The high price of internet filtering
Posted in: Child Protection&Online Safety at 25/10/2008 03:41
by Michael Meloni
Labor's high-speed National Broadband Network is a step in the right direction, but their plan to block inappropriate websites by forcing ISPs to install content filtering systems will slow down internet access and raise the cost of service.
Unlike website filters installed on your personal computer, filters installed at your ISP need to check hundreds of thousands of websites and then decide whether they're pornographic or inappropriate. As it stands, no technology capable of doing this accurately exists. Current filters are of varying accuracy and severely affect internet performance - and the Government knows it.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/24/2399876.htm
Michael Meloni is a production manager at an online media company in Brisbane. He blogs about censorship issues at Somebody Think Of The Children.
