Net Censorship Plan Backlash

Michael Malone, managing director iiNet, said he would sign up to be involved in the ridiculous trials, which are scheduled to commence by 24 December this year. Optus and Telstra both said they were reviewing the Government’s documentation and would then decide whether to take part. But Malone’s main purpose was to provide the Government with hard numbers demonstrating how stupid it is — specifically that the filtering system would not work, would be patently simple to bypass, would not filter peer-to-peer traffic and would significantly degrade network speeds. They’re not listening to the experts, they’re not listening to the industry, they’re not listening to consumers, so perhaps some hard numbers will actually help, he said. Every time a kid manages to get through this filter, we’ll be publicising it and every time it blocks legitimate content, we’ll be publicising it. Malone concluded: This is the worst Communications Minister we’ve had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed