New Aussie PM in favour of censorship…

Just a few weeks ago, Australia got its very first female Prime Minister. It was a big thing on Twitter because it was a surprising bit of news, and it occured following rumours that the so-called ‘toxic’ issue of government-driven Internet-censorshipwas set to be shelved. Unfortunately, for the Australians, Julia Gillard is not the tech-warrior everyone had hoped she would be. She wants to push forward with the notoriously-hated Internet filter, and refuses to recognise its blatant flaws.

Her stance is quite naive, if I’m honest: Australians cannot view child pornography in a cinema, or catch it on satellite television, so therefore the Internet shouldn’t enable them to search for it online, either. The problem with that stance is that it’s plainly ignoring (perhaps for the sake of it) the fact that a blacklist won’t work for the purpose of deterring predators. That’s omitting the countless  other arguments against such a filter, which is so beyond rationale that it’s simply indefensible.
 
It’s worth mentioning that this filter is completely separate from the proposition for a data retention drive, which would have Australian ISPs logging all traffic data for up to 10 years if the radicals get their way. You see, I can understand the opposing view on this (politically speaking): in her overthrowing of her Leader, she depended on the factional right members of the Labor party who support the internet filter – she can’t now just abolish the idea once in her powerful position. Nevertheless, the alternative is shockingly real and if the two plans ever come to fruition, Australia will be as equally as intrusive as China, Iran and North Korea (as far as the Internet is concerned).

While there’s no shortage of people ready to fight any legislation that provides mandatory Internet-filtering for all Australians, the fact remains that, regardless of her “first woman” novelty status, those in the political sphere are the same people who concocted the whole idea in the first place. I’ve seen a few videos (see here) of Julia Gillard trying to draw a distinction between what is – and what isn’t – a “legitimate use of the Internet”, but I can’t help but think that once a government starts deciding something as basic as that, the slippery slope take shape…

BIAS UPDATE: But, here on the DigiLounge platform, I do not want our Australian readers to think that the Labor Party that she represents is all bad. What are the alternatives? Well, a Liberal vote would not be any better; they want to reverse the $45 billion national broadband network that has already connected people across the country and will deliver 100mbps to every home. They have suggested no designs/ideas to replace it, they simply want to scrap it. It’s hard not to see them as luddites of the highest order.

Read more tech news at DigiLounge, or Apply to Become a Writer today!