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US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter
daria42 writes "Tensions between the US Government and its counterpart in Australia appear to be rising over Australia's proposal to filter the internet for objectionable content. The US government has raised its concerns over what it sees as potential censorship directly with the Australian Government. However, last night, Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy denied he had had any approach from US State Department officials."
Against all my instincts, I find myself for the right of governments to filter, as long as they are 'legitimate' governments.
That is, the 'people' can hear the arguments and throw them out, if they don't want the filtering.
Optimally, the production models would change so that no-one produced trash and education levels so that no-one consumed it. I'm mainly talking about TV which is a push medium and which may be dying anyway.
I'm 60 this year and I have seen a step by step decline sold as 'freedom' and 'free trade', code words for 'we're making a lot of money with this' don't take away that 'right'.
But you're quite correct to criticise, I don't have anything like a complete answer and it pains me to end up on the 'wrong' side.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Despite any posturing, It's their fucking wet dream to be able to do it here too.
I don't want censorship at all. But I think it's hilarious that America, which is so censored that it can't even show boobies on television (nipples, specifically), is telling Australia that it shouldn't be censoring things.
There was an article posted only a couple of days ago that essentially said censorship is harmful to democracy. Maybe both the US and Australian governments should get out of censorship altogether, lest they wind up like China.