Australia censors the web

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 at 2:36 | Posted in censorship, Freedom of speech, internet | Leave a comment
Tags: australia

Australia’s new labor government is planning to introduce a heavy censorship of the Internet.

The Australian government’s aim is to ensure that children only have access to family-friendly websites.

Service providers will be expected to stop the flow of pornography and other X-rated or violent content.

The government is set to compile a list of unsuitable sites, although at this stage it is unclear what will be deemed unsuitable.

Australians wanting unfettered access to the web will have to contact their supplier to opt out of the new regime.

This is an utterly bad idea. All filters used so far around the World have failed to stop some of the contents intended to be filtered out but at the same time a considerable amount of legitimate contents has been blocked. No government is in a position to constantly monitor the web in order to maintain an updated list of “unsuitable” and accepted sites.

Besides, parents are better judges of what is suitable for their children than any government. The government is infringing freedom of speech and at the same time parenting Australian parents.