Posted on 01/26/2010 1:40:58 AM PST by myknowledge
Hundreds of Australian websites will fade to black this week in protest against the Federal Government's proposed internet filter, which some claim will put Australia on a par with countries like China and Iran.
The Federal Government wants to pass laws to force internet service providers to block banned material hosted on overseas servers. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says he intends to introduce the legislation in the first half of 2010.
But organisers of the Great Australian Internet Blackout protest say the mandatory internet filter will not protect children from harmful content on the internet and will waste taxpayers' money.
Spokesman Jeff Waugh says the filter could put Australia in company with China.
"Filtering is a serious problem and it poses quite a threat to freedom for countries like China," he said.
"But it is quite scary [that Australia] would be joining countries like China and Iran that would be filtering the net."
The Greens say their website will fade to black today as part of the nationwide protest.
Upon visiting the site, a box containing information about the internet blackout appears and the background is dimmed, but the site returns to normal after just one mouse click.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says he believes more than 500 websites will take part.
"That's basically all the device is - the blackout isn't designed to take the website offline or to make it completely illegible," he said.
"But any time you visit that website that black screen is going to come up first and remind you what's going on.
"We'll support any community initiative that raises awareness about the issue and helps educate people about what's actually proposed."
He said he would not have been able to persuade his colleagues take The Greens fully offline.
"I think the Communications Minister would probably be quite chuffed if we took The Greens website offline for a week or a day," he said.
"It's not going to change the world... it's not a massive act of civil disobedience or anything, it's just a quirky little device."
This tells me that in Australia, we should take our freedom we take for granted very seriously.
But when it comes to establishing a cyber-police-state, we should take threats to our freedoms EXTREMELY SERIOUSLY!!!
But since FR is based in Fresno, CA, I doubt it would join the cyber-protest.
Remember, my FRiends, we place great value over our freedoms (even cyber-freedoms) and it's time we started defended them against these statist onslaughts.
I find it somewhat disconcerting to be in agreement with the Greens.
I think both Newman and Cliff Claven at one point said “when you control the mail you control information”...
It should be a priority of any Australian hackers to identify who is responsible for this censorship authoritarianism, and to deny them the use of the Internet entirely. Black *them* out.
They obviously don’t need the Internet for credit, or their personal records, or telephone, or to live their lives. And certainly not for their finances. So they should get to experience the awe and wonder of having *their* lives interfered with, being unable to access the information *they* want, and to have the assumption that *they* are responsible adults.
I agree-this is happening in Australia?
I had a teacher from Australia who packed up and moved back there when Obama was nominated; he said he would win and wasn’t going to live here w/him in charge!
I bet he’s having a bad day....
This is not a good omen.
I wonder if the filters they will use are better than the one used by a web forum I used a couple years ago. That filter used keywords. It was frustrating at times. One discussion dealt with aircraft and I could not use the word “cockpit”, it was deemed obscene. I had to use something like “The place where the aircraft’s crew work.”
I used to visit MLB’s message boards. It would determine that innocuous words and phrases were profane and make me constantly revise posts. Cass Sunstein would love it.
“cockpit”
Watch your language please
Just a bit frustrating.
Terrible, wasn’t it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.