The powers that be, in their infinite wisdom, believe that the way to stop people from viewing and distributing the so-called “worst of the worst” or copyright protected material online is to legislate various forms of filtering mechanisms.
In Australia, we have Stephen Conroy’s mandatory internet filtering scheme. In the US, there is the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) to supposedly protect copyright holders from piracy.
We are told it is the only way, that it will be completely successful, and that we must accept it for our own betterment.
Really?
| Firefox Add-on Circumvents SOPA Blocking |
That didn’t take long, did it?
The problem is, these filtering schemes cost money. Lots of money.
Spending that is clearly pointless, because the “filtering” it is funding is trivially circumvented.
Funds that could and should be used to hunt down the dirtbags producing the child pornography they are trying in vain to block, and save the children they are abusing.
Protecting copyright holders is even easier.
Infuriating.