hink of it all - of the life that is! Study your friends and foes!
Study the past! And answer this: "Are these times better than those?" The life-long quarrel, the paltry spite, the sting of your poisoned pride! No matter who fell it were better to fight as they did when the world was wide.
NationaI internet filter and the nanny state
"But now the Federal Government's great broadband gift is floundering in the waves of the financial crisis and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is pushing ahead with an internet filter that will dramatically slow Australian internet speeds.The biggest problem is a little word that Mr Conroy slipped out in the middle of a Senate committee hearing. The pilot filter program will not only target the existing blacklisted sites, most of which are child pornography, but will also target "unwanted" content, whatever that means.
It's a bit embarrassing that we're discussing censoring the internet at all. What does it say about Australian politics that the reaction of both major parties to such a liberating technology is to demagogue about its dangers? Our politicians rave about evils online more than any other liberal democracy. As a consequence, the Federal Government's proposal is far more extensive than any other internet censorship scheme outside the totalitarian world."
::View Article::
As this article points out politicians harp on to un-proportional degrees about the negatives of the internet, i.e. child pornography, in order to scare us into giving them more control of the internet. Whenever the possibility of the government controlled filter blocking legal material is raised, the discussion is directed back to child porn.
What does Senator Conroy mean when he says that the internet filter will block 'unwanted' content in addition to (already) illegal material? Who will decide what content/information is unwanted?
On a broader level, why do we need the government to increasingly direct our behaviour in new spheres of life such as the net? Is it because we don't have the community bonds (i.e. consensus/values) which might better promote the avoidance of child pornography, sites on anorexia, and other material the government is sighting in order to worry us?
No comments