What's going on with Australia?

Australia has always been a country of extremes. I mean how many other countries in the world have had one of their prime ministers eaten by a shark?
 
The fine print suggests that Australians would be denied access to illegal or pornographic content by default, but would be able to opt out to enable them to access adult porn. In other words, they would no longer have completely unfettered access to the web, including presumably illegal sites.

The grumble from some quarters seems to be that the Oz Government will decide what is legal or illegal and this may result in over zealous censorship (for example ultimately including things the government deems bad publicity for themselves).

Personally I think the Australian Government's scheme is a good idea because I wouldn't want my kids accidentally coming across seriously bad stuff, but I can see a situation (like in China) where innocent material gets blocked for political reasons.
 
Rhisiart said:
...but I can see a situation (like in China) where innocent material gets blocked for political reasons.
Click to expand...
Indeed, with regards to the general case (i.e. I'm not targetting China). I'm concerned about the control of the flow of information, as this is a very powerful tool for influencing the way people think.

How about the opposite case: a situation whereby citizens can opt into voluntary censorship? Opting-out-of has connotations of being up to no good, no matter how innocent the intent, and this may put people off (and hence censorship spreads by default).
 
But for the censorship - as if most "free" countries weren't fully filtered by Echelon, GCHQ etc their local variant (and some of the others of the list)? Just like all the phone calls...

And where do google databases (where every single thing you've ever searched since google started is stored safely, among with all the cookies that will be valid until 2038 unless you delete them...) end up being used?

Anyway - those animals are scary stuff as well. I wonder if they would try to swallow some politicians as whole as well?
 
Oh, absolutely, Giaguara. I was not ignoring that issue. The feeling of always being under scrutiny is not pleasant. But it takes it to a further level to add restrictions on what you are allowed to see/hear/read/know on top of being watched.
 
Yep, extending the other generally accepted limitations like 4 oz liquid limits (so that no one can hijack a plane with a bottle of shampoo...) to web - so max. 0.4 minutes of generally accepted PC laughter per page, and no un-PC humor. :)
 
With the net stuff i feel this is becoming a slippery slope. Government deciding my morality will lead to the net equivalent to book burning. It all depends on how in the future is in charge.

If this goes over in Australia it is just a short hop to other democracies. It just seems today the barrier to national identity has disappeared and once one idea really floats in one it is a matter of time before that same idea crosses into other western nations.


"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." - Unknown author
 
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