Australia drops Internet filtering plans, New Zealand backtracks on S92, and in Sweden, the Pirate Bay is on trial. 

The world is interesting these days.

First, Australia: According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Government’s plan to introduce mandatory Internet filtering (which we’ve covered previously) has been effectively defeated when independent Senator Nick Xenophon switched to supporting the Opposition/Greens coalition.  And the Herald was not pulling punches on the measure’s failure.

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has consistently ignored advice from a host of technical experts saying the filters would slow the internet, block legitimate sites, be easily bypassed and fall short of capturing all of the nasty content available online… Even the trials have been heavily discredited… Senator Conroy originally pitched the filters as a way to block child porn but - as ISPs, technical experts and many web users feared - the targets have been broadened significantly since then….

This week, a national telephone poll of 1100 people, conducted by Galaxy and commissioned by online activist group GetUp, found that only 5 per cent of Australians want ISPs to be responsible for protecting children online and only 4 per cent want Government to have this responsibility.

As our interview with Mark Newton last October, a network engineer from Australia, showed, the problems with the filters were twofold; in addition to blocking legitimate content, it also degraded network performance severely. 

One of the problems was the mission creep of the blacklist, which started with “illegal content” but broadened to include mature but legal content, and last week, there was an uproar after it was discovered that an anti-abortion group Web page was placed on the blacklist. 

Meanwhile, across “the ditch,” in New Zealand, the National/ACT/United Future coalition government has delayed action on a piece of legislation known in shorthand as “S92” – Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act.  This law would cut off Internet access for people accused of copyright infringement.  The accusation would not need to be proven, and Section 92 contains no punishment for a mistaken or malicious accuser. 

In response, protestors started an “Internet Blackout” protest, with black protest signs, completely black Twitter profile icons, and black Web sites.  When the law was delayed, the protestors returned their icons.  Media 7 News Reporter Russell Brown wrote about the incident on his blog, “Hard News.”

The protest virtually came out of nowhere last week -- it was conceived in a schoolroom in Warkworth on the Saturday, and enacted on the Monday. The mobilisation involved was really remarkable.

The protest was also a success because it has fostered a new voice on copyright and creative issues; one that isn't an industry or technical body. The Creative Freedom Foundation's petition has 12,000 names -- and 8000 of the signatories identify themselves as artists. That's remarkable. It has attracted worldwide attention.

And finally, in Sweden, the Pirate Bay trial is ongoing.  The prosecution had dropped about half of the charges by the second day of the trial, and two days ago, the charges in the case were altered, making the case look more and more likely to go in the Pirate Bay’s favor.

The thing that interconnects all of these cases is that I think this – and I may be wrong here – I think this represents a trend that the public is becoming more informed about the impact of legislation on the Internet’s capabilities and on network performance specifically.  People are becoming informed – and more importantly, active and engaged in Internet issues, to secure a network that performs to the best of their capabilities. 

Of course, I could be wrong.