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The same could be said of other "objectionable" material such as images or video depicting rape, torture, extreme acts of violence and other acts which most rational people consider to be harmful or potentially harmful to society and the individuals of which it is composed.

So why not just filter all Net content coming into the country -- like they do in China, Singapore and a goodly number of other countries?

Indeed, when I saw this headline on the Stuff website I wondered for a minute if we were being softened up for national Net filtering.

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Fortunately, this appears to refer to voluntary filtering that ISPs would choose whether to use or not.

If however, as is the case in Britain, every ISP in the country signs up for such a system, isn't this effectively the same as government-mandated filtering?

And, if some group or another is going to take on the task of protecting the public from such objectionable content, who's going to take on the responsibility if or when it fails?

Right now it's pretty much clear that ISPs have a degree of "carrier status" - which means that they're assumed not to be liable for the actions of their customers if those actions are taken without the knowledge of the ISP. In order to qualify for such status, the ISP has to convince us that they have no control over the stuff that flows through their network and they are indeed simply acting as a blind carrier.

Now if they start filtering content, this carrier status may be in jeopardy because they're no longer acting like a blind carrier. They are in fact taking some level of responsibility for the content that might flow through their pipes -- and does any ISP really want to waive their carrier status?

And what happens if/when the company which manages the filter rules or blacklists decides that it's time to extend the parameters for such blocks - on moral, religious or political grounds?

Who's going to police the cyber-police?

I also wonder just how good such a filtering system would be and how would it work?

Does CleanFeed have a raft of "hardened" and incorruptible people who spend their entire day seeking out bad porn sites and adding their URLs to a list of no-go sites? If so, what stops those people from becoming bent and twisted by the horrific images they must be exposed to -- or are they superhuman?

Or could it be that the system uses a complex and sophisticated set of algorithmic filters that balk on keywords such as "child" and "rape" -- thus potentially blocking access to genuine sites that may actually offer support and help to the victims of such crimes?

I also have to wonder what ever happened to trusting every-day folks to make sensible decisions and simply apprehending and punishing or rehabilitating those who didn't?

If someone has a mental problem that predisposes them towards seeking out and downloading child porn then surely they need help, not filtering.

What's your take?

Should we treat every Net user as a potential offender and simply block access to all objectionable material (or anything that *might* be objectionable)?

Do we take the risk that such a universally accepted filtering system might also be mis-used to service someone's own religious, moral or political agenda?

Or do we treat adults like grown-ups and focus on education, apprehension and rehabilitation in the case of such offences?

Yes, protect the kids but don't treat everyone like a kid by making filtering mandatory for all Net connections.

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