Aussies Don’t Mind Censorship, Hate Secrecy

It’s clear that in the Lifehacker community (and the tech community more generally) than most people believe mandatory Internet filtering is a pretty stupid idea. But what does the broader population think? A phone poll commissioned by the ABC’s Hungry Beast suggests that while a huge percentage are in favour of trying to filter out illegal content, most believe that the process should be much more transparent than the system currently being proposed.

Picture by lwr

TV Tonight reports that a poll commissioned by the show (which returns to the ABC on Wednesday evening) found that 80% of Australians were broadly in favour of the notion of censoring illegal content. However, an even higher percentage of the 1,000 respondents — 91%, to be precise — believed that the list of sites should be made public.

The secretive nature of the proposed blacklist has been one of the most criticised elements of the proposal, since it creates a mechanism by which the government could potentially block any site without having to provide an explanation why. Senator Stephen Conroy (who’ll be appearing on the show) has repeatedly argued that the move is designed to bring the same regulation to the Internet as other media, but has yet to provide an explanation of why this requires an approach that’s entirely different to that used for books or movies.

Hungry Beast finds 80% favour internet filter [TV Tonight]


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