When Australians first heard of the new filters in 2007, they thought it would only be to protect the children.  Then, they found out that they would be subjected to the net filters, and there’s no opt out.  Despite public outcry, testing began in Tasmania and, soon, all ISPs will be forced to use the official government blacklist.

Australians may not be able to opt out of the government’s Internet filtering initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to come out about Australia’s Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block “illegal” content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing stages, but network engineers are now saying that there’s no way to opt out entirely from content filtering.

Internode network engineer Mark Newton told Computerworld that users are able to opt out of the “additional material” blacklist—which targets content inappropriate for children—but not the main blacklist that filters what the Australian government determines is illegal content.

This appears to be very similar to the great firewall of China.  If things like this keep happening, the Internet will, effectively, be much like it was in the past.  The Internet will become a series of computers connected to a few “legal” sites only within your own country.

Ben Hoskings has a brilliant open letter to Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy, Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.  You should read it, use it, and send Mr. Conroy a letter yourself.