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Submitted by ianduncan_qld on Wed, 20/05/2009 - 8:33am
What alternatives exist for the proposed internet filter?
some starting points:
Internet Industry Association's Guide for Internet Users:
http://www.iia.net.au/index.php/component/content/416.html?task=view
ABA's Cybersmart Kids Web Site:
http://www.cybersmartkids.com.au/
My suggestion would be that if the intention of this is to protect kids first and foremost then this is where the primary effort should be expended. Worry about daft adults later. Make the tools for a safe experience online for children available widely and cheaply, show parents how they can use them effectively, and make the online world something parents and kids can explore together.
It has no more or less dangers than the real world; you wouldn't let your kids wander around on their own in the barrios of Rio any more than you would let them drift around the net solo.
i have been using this at home for some time now
both to block advertising/spyware/phishing
as well as providing a more reliable service
there are many categories of sites one can choose to block
statistics are available for what has been visited/blocked
it couldnt be more simple & can be managed from anywhere on the internet
http://www.opendns.com
people dont need extra software on their machines
I have been using opendns too. We had a 14 year old who wouldn't obey "house rules" about what was appropriate to access. It works well and a big advantage is that it doesn't reside on your home computer, so it can't be bypassed (without knowing the password). It gives parents the ability to decide what and when sites should be blocked.
I question what we are providing a solution to. What exactly is the problem? As far as I can see there was never a problem at all. All this is, is trying to apply a technical solution to social problems. That isn't going to work.
Instead of cutting the AFP's Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team budget, they should use the filter money to increase it. Stuff like Cyber Bullying is a social problem and the filter in no way helps.
I also take offence that under the proposal as an adult I will be filtered using the ACMA's blacklist (which you will not be able to opt out of) which was originally designed as a list of sites unsuitable for children and contains material which I can legally view and buy offline. It also contains absolutely no child porn (as far as I'm aware) as the leaks of the list have shown.
"All this is, is trying to apply a technical solution to social problems. That isn't going to work."
I would agree with this: I've been using the internet since it was owned by the Australian Vice Chancellors Committee and censorship was never an issue because it (the net) was not available to members of the public. It had not been commercialised, and it wasn't considered dangerous (except for all those radical ideas let loose amongst academics)
Initially, when the net became commercialised, there was no issue because most of the people taking it up at that stage were people like me, who had been using in academic pursuits.
The problems really arose once the WWW appeared, to replace poor old gopher, and the general populace had access in greater numbers, since it was now a selling point for computer salesmen. Since there was still no real danger on the net (Oh really?? IRC was always dodgy), the salesmen were not "educating" the buyers. They just wanted to make sales. People never became aware of the dangers which were now looming in the form of online porn, and scams and heavens knows what else... These days, the people who actually care about what their kids are doing online, are already doing the responsible thing and supervising. The ones who currently do not, probably never will.
So the question is: how far do we go in taking over parental responsibility? I say we should be looking at ways to MAKE parents MORE responsible, not less.
What we don't deal with is people who simply do NOT care. None of the proposed solutions will fix this problem. Any filtering imposed will only affect those who actually care and are probably already doing what they need to.
"Stuff like Cyber Bullying is a social problem and the filter in no way helps."
Agreed again. Cyber bullying is more likely to occur over the mobile phone service these days. Are we going to take mobile phones away from kids? Or their parents?
Parental Education is the ONLY solution. It always was, and it always will be. You put some kind of filter in place and you'll create a climate in which even more parents don't feel they have to supervise, because Daddy Government is doing it for them. Then the next generation of parents, growing up with this, will care even less, and supervise their kids even less. And the next generation of government will want to impose even more controls.
Seriously... government controls are NOT the way to go on this. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
[end rant]
Sue