Net filter causes IT industry vote swing
- 05 March, 2010 11:20
- Comments 18
The mandatory Internet filtering scheme could sway votes against the Rudd Government when the IT industry hits the polling booths at the Federal election.
Results from Whirlpool’s 2009 Australian Broadband Survey of 23,683 verified responses found 92.6 per cent of respondents do not support the Federal Government’s mandatory Internet content filtering scheme, citing concerns that it will block legitimate information, create a false sense that the Internet is safe among parents, and the possibly be abused by future governments.
The survey, run throughout January, found 44.1 per cent of respondents will consider the Internet filter as a key influencing factor in how they vote in the federal election, while 39.2 per cent said it possibly could be, but “not at [the] expense of other issues”.
Whirpool openly admits the respondents are strictly informed users of its broadband website, from students, government bureaucrats, to IT managers, administrators and developers.
Almost half (49 per cent) said they had never found a site that would likely be banned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The government should instead educate parents and children, according to respondents, of whom 84.3 per cent said they already know or could follow instructions about how to circumvent the content filter.
Telstra, Optus panned for prices
Telstra and Optus were criticised by respondents, who said they were customers, for pricing models during the last 12 months. Telstra was reported to have the worst customer service across its cable, DSL and Next G services, with 35.7 and 33.7 per cent of respondents dubbing the latter service “awful” and “below average” respectively.
The average cost of broadband, however, had improved since last year with a 20.9 per cent increase in customer satisfaction for all Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Performance was likewise up 16.1 per cent.
AAPT, TPG and iPrimus were given the nod via improved performance ratings across areas including customer service, pricing, performance and reliability.
Internode was voted most reliable, according to 85.7 of its customers, of which 97.8 percent would recommend them to others. Internode was also reported to have the best quality connection for online games. Discount ISP, Dodo, let customers down across multiple areas of customer satisfaction according to the report and 84.3 per cent of Virgin customers said they left the telco due to poor network reliability.
Mobile broadband is still not seen as an adequate primary Internet access technology by users who want fast web browsing and downloads in equal share. Almost half (47.9 per cent) of these use the Internet for peer-to-peer file sharing.
Billion was the most popular brand of modem among survey respondents. Cisco modem, on the other hand, were only used by 1.6 per cent of respondents but 77.1 percent of users said they were ‘very satisfied’ with the brand.
About a third (30 per cent) of users have a line synchronisation speed between 5 to 10Mbps, with 18.5 per cent citing speeds around 2 to 5Mbps.
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Comments
noagenda
We need faster internet in Australia and at an affordable price and not just for those in the large capital cities, there are allot of smaller cities with populations of 30 thousand plus that need high speed internet, do we want all of the country people to move to Sydney to get decent internet speed.
Then there is mobile internet, I get 200 meg on my phone, in America they are streaming audio over mobile broadband, how are we supposed to compete with countries that have more more access to the internet and at cheaper prices per gigabyte.
If we are going to the expense of rolling out a new network, it should be able to meet the countries needs for the next 5 years, not the last 5 years, so yes I would change my voting pattern if a party promised cheap high speed unfiltered internet access.
malcom
if you support labor but hate the filter vote green, your vote still goes to labor but the greens will pressure the government against the filter
Max T
This has already cost the Labor party my vote, I simply will not tolerate censorship of the net. By anyone.
The ONLY way that they will get my vote back, is if they dump both the filter scheme, AND Conroy.
And yes, I can and WILL circumvent it if it does, in fact, become law.
itnetadmin
Of course the real problem is the deal done with Family First ! Thats the real cause of this ridiculous concept. It has unfortunately at the same time shown up the rather naive view of Conroy and Co. Its a pity that technology concepts are not in the knowledgebase of the Labor Party !
Martin
Krudd's policies are either copies of Obama's (Health) or copies of the Chinese (internet filtering).
Babalooui
What a mind bending surprise, 90%+ of the people who actually filled in the survey (10% of Whirlpool members?) are against the filter.
Massive.
12 people turned up for their Big Protest recently in Melbourne and Sydney.
Massive.
That's like doing a survey of the Liberal Party members and asking if they approve of Kevin Rudd... Double and sweet LOL...
Massive surprise, 90%+ of the Liberal Party members say they do not approve of KR... Just gotta love it.
WP is great, and the overall survey is an excellent event.
However if you are thinking of extrapolating those results across the Australian public, I would review the massive (12 people actually) turnout at their short lived protests recently.
