The story of Jessi Slaughter is reaching Australia, perhaps, for all the wrong reasons. A professor has taken the story and is arguing for internet censorship, saying, “You simply can’t have free access to the internet”
Things must be looking pretty desperate for those who support mandatory ISP internet filtering.
It all started with a US girl by the name of Jessi Slaughter. According to US reports, she apparently posted videos on YouTube of herself saying she was better than others. The videos spread to other sites including 4Chan where a number of internet trolls decided to cyber bully her. After personally identifiable information of Slaughter was posted, she started receiving prank phone calls among other things. Her father got involved with a video response attacking those who were responsible of the trolling which only made matters worse. Ultimately, she wound up in a police safe house and an investigation is under way. For many, this was simply an object lesson that says that parents need to keep an eye on their children’s activity online.
Evidently, there’s a slightly different perspective in Australia as far as one professor is concerned.
According to news.com.au, this was actually a perfect reason for mandatory online filtering as well as far as one professor is concerned.
While arguing for a mandatory ISP level filtering system, Matt Warren, the head of Deakin University’s School of Information Systems said, “It has to be controlled, censored and people have to be held accountable for their actions on it.”
Warren said, “We punish people who drink, we punish people who speed and we have to implement laws to that effect when it comes to the internet.”
He argued that children – even 11 year olds – aren’t ethically aware of what they are doing. He also said that parents aren’t able to train their children about proper uses of the internet since they don’t understand it themselves. As long as those two ideas exist, then the government has to intervene according to Warren.
Since internet filtering is such a hot button issue, political parties have, for now, shelved internet filtering plans, but Warren argued that this was an oversight.
Last year, another professor made the argument that an unfiltered internet had no place in a democracy and that those, including the Electronic Frontier Australia, are a bunch of extremists for arguing the contrary.
What is amazing is that it almost doesn’t seem like it had ever occurred to Warren that if, say, Slaughter were to go around the actual school yard and tell everyone how much better she was, that she wouldn’t provoke a negative response. Should we force schools to separate each and ever individual child in the school because there could be a conflict between some of them? Obviously, parents – and supervisors for that matter – can’t keep an eye on them 24/7. Why don’t we lock every child in to isolation chambers until they are 21 while we are at it? That’ll make sure they will never get bullied online or offline.
What was the original intent of the internet filtering anyway? Wasn’t it to stop child pornography and other “objectionable” material in the first place? How is ISP level filtering suppose to stop people from behaving badly online anyway?
What’s incredible is how much supporters of internet filtering stretch their arguments these days until it reaches levels of absurdity. Here’s hoping this is all just because of something in the water.
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Now, who is for putting that professor’s contact information on 4chan? Two wrong do make a right eh?
Internet education…a horrible idea. Here’s why.
It won’t stop there. First there’s the education. How can we be sure you were paying attention? Testing. How can we verify that you passed? Licensing. How do we pay for all this. Fees. How can we insure that we get the fees? Make the license mandatory. How do we do that? Make it illegal to access the internet without one.
Oh, how many problems this would solve for the man. I’ve heard rumors that something like this is already in the works. Think about it.
I love the phrase “free access”. We PAY to use the Internet, it’s not as if the government is giving it to us for free.
What i want to know is, who can have that much power that they can deside what is filtered and what isn’t?!
I’m getting mighty sick of all these laws that are ‘for our own good’. Only a few have affected me directly, like the P-plater curfew and the phasing out of paper tickets for public transport, but there are others and these examples are indicative of the attitude behind them all. It’s infuriating that some government moron can get it in his head that he knows what’s best for me. Here’s a message to those in government who do things against my wishes ‘for my own good’: fuck off!
To the Individual who stated the following:
“Free Speech isn’t universal”
Free Speech is an abstract concept. It is formless, border-less and intangible and as such is very much universal. Whether a government, country, society, individual and etc acknowledges, tolerates, embraces, rejects and so is completely irrelevant.
” she apparently posted videos on YouTube of herself saying she was better than others.”
