[clug] Internet Censorship - Advice?

[Michael Ross]

Hi David,

Given you only have 10-15 minutes and the audience I would avoid discussing
the technical side as much as possible. Basically I would structure the
presentation as:

- What the government proposal is aiming to deliver (ie. two filtered
internet feeds, one for 'children' and the other for 'everybody else')

- A 'one size fits all' approach doesn't work for filtering childrens
content. ie - what age child will it be appropriate for? 4? 5? 10? How do
you account for different parenting styles?

- Question what content will be on the list? Should the government only ban
illegal content on the 'everybody else' list? Mention the idea of banning
'unwanted' content is being looked at - who decides what 'unwanted' content
is?

- Question who will manage the list of blocked content? ie. who should be
able to add sites to the 'blocked' list? if a site is added to the list
incorrectly how easy will be it be to remove it? How will the people making
these changes be held accountable?

- Mention that current trials show the proposed technology will make the
internet slower and incorrectly block 'legal' okay content in some cases.

- Summarise - my (personal) view on the topic is 'I'm happy to see the
government actively working to remove illegal content from the internet. I
don't feel that the proposed filter is the right way to go about this. Given
the ethnical questions still un-answered and the technical limitations, I
feel the money could be spent much better elsewhere'. Feel free to add your
own thoughts :-)

This approach keeps the talk focused & stays away from some more of the
trickier (ie. questioning the conduct of the gov MP trying to implement
this) points.

Cheers :-)

--
Michael
michael.ross at atice.org