In early January, I experimented with Facebook Ads.
The Ad on the left was targeted at All Australians and produced one click-through in 24 hours. The Ad on the right was targeted at Australians aged 18 to 40. It burnt through my daily advertising budget in about 40 minutes.
UPDATE:
Thanks to those who provided feedback on this, particularly Jeff Waugh and others via Twitter and Whirlpool. It would appear that requests from overseas to Australian-hosted websites will not be filtered. This means that the problem described below will not eventuate until Google sets up and starts issuing crawl requests from an Australian node. — MikeFitz
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A Deloitte analyst, Damien Tampling, has been reported by ARNnet as predicting the Government’s controversial ISP filter will have minimal long-term effect on Australian businesses.
I think there’s an important factor that Mr Tampling has missed altogether.
It has become clear over the past few months that Google is now placing a higher importance on “Page Load Speed” when calculating Page Rank – the all-important score that gets my business near the top of page 1 of Google search results.
My Australian website, hosted in Australia, will be crawled by the googlebot through an Australian ISP. Senator Conroy says it will load “a blink of an eye” slower, but this is an eternity to the googlebot. My page rank will then be lower than that of a competing US, UK or NZ company. I and other Australian companies will forever be at a commercial disadvantage because of the filter.
As I see it, ISP Filter -> Slower Page Loads -> Lower Google Page Rank -> Commercial disadvantage for Australian companies. What do others think?
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See also…
I have prepared this mind map to help guide the discussion in an upcoming meeting with a Labor MHR. As best I can, I have presented the basic arguments against Senator Conroy’s current Mandatory ISP Filter policy with a minimum of technical jargon.
The aim is to enlist this Member’s support for changing Labor’s Child Cyber-Safety policy away from the expensive and ineffective ISP filter and towards in-home filtering and education for parents about their role in ensuring their child’s safety.
The need to get this policy changed is now critically urgent as Senator Conroy has announced that legislation will be presented to Parliament in the next few months.
If you think it is helpful, please use the Mind Map to guide your own discussions with friends, relatives, workmates, etc. Download a copy as
Of course, many technical arguments have been omitted but if you spot any errors, serious omissions or room for improvement, please let me know.
Thanks to Kath (@sleepydumpling) for suggesting that I use the word “PROHIBITION” instead of “CENSORSHIP” when talking to a politician. Of course some politicians will think Censorship is perfectly reasonable in certain circumstances and the word doesn’t create a negative image for them at all. On the other hand, Prohibition reminds us all of the bootlegging and other unintended outcomes of banning alcohol in the 1920s.
For further information:
My basic argument against the government’s mandatory internet filter is
It won’t work; it’s a waste of our taxes; parents will let their guard down; children will be harmed.
However, there’s also this other niggling question…
Do I trust ALL future governments to NOT misuse the national internet filter infrastructure?
2009: The ACMA is blacklisting an ANTI-abortion website because its images are offensive to children.
2011 (as the filter goes live): We now have the national infrastructure to filter all RC material, including euthanasia and PRO-abortion websites.
2016 (after the revolution): The People’s Republic of Australia will now ‘harmonize’ all references to the Federation Square riot and massacre which, of course, DID NOT HAPPEN.
2021 (after the Jihad): The Islamic Caliphate of Australia will now filter all pro-Christian websites.
Who knows what the future holds? If a national internet filtering infrastructure is in place, will it be mis-used? It’s only a matter of time.
What sort of Australia do you want to leave for your children?
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Update
You can now purchase this cartoon on a t-shirt.
One of the most despicable things Senator Stephen Conroy has done was in the early days of the mandatory ISP filter policy. He asserted, on the floor of the Senate, that opposition to this bad policy “equates to support for paedophilia”.
Yeah, well two can play that game…
Now that his ISP filter clearly won’t protect children, what’s his real motivation for pushing on regardless?
Citizen: Senator Conroy, you know your ineffective ISP filter won’t protect children from internet nasties?
Sen. Conroy: You must be a pervert.
Citizen: You know parents will let their guard down, thinking “The government is doing my job for me.”
Sen. Conroy: You must be a pervert.
Citizen: You know children will be harmed as a result of your ISP filter?
Sen. Conroy: I KNEW you were a pervert.
Citizen: You know it will be a huge waste of our taxes and won’t get one paedophile one meter closer to a courtroom.
Sen. Conroy: Isn’t it GREAT? (Welcome to the pervert club, by the way.)
