Australian government is calling internet censorship “cyber-safety”

The BBC is reporting that the Australian government plans to introduce a “cyber-safety” plan that blocks access to websites that are unsuitable for children. This is censorship and will put Australia in the same league as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Australian government says that it’s just a feasibility trial, and if you believe that you’ll probably believe me when I say that the moon is made of cheese: a feasibility trial clearly indicates intent.

The fundamental assumption behind this is that it is the government’s job to protect children, which is equivalent to Paula Bennett’s claim that she has ownership of all New Zealand children. Both premises are utterly evil.

As I said in the Paula Bennett post:

It’s all part of the Social/Marxist agenda of controlling children and undermining parental authority.

This is a variation on “it takes a village to raise a child” (click here to view an example from Barack Obama) and is no better than Sue Bradford’s arrogance (click here and here for examples).

As Madeleine said when she commented on the Paula Bennett post:

Some say it takes a village to raise a child but I say only the village idiot lets the village raise their child.

It is the job of parents and parents alone to protect their children.

In 2007 25 countries had state-controlled internet censorship, up from two in 2002*. Governments all over the world, including the European Union, are making calls for internet censorship, using such excuses as anti-terrorism and protection of children. Governments love control, and they hate something like the internet that makes control difficult.

I’ll bet you a fiver that the Australia government will start with blocking content that is unsuitable for children, then want to block content that is a “threat to public order”. Presto, Australians won’t be able to read the opinions of people that disagree with the government.

If we do not have a free internet we do not have the truth. The mainstream media has a vested interested in saying what the politicians want it to say, because any journalists who do not spout the party line get frozen out by politicians and can’t do their job (an excellent example of journalists spewing state propaganda can be found here).

Internet filtering/censorship should not be imposed on us by a totalitarian nanny state.

**********

In New Zealand the ISPs Watchdog and Maxnet provide filtering. If you don’t want to change ISPs Watchdog can provide filtering software that you install on your computer. I use this and it works very well. For more information click here and scroll to “computer-based filtering service”.

* for more information click here, here, and here.