Welcome to the new Chinese colony of Australia

[Mikeus Caesar]

Or at least, the very soon to be Chinese-style country of Australia.

Australia is planning tough new rules to protect children from online pornography and violence.

The new Labor government wants internet service providers to filter content to ensure households and schools do not receive "inappropriate" material.

Civil libertarians have condemned the plan as unnecessary, and say it will erode the freedom of the internet.

But telecommunications minister Stephen Conroy said more needed to be done to protect children.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7165987.stm

And more...

Britain and Scandinavia had successful internet restrictions, he said. "The internet hasn't ground to a halt in the UK, it hasn't ground to a halt in Scandinavian countries and it's not grinding the internet to a halt in Europe."

This is probably because those are countries that have a decent internet infrastructure. From my month or so of being here in Australia, i can tell this is not the case. I have to sit around for five minutes while a gif from 4chan loads.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...746454.html%5C

And the final piece of quality entertainment with regards to this story...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/au...cens-a20.shtml

As the story implies above, he's doing this not only to get the right-wing Christian vote, but because he is also a Christian and this is what he believes in, 'protecting us from the filth'.

I personally believe this is the largest crock of **** i have ever heard. Why incur on my right to look at consenting men and women doing perfectly legal things, just to 'protect the children'? Especially at a cost of $33 million per year?

Surely that money could be better well spent on educating morons to keep an eye on what their children are doing, and could also be better spent educating children themselves about internet safety?

Seriously, what harm has ever come from kids cheekily looking at pixelated boobs while their mum and dad are out of the house? It's no different from what kids did before the internet, stealing Dad's playboy magazines. Hell, i'll confess, i've been looking at internet porn and other 'violent' things Mr Conroy wants blocking since i was 12, and it's had no effect on me. If anything, the one thing that has affected my life negatively is my choice of friends. Why not just ban kids from having friends?

GAH!

It makes my blood boil, the utter stupidity of this. At least i can apparently call them up and ask to be excluded from filtering. Hopefully though one of the posts i read on the news board on 4chan is correct...

you dumb ***** this policy will PETER OUT to ******* nothing before march. they'll ask ***stra and optus to ban two or three sites, make some meaningless noise to the media about how everything's been a success and NO ONE WILL EVER HEAR OF IT AGAIN