Of course I don’t really believe that Senator Conroy is a pervert. But I sure don’t like his “bully boy” tactics.
His real motivation for pushing on regardless is to establish the Western world’s most efficient censorship scheme. Don’t fall for Conroy’s Con.
The mandatory ISP filter will never be 100% effective. Our nation will never be able to afford the army of bureaucrats necessary to keep an ACMA “BlackList” up to date enough to protect children, while avoiding the unintended consequences of censorship experienced in other countries.
A better solution is parental supervision, aided if necessary by in-home filtering software targeted at the age-group of the children.
I call upon Prime Minister Rudd to cancel Senator Conroy’s white-elephant censorship scheme once and for all. Spend the money on the Australian Federal Police and parent education.
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Update
You can now purchase this cartoon on a t-shirt.
It’s sad to see well-meaning people taken in by Conroy’s Con. For example, Pastor Ruth Limkin writes in the print and online versions of today’s Courier-Mail, “Filtering of websites does not make a nanny state.”
Conroy has made a courageous decision to trial and now proceed with ISP filtering of refused classification material.
It is one for which he will receive much hate mail, but one for which he should also be applauded by those who realise what he set out to do which is to protect our children from the very worst, illegal material online.
Mrs Limkin mentions that “an independent body, as opposed to the Government, will determine classification of internet sites.” She doesn’t seem to notice that the sheer size of the internet means that this approach is doomed to failure. And children will be immediately at risk.
I submitted the following as a letter to the editor…
Ruth Limkin, please! Open your eyes. You have been taken in by Conroy’s Con.
In July 2008, Google’s index of unique URLs hit one trillion and is “increasing by several billion pages per day”[1]. There is no way our nation will ever afford the army of bureaucrats necessary to protect children by creating a “blacklist” of all the bad stuff.
By supporting Conroy’s solution, you are actually placing children in harm’s way. Parents will let their guard down, thinking “The government is doing my job for me.”
You are also supporting a huge waste of our taxes on something that won’t get one paedophile one meter closer to a courtroom.
A better solution would be parental supervision, aided where necessary by in-home filtering software targeted at the age group of the children.
Conroy (and our Labor government) is harnessing your, no doubt well-intentioned, aim of “protecting children” to build something far worse than a nanny state. It is censorship.
An Australia with an easily-manipulated censorship scheme in place is not the Australia I want to leave to my children.
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[1] We knew the web was big…
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html
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Update 1 Jan 10:
Good news. I’ve just had the phone call. Watch out for this letter in tomorrow’s print edition of the Courier-Mail.
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Update 2 Jan 10:
Here it is as published, along with a more technical letter from Jonathan Bendall.
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Update 4 Jan 10:
Monday’s Courier-Mail included another letter. This one from Bill Hely.
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For more information, see my earlier posts:
That’s how effective Senator Conroy’s proposed Mandatory ISP Filter could be according to the ACMA[1][2].
You wouldn’t accept 87% of a pool fence. Don’t accept Senator Conroys censorship scheme disguised as a plan to “protect children”.
The mandatory ISP filter will never be 100% effective. Our nation will never be able to afford the army of bureaucrats necessary to keep an ACMA “BlackList” up to date enough to protect children, while avoiding the unintended consequences of censorship experienced in other countries.
The answer is parental supervision, aided if necessary by in-home filtering software targeted at the age-group of the children.
Meanwhile, Senator Conroy forges ahead with his filtering trials. Strangely he has chosen ISPs with only business customers, not ISPs with customers who are home users likely to be impacted by the filter. No valid conclusions can be drawn from such flawed trials.
Despite criticism from the Opposition, the Greens and independent Senator Nick Xenophon, Senator Conroy’s censorship scheme remains a threat to our children’s freedom, a threat to Australia’s digital economy and a threat to our environment because it remains government policy. I call upon Prime Minister Rudd to cancel Senator Conroy’s white-elephant censorship scheme once and for all. Spend the money on the Australian Federal Police and parent education.
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Update
You can now purchase this cartoon on a t-shirt.
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For more information, see my earlier posts:
See also:
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1. Australian Communications and Media Authority, Closed Environment Testing of ISP-Level Internet Content Filters - Report to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, June 2008. Available at http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_311316 p44.
2. The effectiveness of the filter could be as high as 96 percent, but only at the cost of an unacceptably high “Over-Blocking Rate” of 1 in 12 legitimate websites. Everyone in the IT industry (except the vendors of filtering products) knows that Senator Conroy’s scheme is an ineffective and horrendously-expensive white elephant.
