Actually, the filter has been running since February 1st but was just announced by by the Department of Internal Affairs
Thomas Beagle, spokesperson for online freedom lobby Tech Liberty says he's "very disappointed that the filter is now running, it’s a sad day for the New Zealand internet”.,.Beagle says he's disappointed the launch was conducted in such a "stealthy mode".
The Department of Internal Affairs' Censorship Compliance Unit [quite a 1984-like name] feels differently. Steve O'Brien, manager of the unit, says that trials have been going on for two years and the media has been notified "for quite some time."
"The Independent Reference Group has met and the filter system processes were demonstrated as set out in the code of practice, that is that the website filtering system prevents access to known websites containing images of child sexual abuse," says O'Brien.
The article goes on to say that according to Tech Liberty several ISP's will use the filter while others will not.
[Snip]
O'Brien says there is no compulsion for ISPs to tell their customers their internet service is being filtered.
"It's a voluntary system and there's no legislation," he says, adding he understands the ISPs currently on the system have informed their customers.
[Snip]
Tech Liberty says it is also concerned about the expansion of government powers represented by the filter.
"It establishes the principle that the government can choose to arbitrarily set up a new censorship scheme and choose which material to block, with no reference to existing law," the group claims.
[Snip]
We anticipate all major ISPs will embrace this development as they have the many other filters they employ on the internet for a range of purpose, according to O'Brien.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
