com/site/internetfiltering2/problems-with-the-use-of-filters

Interesting articles:

This was found by simply googling "Australian Internet filter bypass"
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/12/ways-to-bypass-the-internet-filter/

Here is a group who is devoutly against the filter
http://www.internetblackout.com.au/