What she actually did was get fucked by an emo singer twice her age (Or made up the rumor, herself) and then the foul-mouth made death threats to people bothering her about it because of how they must be so jealous of her. That she’s getting banged by a 20 something pedophile.
It wasn’t -JUST- her talking about how much better she was that drew /b/’s ire.
What happened specifically here between this person and 4Chan is a bit beside the point though. This professor says that internet filtering will somehow magically fix people arguing which, judging by comments everywhere about this story, almost no one buys that.
I mean, sure, let’s say things happened between this individual and some people at 4Chan that led to some rather unpleasant things. It doesn’t really, in my view, change how absurd the filtering argument is.
“He argued that children – even 11 year olds – aren’t ethically aware of what they are doing. He also said that parents aren’t able to train their children about proper uses of the internet since they don’t understand it themselves. As long as those two ideas exist, then the government has to intervene according to Warren.”
If your parents arn’t smart enough to use a computer, then technically we should be the parents and they should be the kids. After all they are older and should be smarter than us anyway.
I think government is desperate to use this as an example to implement the new world order and use any tactic to get its way and use fear and manipulation for those who are weak in our society, its up to parents to monitor there kids not the government. Govemment doesnt care about anyone but its own profit margins and its acting in its own best interests and not in the best interests of any family or child. its an act of control, social control and will use tyranny if it doesn’t get its way. I think we should protest and stand up to this type of behavour. The want to infringe on our rights as free human beings and they want to take it away by imprisioning the heart the mind and the soul and use it for its own ends. The goverments or any academics dont care about you or me but use emotional arguements to get its way. The internet is a free place and should not be regulated but used as a tool.
You CAN’T filter the internet in just one country. It is a technical impossibility. You would literally have to filter and block the site at the source which, sure as hell, if done, would result in the source being changed.
All of the methods used to terrorise this girl were completely legit. There was no hacking. The girl was just stupid enough to have left enough information on her youtube profile for her to be found (or backtraced. lol) on social network sites which had even more information about her.
The internet filter is a waste of money for something that will easily be bypassed. It’s like a burglar. If they really WANT to get into a house, they will do it regardless of the fancy security systems you may have. Same goes with the internet.
4chan is the reason we can’t have nice things.
Censoring the internet is like censoring our freedom, our heart.
Did this professor think about his response to this situation for more than five seconds? I mean, even six seconds would have been enough. What should we do? Shoot everyone who harasses someone on the internet? In that case, the majority of us should be shot. Maybe we should just shoot children when they put things like that on the internet. Yes, why not cut it off at the source? And then no harassment could possibly take place, because to whom will it be directed? Look at that! Just look at it! I suggested shooting children as an alternative to being bullied. Horrific. Terrible. Everything that is bad in humankind in that one statement. But for god’s sake, at least I offered up a logical reason as to why. What the hell does the professor offer up from his ivory tower? How, I ask, do you prevent people from being assholes on the internet? I mean, you would have to stop people communicating altogether and…OOOOOOOOOOH…I just got it…ulterior motives…
Something tells me this guy would actually take my idea of shooting children seriously…
theres no story here
11 y old girls cry at everything, its their nature
cant put a filter to that
sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt. ever remember this?
How’s about mandatory Internet education? Politicians and kids both need it based on this article. I think some school systems already have this, but should be world-wide requirement I think.
Anyways, I just don’t see any way an internet filter is going to work unless they implement a penalty system for circumventing the filter and/or talking about ways to get around the filtering system. Even then it’s a cat and mouse game filtering the anti-filters. I work for a school system which has a web filtering system, doesn’t keep the kids off of facebook. I see nice collections of porn on our school file servers all the time. With services like UltraSurf and then web proxy sites, we can’t keep them off. The ones they claim to protect will be the first ones to get around the filter.
How’s about mandatory Internet education? Politicians and kids both need it based on this article. I think some school systems already have this, but should be world-wide requirement I think.
