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Published: Thursday, January 03, 2008 https://www.gowanbo.cc
New Labour government makes a controversial move
Australia's recently seated new Labour federal government has wasted no time in introducing sensitive Internet legislation, proposing censorship laws aimed at stopping computer-savvy children from looking at banned sites, including online casinos and pornography.
Due to come into affect January 20, the new rules are designed to restrict access to age restricted content either hosted in or provided from Australia and apply to most service providers supplying content via a carriage service. Labour government spokesmen justified the new policy after claiming that the previous government’s proposal of supplying free NetNanny software to all households who wanted it wouldn’t adequately protect children.
The new rules require that Internet service providers supply ‘clean feeds’ excluding any age restricted content with users then able to ‘opt-out’ and not receive the censored feed.
Critics say that the legislation has serious implications for freedom of expression and would discourage parents from monitoring their children's Internet activities. There have also been accusations that the move is mere "political grandstanding."
"Anybody who's computer-savvy can work their way around these filters in about two minutes maximum," one pressure group claimed. |
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