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Australian Opposition Will Block ISP-level Internet Filtering

Polls in Australia's Federal election are only two weeks away, and there has been some interesting movement from one of the main parties on the subject of Internet filtering.

While both major parties have strongly been in favour of national filtering of Internet connections, there has been little to suggest that the current plan of action would change no matter which party is elected into power in two weeks time.

Suddenly that has changed, with the current opposition announcing to the national broadcaster's youth radio network that they will not support the current government's push for mandated ISP-level filtering of all user connections. This stance has been welcomed by Internet advocacy groups, but the statement only amounts to what they will do if returned to Opposition, not what they will do if they are voted into power. It is reassuring to see that the complaints from ISPs and user groups that the current plan for filtering is not feasible.

It would seem, from the comments made, that the Coalition's preferred method of filtering implementation would be to place the power to filter in the user's hands, allowing them to decide for themselves if they and their family will use filtering software to restrict their Internet access, without adversely affecting the experience of other users, who do not want restrictions on their access.

The opposition spokesman indicated that a more in depth comment on Internet filtering will be coming in the future, but with only two weeks before the election they are running out of time to put forward something that is either similar to the current government's plan (and a fairly restrictive extension of what they themselves put forward when last in power) or something that gives the decision to filter to the actual users and provides a fairer and more balanced approach than previously suggested.

Although the national broadcaster has traditionally been seen as slightly left-leaning in its bias (i.e. slightly in support of the Labour party, the current government, with an even stronger left-leaning bias on its youth newtork - more in support of Democrats and Greens), and the comments on stories posted tend to support this slight bias (though each side claims the network is biased in favour of their opponents), the comments posted to coverage of this news are almost overwhelmingly in support of the Coalition. Many going so far as to say that this particular announcement is enough to have swung their vote in favour of the Opposition. For others it has been enough to input significant uncertainty into their vote, but not enough to swing it across to the Opposition.

6 August 2010

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