Australia Joins China in Censoring the Internet
January 11th, 2008There will be optional, uncensored connections! Oh joy.
I bet people who opt for the uncensored connections will have a great time with airport security.
“Mr. Smith, your papers appear to be in order, however, we see here that you have opted for a connection to the Internet that has not been cleansed by the Ministry of Truth. Step this way. We have some additional questions for you.”
Companies might also like to know about which employees feel the need to use the uncensored connections at home…
Via: Tech Crunch:
The Australian Government has announced that they will be joining China as one of the few countries globally that broadly censor the internet.
The Labor Party’s policy was announced prior to the Australian Election in November and was justified on the basis that the previous Government’s policy of providing free copies of NetNanny to all Australian households who wanted it didn’t adequately protect children.
As recently as the week prior to the election, Labor Party candidates were telling those concerned about the proposed law that the censorship wouldn’t be compulsory, and that the “clean feed” would be opt-in, not opt-out. Today’s announcement by Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy states that the censorship regime will be mandatory, although people will be able to opt-out of it. The problem of course then becomes if you opt-out questions will be asked as to why you want out, which in itself may lead to Government monitoring.
Ahh, the Aust Labor Party. Kevin Rudd, friend of the working class. The label Enemy Collaborator fits nicely. At least the mask is coming off – it’s funny how many people seem to regard Australia as a free country.
The” opt” option just puts you on a shorter list. It will also mark you as ‘strange’ for not wanting the clean feed as provided.
So all requests hit a filter list. This will be very very slow. The filter list is huge and will grow as it has a new “grey list”provision.
Whats the “grey list”?
A list of sites that *any* interested lobby group can have added to.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23019670-7582,00.html
The program is an opt-in protocol, so those who opt in would be parents who want to keep their kids from viewing porn or conspiracy blogs on their home connection. I think its a bit reactionary to construe this as something where the uncensored connections are in the minority, when the nature of the program predicates the opposite.
Your options are to be a full filter list by default or to sign up via your isp to be less filtered.
The less filtered is not any faster or better. Tests show video, voip, games ect will be slower for all Australians.
Yeah, on viewing the more recent press release, I was wrong, this is a big deal.