The Rudd Government is preparing to trial a mandatory web filtering scheme with internet service providers that would block illegal and inappropriate content.
Under the Government’s plan, all Australian internet users will be served a “clean feed” with sites on a secret blacklist maintained by the communications watchdog blocked.
A secondary filter to block material inappropriate for children will also be introduced, however users will be able to opt-out of this system.
The trial of filtering technology was scheduled to begin in December but has been pushed back to this month.
Government dodges questions on axed NetAlert web filter funding | News | News.com.au.
It looks like they are still going to go ahead with it. I also suspect that the filter will also include lists of political sites that are critical of the government. Given the level of media concentration (and the shameless promotion of propaganda in some cases) and the attitudes of many people to the public realm and reasoned debate, this internet filter could be a real problem for Australian democracy. The war-on-terror era anti-terror laws are still intact and, as with the Haneef case and the report finding not one person responsible for that political use of those laws, our democracy in Australia looks like it is in trouble. Even though it was the Bush-Cheney Administration that heralded in the antidemocratic so-called war-on-terror, the United States is still partially responsible for Australia’s democracy becoming a notable casualty of that so-called war-on-terror. Australia Day this year was also mared with some racist violence. We’ll see how it all goes.
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