Pipe joins iiNet in filter blackout
Pipe Networks has joined ISP iiNet and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam in an online protest against the Federal Government plans to filter the internet by blocking "refused classification" material.
Pipe Networks CEO Bevan Slattery published an email he sent to staff on broadband website Whirlpool.
"This campaign is being run to bring attention to the stupidity of the governments proposed filtering plan," Slattery said.
The company joins a number of websites protesting against the filtering plan. Websites participating are using a piece of JavaScript code to "blackout" their website. It notifies a person browsing a site with the code inserted about what the government plans to filter.
The code has already surpassed 300,000 views on websites it has been inserted on, according to the Great Australian Internet Blackout Twitter account.
The news comes on the back of claims by the Sex Party that "small-breasted" women in their early 20's would not be able to take a picture of themselves naked and then upload it to the internet without it being classified "refused classification", the type of content the government plans to block.
"This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year," wrote Australian Sex Party spokesperson Fiona Patten on the party's blog.
Scope creep of websites filtered is something critics of the plan have now turned their attention to, with technical studies by Enex Testlab showing filtering was effective and delivered only negligible speed impact to users
In December, the Sex Party said that it feared the end of porn on the internet.
"I don't think people are aware of how the classification system works in Australia. Australia has one of the strictest classification systems in the world for adult material," Patten said.
The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) also weighed in on the debate over the long weekend.
"It seems to go against not only the general Aussie way of things," ALIA executive director Sue Hutley said on the association's blog
A national filter protest is planned for 6 March.