Oz Gubmint To Massively Curtail Net Speech

The Australian government is now officially at war against "pornography and inappropriate material" on the Internet. The Howard cabinet contented itself with offering every Australian family a copy of the Net Nanny software package, but Howard's successor, Kevin Rudd, believes that censoring the Net is best left up to his administration (a bright idea he might have gotten during his tenure as a diplomat in China).

X-rated pornography is illegal online in Australia, as are casino-style internet gambling, certain forms of "hate" speech and R-rated computer games. ... How far "inappropriate material" may extend was not made clear, for example questioning Government policy where it comes to Aboriginal people could be deemed to be discrimination under Australian law and hence blocked by the censorship regime. Worse still, bloggers or those (such as forum owners) who allow users to comment or post could find themselves blocked under this proposal, should someone say or post the wrong thing.

Two years ago, the Howard government nixed wholesale filtering of the Internet — not so much on the principle of the thing, it seems, but because central censoring (a) would cost in excess of 100 million Australian dollars in the first two years alone, (b) would inevitably cause overall bottlenecks and slowdowns, and (c) would fail to protect the idea's ostensible beneficiaries, to wit, the nation's innocent children.

In March 2006, the then communications minister, Helen Coonan, said she rejected filtering because it would slow speeds for all users without effectively protecting children. A national system could cost $45 million to set up and $33 million a year to maintain, she said.

No such concerns cloud the mind of current Australian telecommunications minister Stephen Conroy. Conroy wholeheartedly supports Rudd's captious policy — indeed, the minister is one apparatchik whose loyalty to dictatorial creeds is never in doubt. Only yesterday he remarked:

"Labor makes no apologies to those who argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road. If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree."

Free speech, child porn — no difference, apparently. Poor Oz.

[hat tip: Martin Owens]

Comments

[Harley]

Australia is a common sense black hole, I know because I live here.

[Michael Chaney]

I think we need to update Godwin's law to include child pornography.