The government of Australia has decided to scrap plans for an Internet filtering system, that’d put the Great Firewall of China to shame.
The plan – nicknamed “Cleanfeed” – was promoted by the Australian Christian Lobby and Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy.
Cleanfeed would protect children from predators and exposure to adult-oriented material over the Internet; initially, it received support from concerned parents, before it became apparent that local adult web site owners were harassed and even blackmailed.
The Cleanfeed pornography filter had passed trials by the Australian government, and was expected to be adopted as a national policy.
Cleanfeed was devised to censor and filter “prohibited content” and various other “refused classification” materials. Apparently, the categories and classifications were vague and broad; would nudity in art be considered pornography, for example?
Elsewhere, MetaSurf aims to become the de facto filtration system of choice by parents.
