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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

censorship

hi peoples, today I'm going to talk about the internet censorship issue that's being discussed in Australia. The main issues here are protecting children from viewing inappropriate websites with explicit content, blocking dangerous sites like bomb making and terrorism sites, the decision to have opt-out filters or mandatory filters, whether the government can be trusted to look out for our best interests and abuses their power, and the question of if access to the internet is now a human right.

It is true that the internet can be used for devious intentions which can harm children, ranging from the child pornography industry, which is an evil thing that physically and emotionally scars children, to a child accidentally finding websites with content that confuse and scare their little minds...and I'm not talking about advanced algebra.

The case can be made that the government should use it's power to protect the children, but the method is now continuously being questioned by a multitude of opponents, ranging from human rights petitioners, tech heads talking about if it you actually work, child welfare groups saying the money would be better spent elsewhere and general people who would still like to access their happy good time content.

A major problem is that the government would blacklist website and the Australian public would not know whats on the list. A Dentist's site was blacklisted because 18 months beforehand, her site had been hacked into and made to link to a site selling sex toys. The problem was fixed but 18 months later her site was banned. This is just one way in which the filtering process can hinder the general public.

Another problem is the slowing of internet speeds for Australians due to the filters application. i don't have much more to say on this point, so I'm just going to extent this sentence a little to make the paragraph look neater.

This blog i guess can only inform you on the basics of the issue at hand and it isn't the best platform to go into the level of detail this issue needs. I guess i should be happy just to inform my readers about the issue and hope they extent their interest further by researching further and gaining an informed opinion. The best bet is to start with either Wikipedia or Google and go on from there. Happy hunting if your interested, if not enjoy the rest of your day. ols out

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