A drop in the ocean

In case you haven't heard (been living in a cave for the past year?), the Australian Government has proposed a nationwide, compulsory, ISP based, web filtering system with the intention of "protecting our children" from the evils of the Internet.

The primary aim is to block child porn sites but it appears as though the scope of the filter is being extended to include other "inappropriate" sites.

Currently in a testing phase with a handful of (unknown and small time) ISP's, the project has been met with strong resistance from the general public as well as the countries biggest ISP's including Telstra, iiNet and Internode.

Quite frankly, I can't see how this project can possibly come close to protecting our children from being exposed to elicit content on the Internet. For starters, the filter will only block a couple of thousand sites with an anticipated number coming closer to 10,000. But with over 4,200,000 porn pages on the Internet amounting to 400,000,000 individual pages, it will only be a drop in the ocean...

I agree, children being exposed to pornographic images and content on the Internet is a serious issue, but wasting vast amounts of money on a system that is flawed and unreliable (has a great potential to block legit sites), and will slow down the Internet is not a step forward, but a set back.

The solution? Education! and parental responsibility! it doesn't matter what you do, kids will ALWAYS be exposed to situations that are not child friendly. That's life. But punishing the public is not going to ease the problem.

Parents MUST be held responsible for the actions of their children. Too often, kids are let go and are free to get into trouble and mischief. Supervision will significantly reduce the problem and education about the dangers of the Internet must be taught in schools, the same way that kids are taught not to talk to strangers.

We need to recognise that technology and the world is changing rapidly and being complasent about educating children about new and present dangers won't cut it anymore.