Anyways, I just don’t see any way an internet filter is going to work unless they implement a penalty system for circumventing the filter and/or talking about ways to get around the filtering system. Even then it’s a cat and mouse game filtering the anti-filters. I work for a school system which has a web filtering system, doesn’t keep the kids off of facebook. I see nice collections of porn on our school file servers all the time. With services like UltraSurf and then web proxy sites, we can’t keep them off. The ones they claim to protect will be the first ones to get around the filter.
“We punish people who drink, we punish people who speed and we have to implement laws to that effect when it comes to the internet.”
How does one drink or speed on the Internet?
*”He argued that children – even 11 year olds – aren’t ethically aware of what they are doing. He also said that parents aren’t able to train their children about proper uses of the internet since they don’t understand it themselves. As long as those two ideas exist, then the government has to intervene according to Warren.”
Let me paraphrase his argument.
So because apparently the children there are not ethically conscious and parents do not bother with the ridiculousness that is to “train their children about proper uses of the internet”, this guy argues that this compels the Australian government to impose mandatory ISP filtering in order to censor every single instance of bad online behaviour, especially responses to online acts.
In other words, because young children are typically naive due to their parents, government must censor all negative responses toward a child, in case that child does something stupid enough to provoke them. (Note well that Internet remains unmentioned here.)
Basically, government must censor insolence toward a child.
It goes without saying that his argument clearly does not make sense.
*”Last year, another professor made the argument that an unfiltered internet had no place in a democracy and that those, including the Electronic Frontier Australia, are a bunch of extremists for arguing the contrary.”
It also goes without saying that that guy is also an idiot.
“… especially [those that are] responses to online acts …”
i think the question is, WTF is an 11 year old doing with a webcam? Why would parents allow that?
“We punish people who drink, we punish people who speed and we have to implement laws to that effect when it comes to the internet.”
umm, speeding can kill other people. who punishes people who drink unless they are doing something that can harm someone else. for anyone who thinks that this is a serous issue i want you to repeat a little mantra for me when you are feeling upset about it, you know the one.
“doing 90mph on the freeway and drinking while driving can break my bones but facebook and twitter can never hurt me”
Hey…Australia….ur acting all high and mighty considering you’re the descendants of a penal colony. Stay out of our bidness and we won’t bomb the shit out of you for Vegemite.
Hey…Australia….ur acting all high and mighty considering you’re the descendants of a penal colony. Stay out of our bidness and we won’t bomb the shit out of you for Vegemite.
how the flying frak would an internet filter stop people from being a jerk?
“We punish people who drink, we punish people who speed and we have to implement laws to that effect when it comes to the internet.”
errm.. you mean drink TOO MUCH, drive TOO FAST, and what? use the internet too much? why not punish all the women that spend too long on the phone while you’re at it then.that causes way more problems
stop giving this little 11 year old troll the attention she wants.
that’s all you’re doing.
They all need back tracing and reporting to the cyber police
Consequences will never be the same
maybe if parents weren’t so STUPID as to allow their 11 year olds to make the kind of videos that she did, and publish the kind of photos that she did, and publish the amount of personal information that she did, we wouldn’t have these issues.
If Australia does censor the internet then it’s no longer a democracy in my eyes, and they will have seriously dun goof’d and consequences will never be the same lol.
Free Speech isn’t universal
Cersoring the internet is censoring freedom of speech.
couldnt agree more with T. Moar
It looks like they must be handing out PHDs on two-ply, judging by the idiocy of this alleged academician. It’s all about control. Make no mistake, the so called “enlightened” academics will march lock-step with their paymasters. The funny thing is how his title is supposed to, somehow, canonize his wacky words of wisdom. He is an “elite” or “aristocrat” bent on saving us, “the great unwashed,” from ourselves. Why you may ask? Because, like little simple children we are unable to draw rational conclusions without the benefit of his burgeoning intellect. I have some news for him, he needs to recall his history and take note of what happened to the aristocracy in during the French Revolution. Vive le Revolucion!