(Australia) Censorship: Labor's hidden policy

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    Date: 
    21 July 2010

    Labor's internet filtering policy isn't being discussed in the run-up to the election but its impact on Australia is significant.

    Championed by Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, the $30million+ filter is being sold by Labor as an internet block for child pornography, bestiality and extreme pornography with 'wide ranging support from the Australian public' and 'only minimal opposition against'.

    But after a new, lengthy investigation it transpires that virtually none of this is true. What Australia will get from this internet filter is a framework for censorship that doesn't stop "the worst of the worst" but will absolutely curtail discussion on politically incorrect topics like euthanasia, safe drug taking and graffiti while banning relatively-tame adult content.

    Below we examine the filter from the point of view of the people who know most about it, Australia's tech community, which in the past week has united in one last ditch attempt to bring Labor's censorship policy into the open and bring its discussion into the mainstream media in the run up to the election.