Just ask your children if you want an example of the power the government will have to control what Australians can view on the internet when they introduce mandatory filtering.
The Queensland education system filters access to it’s school computers. At a glance you’d say fair enough.
One of Agmates readers has asked her children what they thought of mandatory filtering. Her 12 year old son unprompted told her that his class was doing an assignment on Global warming.
On the school computer system he typed in the term ‘Global Warming Untruths’ and was blocked by the filter.
When he asked the teacher why, the response was – ‘Oh there is so much conflicting information on the net about it – we (the School system) just does not want to confuse you.’
A 16 year old year 11 student typed in the word ‘Buddhism’ into the school computer and was blocked by the filter. The answer as to why the term ‘Buddhism‘ a religion practiced by an estimated half a billion people throughout the world was blocked, the student was told that the Queensland school system associated it with the occult and therefore it was banned.
This is the same power that the Federal government will have with mandatory internet filtering. Is this what you really want, some nameless, faceless government bureaucrat deciding what is appropriate for Australians to see and whats not. That’s exactly what happens in the only other countries in the world that have mandatory internet filtering – China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia. Not 1 democracy.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy scoffs at suggestions the government would ever do this.
As I pointed out in a previous article, there is nothing to stop them doing it once the legislation is enacted. Australians have no constitution and hence legal rights to ‘freedom of speech’.
There is not a court in Australia that could stop the government blocking any content they decide is ‘unwanted‘ , say blocking any critsim of the Labor Party for example.
This is an incredibly dangerous piece of legislation and must be stopped. Please write to your local member and the Communications Minister and tell him you oppose the introduction of mandatory internet filtering.
(thanks to Agmates member Sue)
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