Debate heats up on Australian Web Filtering plans
The BBC World News ran an interview with SC Magazine’s Dan Raywood discussing US opposition to the Australian web filter.
This is an extremely controversial area and one that’s likely to provoke a huge amount of debate.
If the intent of the Australian filtering is to eliminate illegal content i.e. content that is criminally obscene, content that incites religious or racial hatred or content related to terrorism, then I would imagine that the vast majority of Australian Internet users would accept that.
The real concern is the filtering goes beyond that and becomes state censorship. It would be extremely difficult if not impossible to legislate against this.
From a technology perspective, with over 80% of the Internet being uncategorised, the challenge for the Australian Government is huge and if implemented, there’s likely to be performance issues and problems with under- and over-blocking of specific web pages.
This will be especially true if they are relying on a database of pre-catagorised web sites and pages. This approach can only filter a tiny percentage of the available web pages. For example, if a new web site is created that the Australian Government would require to be filtered, then it could be many months before the site is catagorised,
Bloxx Web Filtering on the other hand uses advanced software techniques to accurately analyze and catagorise web pages at the point of request and is the only available web filter that scales with the growth of the web.
The views expressed in this comment are my own personal opinion and do not represent the views and opinions of Bloxx.