Parliament resumes tomorrow. I think we should all phone Senator Conroy to ask what socks and/or shoes to wear. Or maybe what to eat for lunch? After all, he has volunteered to make our decisions for us.
In fact, let’s phone him every day for our decisions, large and small, until he drops his wasteful and ineffective scheme to censor Australia’s internet. Leave a comment below to let us all know what decisions you have referred to Senator Conroy by phone.
If anyone doesn’t know why we are phoning Senator Conroy, see my earlier posts:
Also go to libertus.net to see Irene Graham’s thoroughly-researched history of how our Labor government has introduced this censorship by stealth.
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Above is my first ever cartoon; hereby released under a creative commons sharealike attribution licence. By all means copy it to show your own readers - put the larger version on T-shirts.
Thanks to a real cartoonist Stephanie McMillan for the inspiration and thanks to (I think it was) Websinthe aka Kieran Salsone who Tweeted the punchline on Saturday.
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Update
You can now purchase this cartoon on a t-shirt.
Yep, as Australia Day approaches, my three sons are organising their annual celebration of all that is good about our nation; mateship, a fair go for all, freedom and openness. At the same time, I’m also reflecting on what type of Australia I want to leave for my children. For the first Australia Day ever, I fear that my sons’ freedom and openness is under threat.
Australia Day has always been big at our place and this year, it’s even bigger. #2Son will be back from Hong Kong and we might even be welcoming some brand new Aussie citizens.
No, it’s not the world economic crisis; it’s not global terrorism; it’s something I thought I’d never see in my lifetime - the threat of censorship by our own Labor government.
Under the guise of “protecting children”, the Rudd government and particularly Senator Conroy have been working on a scheme to introduce mandatory ISP filtering of every internet connection in Australia. It has become obvious that this plan will not protect children at all. It is so flawed technically and legally that there is now fertile ground for conspiracy theories about censorship by stealth. Either that, or Senator Conroy is ignoring or just doesn’t understand the advice he is being given.
Parents like myself, Aussie parents everywhere must speak out against Senator Conroy’s plan to censor the internet. If we do not, our children will inherit an Australia with an easily-manipulated and unaccountable censorship scheme in place; an Australia where my (and their) taxes are wasted on white elephants.
But the real message is this:
Get this “Censorship by Stealth” out in the open. Talk to your family, your neighbours, shop assistants, taxi drivers about what sort of Australia you want for your children.
Mail or e-mail The Hon Kevin Rudd MP. Tell him you want No Censorship after Australia Day.
Mail or e-mail Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy. Tell him you don’t want your taxes wasted on this flawed censorship scheme.
Write to your local Member. Write to each of the Senators for your state. Tips: Be polite; Include your name and registered electoral address; Ask for an appointment to speak with them in person. They might be in the electorate over the next two weeks.
Sign the GetUP! online petition.
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1. Australian Communications and Media Authority, Closed Environment Testing of ISP-Level Internet Content Filters - Report to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, June 2008. Available at http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_311316
2. Bambauer, Derek E.,Filtering in Oz: Australia’s Foray into Internet Censorship (December 22, 2008). Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 125. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1319466. (Click the “Download” link above the abstract.)
Thanks to the Courier-Mail (Brisbane/Queensland’s daily News Ltd newspaper) for publishing my letter to the editor, this weekend.
For a detailed discussion of why I say what I did, see my previous post Cancer and Colitis victims Condemn Conroy’s Censorship.
Just for comparison, here’s what I submitted…
Short version:
I’ve studied Senator Conroy’s internet filter and it doesn’t actually work. Instead it will make the internet more dangerous for children and not get one paedophile one meter closer to a courtroom. Spend the money on AFP detectives.Longer version:
I’ve studied Senator Conroy’s internet filter and none of the proposed products block 100% of unwanted sites. One product blocks only 87% of unwanted sites. This is like having 87% of a pool fence; more dangerous than no fence at all. Parents will let their guard down, making the internet more dangerous for children than before. Further, Conroy’s tens of millions of dollars will not get one paedophile one meter closer to a courtroom. Spend the money on AFP detectives.
No complaints. I’m glad they chose the long version. But it is interesting to see how the editing process works.
Husband, Father,
Mike Fitzsimon
mike.fitzsimon
@MikeFitzAU
Software Architect
Convenor
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