Hi folks,
I've been keeping largely offline - particularly social media - for a while
now, so this might've passed me by until I picked it up in my news feed:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/08/porn-crackdown-the-government-s-moves-to-stop-kids-accessing-adult-material.html
<quote>
The different options being looked at that could make it more difficult to
access explicit content include:
* Online Public Areas Safety Bill: Require all retail shops, schools,
businesses and public areas which provide free Wi-Fi to the public to ensure
appropriate filtering.
* Online Child Safety Bill: Require internet service providers to make
available to all subscribers technology which will allow the parents to monitor
and control child's access.
* Educating Parents on the Harms of Pornography Bill: Directing the state
department of education to take a direct role in educating parents of enrolled
students on the harms of pornographic material.
* Government Accountability Trust and Etiquette Bill: Require Govemment
agencies to adopt policies that prohibit users from accessing the material.
* School Internet Filtering Accountability Bill: Require schools to adopt
policies and implement filters to protect students from pornographic material
while using school devices or networks.
* R18 access to porn websites: Residents will have to provide age ID to have
access.
* Expanding Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System: Internal Affairs
already has a targeted filter around child exploitation, child slavery, child
sex offences and paedophilia.
</quote>
Personally I'm in 2 minds about this - I strongly support parents & persons
responsible for their connection to have as much control over their connection
(I'm using pfblockerNG/PiHole already for this reason), but I get a distinctly
uncomfortable feeling if this it's the government cracking down & effectively
enforcing censorship "because the children" - particularly given the Chinese
govt crackdown taking place in HK & our govt's own comfy relationship; not
reading anything sinister into it yet, but it's not a far leap if there's a
change in leadership; juxtaposed with legitimate concerns raised around the
spread of hate-speech ala what happened around Christchurch incident(s).
What is this long & short of this?
Are my concerns overblown?
Is simply implementing a DNSBL filter (kb.adguard.com/en/general/dns-providers)
sufficient to meet responsible obligations under this?
I've tried looking into various "Net Nanny" sort of systems, and from what I
can tell they either implement DNS blacklisting - i.e. block "*.pornhub.com" -
or need to break SSL in HTTPS to do full content inspection & filtering
(httpS://fb.com), which is where it gets super problematic for a whole BUNCH of
reasons.
If it's DNSBL's, a possible solution (& way for us to work WITH govt) may be to
ask for a DNSBL feed to be published? (although I can also see how that could
be a political self-goal)
I've been keeping largely offline - particularly social media - for a while
now, so this might've passed me by until I picked it up in my news feed:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/08/porn-crackdown-the-government-s-moves-to-stop-kids-accessing-adult-material.html
<quote>
The different options being looked at that could make it more difficult to
access explicit content include:
* Online Public Areas Safety Bill: Require all retail shops, schools,
businesses and public areas which provide free Wi-Fi to the public to ensure
appropriate filtering.
* Online Child Safety Bill: Require internet service providers to make
available to all subscribers technology which will allow the parents to monitor
and control child's access.
* Educating Parents on the Harms of Pornography Bill: Directing the state
department of education to take a direct role in educating parents of enrolled
students on the harms of pornographic material.
* Government Accountability Trust and Etiquette Bill: Require Govemment
agencies to adopt policies that prohibit users from accessing the material.
* School Internet Filtering Accountability Bill: Require schools to adopt
policies and implement filters to protect students from pornographic material
while using school devices or networks.
* R18 access to porn websites: Residents will have to provide age ID to have
access.
* Expanding Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System: Internal Affairs
already has a targeted filter around child exploitation, child slavery, child
sex offences and paedophilia.
</quote>
Personally I'm in 2 minds about this - I strongly support parents & persons
responsible for their connection to have as much control over their connection
(I'm using pfblockerNG/PiHole already for this reason), but I get a distinctly
uncomfortable feeling if this it's the government cracking down & effectively
enforcing censorship "because the children" - particularly given the Chinese
govt crackdown taking place in HK & our govt's own comfy relationship; not
reading anything sinister into it yet, but it's not a far leap if there's a
change in leadership; juxtaposed with legitimate concerns raised around the
spread of hate-speech ala what happened around Christchurch incident(s).
What is this long & short of this?
Are my concerns overblown?
Is simply implementing a DNSBL filter (kb.adguard.com/en/general/dns-providers)
sufficient to meet responsible obligations under this?
I've tried looking into various "Net Nanny" sort of systems, and from what I
can tell they either implement DNS blacklisting - i.e. block "*.pornhub.com" -
or need to break SSL in HTTPS to do full content inspection & filtering
(httpS://fb.com), which is where it gets super problematic for a whole BUNCH of
reasons.
If it's DNSBL's, a possible solution (& way for us to work WITH govt) may be to
ask for a DNSBL feed to be published? (although I can also see how that could
be a political self-goal)