That gives you a more accurate representation of the mood of Australians. People first of all vote with their feet.
The world has enough keyboard protesters to repopulate several dead planets, and 12 physical protesters in Sydney who nearly brought the 4 sqr meters near Martin Place to a standstill for 60 minutes...
However, I have heard that a good time was had in the pub after an hour of hard protesting, where they enjoyed the protection of a single and very amused / bemused copper, and set about applying their logic to several schooners of real Australian wisdom.
Interesting aspect though Darren, how many of those WP survey results came from guys and girls not yet of voting age?
25%?
Tenoq
Babalooui - if you had bothered to read the WP survey results yourself you would realise that only 3.4% of respondents said they were not eligible to vote at the next election.
Nice try.
Another point worth mentioning is that the ACTUAL filter protest isn't until tomorrow - the one you're referring to was organised by the Anonymous hacking group. If you do NOT support Internet censorship in Australia, tomorrow is the day to participate in the EFA's protest.
Geoff
Internet censorship works just ask anyone in China or Nth Korea !
With this do gooder censorship in place you will only have access to content that the religously motivated goobers in Canberra think is fit for you to see, definatly no debate on abortion, euthenasia, athiesim, evolution etc just good old right wing christian baloney !
Therefore this message is banned and I am a heretic !
Ailie
Yes the Whirlpool survey is usually answered by people in the know, but I think you'll find that if the regular person were properly informed of the filter, they would also be against it and vote against Labor.
The fact is that the Government has kept it quiet on purpose, they know that if everyone knew what their real agenda is then no one would vote for them!
This issue needs far more public knowledge so that people understand what is really at stake here.
Duke
@ Bab...Baba...ah, babbler...
23,000 + verified votes dufus, run away and play elsewhere, the big folks don't appreciate trashtalk...
Steve
@ malcolm - "if you support labor but hate the filter vote green, your vote still goes to labor but the greens will pressure the government against the filter"
What a crock - the Green's as a whole don't oppose the filter, only the left faction within the Greens - the Greens have simply said they will oppose debating the legislation before the election, saying it needs more time for proper consideration. This is a blatant attempt the pick up the "no filter" vote whilst simultanesously taking the filter off the agenda as an election issue. They don't actually intend to oppose the filter at all, but merely seek some ammendments!
Cam
@ Babalooui
The 12 people you speak of were Anonymous representities, Wait until tomorrow where registered groups get a chance to show their numbers in opposition to the filter.
laura
at least this article says that it's a vote changer, unlike the crn.com.au article that says 44% of people saying it's a vote changer counts as a result of "the ISP filter won't cause people to change their vote" but 41% counted as "most respondants"
ridiculous
good job guys for reporting the facts accurately
Michael
I don't need to attend a street protest to get my views against the filter across - besides, Conroy has made it 100% clear that he's going forward with this no matter what, so why try?
So instead of that, I'll cut right through all of the red tape and vote Liberal. Much easier than an organised protest.
curtis
easy way to stop it... vote liberal
Freda
@Steve
Lee Rhiannon was at the Sydney protest on March 6 and repeatedly called Conroy's policy a "con job" and said that we need to oppose any form of filtering and call it exactly what it is - censorship.
I don't know how well she represents the rest of the Greens, but Ludlam also spoke at Perth on March 6, and every other green member I've ever met or spoken to, thinks the filter policy sucks.
I'm afraid waiting until after the election may have just been an internet rumour: the legislation has already been tabled.
Could pass the lower house in the next week or so.
Get off your backsides and start protesting....big time.
Daniel
Well, I've changed my mind. I now don't mind if the filter goes ahead, as long as the list is publicly available for viewing, and reasons shown for why an item is on the list.
If it's not publicly available, then no government in the 'free' 'democratic' world, has a right to implement such a filter.
Andrew
Another point that needs to come out is that there are two pieces of arbitrary discretion in the RC classification process for internet content.
1. Rudd, Conroy and cronies can determine what the sensibilities of Australians are and where to set the R -> RC classification threshold.
2. The one that is more important, is that the M / MA threshold will be replaced by a M / RC threshold as all MA content will require a Rudd-Conroy approved age verification system before any MA or R content will be classified. Failure to have this means content that would otherwise be MA, would be RC. Conroy has absolute control over what an appropriate age verification system is, which gives him an absolute discretion over what goes from MA to RC.
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