US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter 169
daria42 writes "Tensions between the US Government and its counterpart in Australia appear to be rising over Australia's proposal to filter the internet for objectionable content. The US government has raised its concerns over what it sees as potential censorship directly with the Australian Government. However, last night, Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy denied he had had any approach from US State Department officials."
Re:diode effect? (Score:3, Interesting)
"We can censor you but you can not censor us, we can hide info to you but you can not hide info to us." --United States of America
Probably just another CIA "Red Cell" [telegraph.co.uk] style case of manipulating public opinion similar to this case [salon.com]. Only In this example its just basic old Reverse psychology [wikipedia.org]: Your citizens overwhelmingly do not want filters. If the US says don't do it, your citizens will rally against foreigners telling them what to do - and so be more open to implement filtering. Childish, but it probably works on some.
Really hope they kick up as much fuss as China (Score:4, Interesting)
This news isn't on the scale of Google redirecting mainland Chinese search results to Google.cn but has more in common than Senator Conroy here in Australia would like people to think. Wait, no, that isn't even right, he's openly compared [rubenerd.com] the proposed Great Firewall of Australia to the filters in China.
When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Federal Labor won the last election and Barack Obama and the Democrats won the elections in the US, Australian newspapers reported their first meetings as being one with kindred spirits, in much of the same way as George Bush and John Howard. This filter is perhaps the first large(ish) crack in this relationship, and I'm really hoping the Americans kick up as much of a fuss about Australia's laws as China's if the filter in Australia goes through.
The problem for the voting public here is in our version of the two party system, the opposition are considered the more conservative party, and its new Christian far-right leader Tony Abbott has been fairly silent on the whole issue. One can imagine he supports it in spirit but doesn't want to seem as though he's agreeing with Labor. Either way, we're royally stuffed.
In the meantime if you're an Aussie, don't forget the Electronic Frontiers Australia is accepting donations [efa.org.au] for their Open Internet campaign.
The Cultural Exception: Preventing US Toxic Waste (Score:4, Interesting)
I lived in France for 20 years, also a supporter of this, I wish we did in UK. In France, it meant that the continuous diet of brainless, braindead violent programmes and 'rich people behaving nauseously' (Beverly Hills xxxxxx) were present, but in limited quantity, There were and are a lot of local cops shows, Julie Lescaut, for example, more connected with the indigenous culture.
Finally, I have family in the West Indies and when the island switched from BBC to US channels (anecdotally, but many people said it) violence increased.
I know I'll get a lot of hate for posting this, but there is a category of cultural toxic waste and it does modify behaviour, however much we wish it didn't.
Re:diode effect? (Score:1, Interesting)
"We can censor you but you can not censor us, we can hide info to you but you can not hide info to us." --United States of America
Exactly. We can block online Casinos [wikipedia.org] and anything elee we don't like, but how dare you block our porn sites.
Re:diode effect? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've always operated under the belief that the US government uses the internet as a means (probably the most effective means since we rely so much less operatives then we have in the past) to disseminate their own "form" of democracy. The US has invested heavily in this outlet of propaganda (news, if you prefer to call it that).
Australia jeopardizes all of this by possibly starting a trend that spreads to other countries, in effect, legitimizing filtering.
I think someone in the US government finally realized that would be a HUGE step backwards in terms of what the US government wants.
To be honest, I find it highly amusing that all of this, the use of the net as a means of disseminating propaganda, might actually be the one thing that ensures net neutrality.
Technical Debate Wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
To all those people who repeat the comment "censoring the internet is technically impossible" - If you are against censorship then say so, rather than saying censor ship won't work for technical reasons.
The purpose of the internet censorship in Australia is to mirror the existing censorship we have in other media. I think that makes sense. However, the opacity of the blacklist is totally unacceptable. It must be transparent.