Glad I don't live in australia

[slackthumbz]

Australias new PM is keen on expanding internet censorship (http://www.thumbnail.org.uk/cgi-bin/archive/post/1287399121) (some NSFW language, I get a bit angry about censorship).

[matthew.ball]

:(

You'd have thought she would have got a reality check, I think that's primarily the reason Labor almost lost the last election. But no, ignorance is bliss.

[kaldor]

What's the point of internet censorship in Australia..?

[slackthumbz]

What's the point of internet censorship in Australia..?

The Communications minister is an overbearing moral crusader who wants to protect all australians from what he perceives to be the evils of violence and pornography by using a censor list of websites and urls that ISPs will be legally required to block. The list is secret and curiously enough when a copy was leaked to the press it was noted to contain several gay and lesbian rights websites, a few sites critical of the Australian government and, for some inane reason, a hairdressers website.

The problem here goes beyond that state deciding what's good or not for peoples 'moral' sensibilities, there's also the issue of inevitable feature creep. First they'll say porn is bad for you so that's blocked (even though there's no evidence to scientifically back up such an assertion) then violence, then political dissent and who knows where it stops? This is just the thin end of an authoritarian wedge that needs to be stopped before it starts.

[kaldor]

So is it just porn? My lord, Australia is prudish :)

[slackthumbz]

It's the equivalent of the republican party in the US stating that they're going to censor everything on the internet that they don't like for the good of the people... Actually I'm surprised they haven't tried to do that already.

[NightwishFan]

Same thing with anti-piracy. Good idea? No. Did the people like it? No. Did it stop piracy? No. Excellent work!

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[earthpigg]

this thread will likely be closed soon, slackthumbz, but rest assured that you are at least among like minds while here.

[slackthumbz]

I was rather hoping that the tech angle would save it from the mods but you're probably right :)