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Australian Internet Censorship

Posted by Aegist on October 29th, 2008

In case you live in Australia and haven’t seen the headlines lately, there is a political movement attempting to create and implement a censor for the internet in Australia. Should this software be implemented, all internet access from Australia would be passed through the filter and any ‘illegal’ content would be blocked. This would be forced upon every Australian, and no option will be available to opt-out of the censorship. There will however be an option to opt-out of the secondary filter, which will block all X rated, and R rated information and images. Yay?

While it may sound simple enough – blocking out ‘illegal’ stuff can’t hurt anyone can it? – the consequences are far reaching. Firstly, it will slow all internet access in Australia, since there will be an extra step of processing through which every single request must pass through. Secondly and most importantly, once the filter is set up it will be easy to extend its reach to other undesirable topics. Not to mention the fact that the government has already spent millions of dollars researching this, and trying to find something that will do the job…

The important consequence with regards to Arbitrage, is that there are already calls to include ‘online overseas casinos’ in the filter, because they are technically illegal in Australia. So there is a chance that Australians will have access to bookmakers drastically reduced, and the few bookmakers we can reach will perform sluggishly because our internet has to be constantly checked by Big Brother for us.

Hooray for Freedom?

I am deeply troubled by this idea, and I hope all of you are too. The potential for abuse of this filter is overwhelming, and is a grave threat to all future freedom of expression.

Please take action, and follow one or more of the possible actions listed on the website over at NoCleanFeed.com. Sign the petition, mail the minister, email your ISP and complain about the proposition… make it known that Australians do not want to be controlled like citizens in other repressive regimes likes China or Iran…

For more information, read the Age article on the expansion of the filter. Better still, look through the website for Electronic Frontiers Australia to get the full story.

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