Internet filter - national day of protest on March 6th

David Heath
Thursday, 07 January 2010 17:03

Your IT - Home IT

There is a growing groundswell of protest against Conroy’s internet filter.  This is planned to culminate in a national day of protest on March 6th.

Readers will not be surprised to know that this author has not been a proponent of the government’s Internet filtering technology.  However all over Australia, ordinary people are starting to agree that the government’s proposed Internet filter is a completely pointless exercise.  Worse, a very expensive pointless exercise.  Worse even still, a pointless exercise that actually inhibits the ability of Australian enforcement agencies to detect and prosecute genuine offenders.

For well over a year, technically competent people have been expressing very strong doubts as to the validity of the filter, but this is starting to spread much wider.

Leading through a Facebook page a new grass-roots organisation (without a name!) is planning a national day of protest.

At the moment, they are arranging local venues and Police permits with a view to having a very loud protest right in the middle of the anticipated debating period for the legislation.

At noon on Saturday March 6th, at major venues in every Australian capital city the Federal government will hear the opinion of (hopefully) a huge body of ordinary Australians.

According to Matthew George, a spokesman for the group, “We are a group of Australians that represent the Australian public as a whole against the censorship of the internet via the Clean Feed Initiative Kevin Rudd's government is putting into action. We plan on protesting the filter to raise awareness of its shortcomings, how it will not protect children from online predators and how it will not block restricted content distributed by peer to peer networks and underground child porn rings. The protest is geared towards being a civilized, family friendly event with guest speakers discussing details of internet censorship."

Further information will be provided as it becomes available.