Colin Jacobs, Vice Chair of EFA, was a guest on SBS Insight on Tuesday night, discussing internet filtering with Senator Stephen Conroy, Mark Newton, Lyle Shelton and others. If you missed the show, you can stream it or view the transcript from the SBS website.
Colin has an interesting wrap-up of Senator Conroy’s long-awaited engagement with the substantive issues on the New Matilda blog, PollieGraph:
The most significant revelation was that the list will be focused “almost” entirely on RC material. The represents a significant backing away from the ACMA blacklist, which the Minister took great pains to remind everyone was a nine-year-old Liberal Party policy and not an invention of his government. Despite assertions to the contrary, previous indications have been that the ACMA blacklist would form the core of the new mandatory filtering regime, so this represents something of a policy shift.
Any narrowing of the list’s scope is to be welcomed, but unfortunately Conroy refused to be drawn out precisely what would be blacklisted – a few qualifiers were left in to allow future wiggle room. There were many references to bestiality or incest web sites, which while they can conjure up disturbing images in the listener’s mind, especially when juxtaposed with kids. However, the problems with the filter policy occur around the edges where the content is more controversial, and here there was less detail forthcoming.
For more information, please see Colin’s full piece on the New Matilda site.
New Matilda also now have audio available from a forum that I presented at last week, along with Peter Black, Senator Scott Ludlam, and Irene Graham. Many thanks to New Matilda for organising these discussion forums. We are looking forward to similar forums in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide in the near future.