(Wrote this in late 2009. Since then Google have hinted at plans to stop operating in China. Maybe Australia is next in line? )

Anybody looking for slower, more expensive, and censored internet access just had their lucky day, with the Government’s announced plans to legislate next year, a ‘Clean Feed’ scheme which will require all ISPs to block certain types of material.

What’s the Problem?
Sayeth Colin Jacobs of the Electronic Frontiers Australia :
“Technologically, Internet filtering is a real nightmare. Regardless of the scheme adopted, a slowdown in Internet speeds is inevitable, and the more aggressive the filtering, the slower the network access becomes. The Government’s own trials of dynamic filters showed slowdowns on an average of 30% and as high as 76%. Exactly what will be blocked? Who will decide and why is it being attempted in the first place?Government censorship can never be an acceptable substitute for parental discretion.”

From Get UP:
“Testing has been released on systems that will slow our internet by up to 87%, make it more expensive, miss the vast majority of inappropriate content and accidentally block up to 1 in 12 legitimate sites. Our children deserve better protection – and that won’t be achieved by wasting millions on this deeply flawed system.”

More:
Despite the enormous expense, the proposed clean feed filter cannot achieve it’s aims : the prevention of access to banned material online. There are several easy ways to avoid it, and yet everybody else will have to suffer the extra ISP expenses, slower speeds, and accidental blockage of legitimate sites as a result of the filter being employed.

Even More:
http://nocleanfeed.com
Sign the petition: http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet
A guide to writing to Ministers by @BernardKeane: http://is.gd/5pjGo

And The Internet People Said:
( A collection of comments via the #nocleanfeed tag on twitter. )
“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” — Mark Twain

@unsungsongs : The point of a filter that doesn’t make the net “safe” for unsupervised use, but is easy to circumvent is what exactly?
@NewtonMark: Fascinated to observe that the Govt clearly doesn’t believe #nocleanfeed circumvention will show up as a point-and-click firefox add-on.
@zdnetaustralia: An open letter to Stephen Conroy from an Australian IT security consultant: http://bit.ly/8WUgP9
@Glebe2037: Journos: Please do investigative piece on Christian Lobby’s unrepresentative influence on Fed Govt policy
@EFF: Stephen Conroy gives go ahead to mandatory ISP blocking law, raises Great Firewall of Australia: http://eff.org/r.e7b
@unsungsongs : Will use of an international VPN be a crime? If so, corporate Australia will be screwed. If not, filter is useless.
@leowings: Isn’t Optus network already slow enough?? Optus supports ISP filter.
@jamesdrax: The Australian Government will probably advertise jobs for internet filterers – they’ll need a LOT of them.
@SoldierBeetle: Looking forward to seeing if Stephen Conroy will have the balls to block Facebook and MySpace, to protect our children.
@stilgherrian: No, people, don’t add a fucking #twibbon to you avatar! Write a letter to your MP! Something USEFUL.
Here is some excellent reference material for when you write that letter to your MP. #nocleanfeed http://icio.us/doljsa

I vote and I disapprove of your #nocleanfeed filter, and I will march in the street against it (Please tweet your support)

etc etc etc The issue is generating quite a lot of activity, and getting noticed around the world:

@mediahunter: In the United States, Fox News ran with the headline: “Joining China and Iran, Australia to filter internet.”
@PolitikP : Finland makes broadband a legal right and Australia tries to censor the internet!?!?! @mediahunter: London’s Telegraph led with the headline “Australia plans Chinese-style internet filtering”
@SirElmo: RT: So I can’t get married. I can’t surf web freely. Can’t even play R18+ games. Fuck this, I’m moving to Iran.
@harleyd : Americans would be gobsmacked to hear about Australia’s Internet censorship proposal & #nocleanfeed. I really hope US media covers it.

And yes, you may have heard of this company called GOOGLE :
http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/12/our-views-on-mandatory-isp-filtering.html

Slothdom has never looked so good, or been so lazily achievable. Reduced emissions from schedules of slackness, being able to outsource our workloads to increasingly rad software, better health, wealth and good fortune: all this and more are bundled up in The Way Of The Sloth.

Sloth Emissions
Like the twentieth century cyclist t-shirt slogans : ‘two wheels good, four wheels bad’, sloths have a message for the moment, and it is this :
“Less is more.” Or less is better, especially when it refers to expected global temperature rises this century. At the recent gathering of climate slash policy heads in Copenhagen, most preferred the idea of restricting that temperature rise to 2 degrees – which would still deliver a 50% chance of catastrophic climate events. Unsurprisingly, developing countries who would bear most of the brunt of this ( having coastal areas affected by rising sea levels, and densely populated areas that can’t afford further food and water difficulties etc ), wanted a limit of 1.5 degrees. Neither target was agreed upon ( in part due to Chinese Wrestling techniques), but there were still some hopeful signs : significant initiatives and funds were set-up for large scale rainforest protection, there was agreement on the science and the need for action, and there’s potentially a good foundation for the next climate meeting in Nov 2010 – which is being held in the sloth-friendly capital of Mexico City. Hammocks, siestas, cumbia : where better to sign an agreement for slowing the rate of emissions?

(Sloth shout-out to Melbourne’s Cumbia Cosmonauts who are on a roll. )

Sloth Software
Sure, military superpowers can build giant hi-tech infrastructure and send pilot-less drones spying over borders. But why bother with the work of competing with that, when there’s hashish in the hills to be had, it’s too hot to move, and as the Wall Street Journal reports:
“Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber –available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds.. ”

The even lazier militants in the desert of course, would likely bypass shopping for such software and just grab the relevant torrent file from Pirate Bay ( no, really. Hat tip to Coburg’s military surveillance connoiseur, Francis Bear ).

And maybe when the sun sets a little and it’s time for some moderate exercise, something like this iphone controlled helicopter might come in handy. ( See the copter’s camera view on your screen, tilt to steer. )

Sloth Visions
Both budding sloth cinephiles and ascending sloth auteurs have much to be happy about. For those who like to watch, the continued splintering of the mainstream provides much of merit. District 9 and the ongoing Wholphin DVD compilations were amongst my favourites in the summer haze, along with an abundance of bookmarked shorts bookmarked online :

vimeo.com/jeanpoole
youtube.com/jeanpoole
delicious.com/jeanpoole/video

For the sloth-maker, it’s an interesting time. After 100 years of cinema, the cinema system is needing to reinvent, and creative and distribution opportunities abound. Who knows what we’ll look back on in fifty years time, who knows which changes with visual storytelling and exploration will seem significant. In the meantime, ongoing visual software developments continue to excite (documented well at createdigitalmotion.com), as does crowdsourcing ( hello kickstarter.com ). Perhaps it’s those that creatively leverage these everyday network technologies to create in ways that haven’t been possible until now ( have you seen the sour webcam video yet? ), that will seem like signposts in years to come. At any rate, fun ahead. And shout out to the the animated webisoders over at http://slothvision.com ( & bonus sloth / major lazer remix).