Australia's internet freedom under threat

[marko_the_rat]

ristin and I (echoes of the Queen's "my husband and I"?) are most decidedly not amused at the Australian government's plans for net censorship in this country, bringing us on par with happy democracies like China, Iran and North Korea. Yes, this is the government that we cheered on its introduction but I warned then that in 10 years' time we may think of Kevin Rudd the way we think of John Howard now. I was hoping not to be proven right so soon.

You can learn more about this half-baked plan that promises to slow internet access and make Australia a laughing stock on the world stage and what you can do to help at nocleanfeed.com.

If you're an Australian citizen, please do what you can to help and pass this message on. I wouldn't normally ask this because LJ memes annoy me but this one is important and affects every Australian LJ user. It doesn't matter if you look at pr0n or not.

Comments

[vass]

It's completely idiotic. Apart from all the other reasons not to do it (like slowing down everyone's broadband by 30%) do they really want every IT professional in the country to head for America?

[nbowa.livejournal.com]

I echo that. Tzup mentioned this point, and boy, that makes a lot of sense *sarcastically*. I always worry that you guys are so laid back about politics, that ultimately, someone like Rudd will get in, and slowly erode your rights.

Good luck, and I hope it doesn't pass!

[marko-the-rat.livejournal.com]

The real kicker is, I still believe Rudd was the lesser of two evils.

My god, I'm making us sound like a brutal dictatorship. But the mere fact that there was regime change (however superficial) shows we are still living in a democracy. This is why I still believe in voting even though in an imperfect world one is presented with imperfect choices.

[lupine52.livejournal.com]

It sounds lame and useless as there are always back ways around the filters. Someone will crack the code, sell the warez via black market underground and get rich from it, news will trickle via an underground blackmarket, the actions will continue and Australians will end up fitting a bill that ends up being a protectorate of the extremely stupid as if they should be on the internet anyways.

[royal-dog.livejournal.com]

oh my god... I suspected that Australia's government was off its rocker but this is... unacceptable! >_< *hugs* I hope the you guys are able to fight this!!

[guma-kawauso.livejournal.com]

So it will cost your nation $44.2mil to "protect the children" when it could be done for free by parents and guardians? Wow, and you people get upset set when ABC spends money frivolously...

Does Australia really want to be like China, Iran and Cuba? None of those nations are democracies...

In the very least, if they REALLY want to do it, maybe they should put it to a vote? You know, let the average Shelia and Bruce have a say?

[guma-kawauso.livejournal.com]

And mind you, this is coming from a country that says that it's okay to have brothels...

[morning-dragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah I heard about this, anything they deem "Illegal" or "A risk to children". You are supposed to be able to call your ISP and get it so that adult stuff can go through, but so far that doesn't work.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

I'm not an Australian, so I can't do much to help, but... there's nocleanfeed now at least so everyone who's interested can keep an eye on the updates to the site's blog.

I've also been passing info on this on to people I know - with any luck, it should be mentioned on r4nger5 radio some time, which these days is also broadcast on RantRadio (which usually has a couple of thousand listeners, from what I know). So the word's getting out, at least.

[harvardheinous.livejournal.com]

OMG that's insane. Next they'll attempt to block anything deemed *unpleasant*... like criticism of the party in power, for example. But of course in a free society any such Internet censorship should be impossible. Good luck!

[qtplatypus.livejournal.com]

And its stupid, downloading Child Pron off of the net is already illegal and people do get prosecuted for it. So its "solving" a problem that has already got a working solution in place.