Sunday, August 09, 2009

Bishop attacks anti-porn filter campaign

Bishop of Bunbury, WA, Gerard Holohan, said the community should back government trials on an internet filter to block pornography sites, and accused rights group against the filtering, GetUp!, of running a misleading campaign.

Bishop Holohan cited a report in The Australian that the "basic objection by GetUp! to the government's initiative to protect parents' rights in their own homes is that 'the Government can decide what we can and cannot do online'.

"Such an argument is very misleading," he said in a statement. "It ignores the fact that the government seeks to protect people, not to control."

"GetUp! also seems to support the particularly strange argument that to attempt to filter pornographic ISPs is futile because no filter can resist the technology of websites.

"If the government efforts are futile, why be concerned about them?"

The "violation of basic parental rights", Bishop Holohan said, was in fact happening in the proliferation of pornographic sites on the internet and alleged help from some internet service providers' technology to break through internet filters installed by families in their own homes.

"While some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) self filter, many more predatory ISPs have developed, and are continuing to develop, other technology to break through home internet filters used by parents.

"This is an obvious violation of the rights of parents in their own homes."

He urges the community and parents to write to Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Communications, to express support for pornography filtering.
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