Electronic Frontiers to hold anti-filtering forum

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 10 June 2010 11:37

IT Policy - Regulation

Electronic Frontiers Australia is maintaining the rage in its anti-filtering campaign with plans for a public forum in Melbourne on 25 June.

EFA, chairman, Colin Jacobs said: "Public interest in the Conroy Curtain is still high. With election season almost in full swing, Australia's political parties will be making their positions known.

"In advance, we're getting together to discuss the facts, make some better suggestions for the pollies, and give a few hints on how the filter might be avoided if it eventuates. Due to the fondness of politicians for pretending the Internet is a lawless jungle where libertarian nerds roam free, we're going with a 'wild west' theme." http://www.efa.org.au/wild-west-internet-forum/

Panellists will include Greens senator and communications spokesman Scott Ludlam; columnist and commentator, Marcus Westbury; comedienne Catherine Deveny who will "weigh in with her educated opinion on the value of free speech" and Jacobs who will "discuss fun ways to get around [the filter]." EFA will be taking questions via Twitter.

EFA has a penchant for using comedians in its anti-filtering initiatives. Its recent, 'Time to Tell Mum' campaign featured a four minute video from Akmal Saleh. It generated some critical comments when first posted, which appear to have since been removed from the EFA's web site.

Deveny has also been extremely controversial and was dropped by The Age newspaper as a columnist in March over her tweets about Bind Irvin.