Australian Net-Filtering Plan, is the USA Next?
As Australia’s government finalizes its plans to “filter” the internet, the currently unfiltered internet community is up in arms. Unlike the Chinese government, most countries have allowed the internet to remain wild, free and open. The open nature of the internet has allowed tremendous creativity, vast possibilities and a steady stream of entrepreneurship. Why in the world would or should it be necessary to filter this wonderful source of opportunity and information? I find it interesting that this question was asked in the recent Digg Dialogg interview with Al Gore. Al Gore is a free internet proponent and endorses it’s democratic nature as well as it’s potential use in saving the planet.
I understand that the Australian government’s plan has the best intentions, which the road to hell is paved with, such as the filtering of terrorism sites and pornography but if you have every worked with filtering then you know that classification systems don’t necessarily work. Often times perfectly legitimate or “good” websites will be tossed out with the bad and at what point do commercial interests start to lobby and call for the filtering of small competitors like Australia’s own Darren Rowse of problogger.com? Will they actually filter out a site like problogger.com? Probably not, but there is talk of degraded access for what “unimportant” content and a prioritization method or system that will determine what’s important or legitimate or not. This is where I see the commercial interests potentially working to squash the average blog or small ecommerce site via degraded access.
Take Action
I recently visited http://savetheinternet.com and added this site to my blogroll. If you have a website, myspace or facebook account then please consider reading about this and adding a link to your site or personal page. The potential filtering and prioritizing of content has real and negative implications for “small bloggers” and internet users everywhere. I recommend that you do your part in fighting this potentially negative change and voice your opinion regarding net neutrality. I am definitely against filtering as it potentially threatens your online marketability as line between good and bad begins to blur. I am also concerned that this will lead to the involvement of the United States government leading a similar effort.
Final Thoughts
If the U.S. government gets involved it wont be long before special interest groups start squashing the little guys, the everyday bloggers like you and I. Am I paranoid? Does anyone else see this as a long term concern?
Original Article Excerpt
As if Australians weren’t riled up enough over their government’s Internet filtering initiative, the level of discontent has risen amid recent revelations that certain filters will not be optional, as citizens were first led to believe. Criticism is building against Australia’s Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, and now Australia’s ISPs
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment