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14 reasons why the filter is a bad idea |
The filter is based on lies1. What Chairman Krudd said before the election and what he is doing after it are radically different. Before the election Chairman Krudd said the following: ... Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a "clean feed" internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as public libraries. What he didn't tell anyone before the election is that in addition to this child-friendly, optional internet filter, there will be a democracy-unfriendly mandatory internet filter. In fact, the optional filter has now been dropped also. Chairman Krudd lied! 2. Chairman Krudd has repeatedly stated that the internet filter is about stopping children from accidentally accessing adult material i.e. about "protecting the children". Why the mandatory filter then? The scope of the mandatory is actually too limited to be of any use whatsoever in stopping children from accidentally accessing adult material. Chairman Krudd lied! There are many households without children and even those with children may prefer greater subtlety and nuance in what is filtered and what is permitted. What about business internet connections? As Chairman Krudd once said: The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation. Oh, wait. It was Adolf Hitler who said that. Curious coincidence? 3. Chairman Krudd has repeatedly stated that the internet filter is just about enforcing the law by blocking illegal material. Why block so much legal material then? Why dispense with proper legal process then? Chairman Krudd lied! As it stands today material that might be illegal, if it were put before a court, is only a tiny fraction of all material that could be blocked under the proposed legislation. The illegal material is only "illegal" in the opinion of some faceless bureaucrat inside Chairman Krudd's government. The "illegal" web pages have not been and will not be put before a court and determined to be illegal. If this system goes into operation then the amount of legal material on the list will grow madly, due to the agenda of those who are behind the push for internet filtering, while the illegal material will remain essentially static, or even decline (because illegal material will get taken down once the authorities have gone though the proper processes). |