Wednesday 16 December 2009

Gee thanks Steve. Thanks Kevin.

...

For nothing.

Applauded by the right wing Australian Christian Lobby, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has given the green light to bringing in legislation to censor the Internet. Already dubbed the "Great Firewall of Australia" it will hopefully have a terminally rocky run through the parliament.

And anyone who actually understands the absurdity of the proposal is laughing. Here is a typical non-Australian view:


I voted for Labor at the last federal election, not a Theocracy. But Golly! Gosh! Jeepers! Shazam! ...that seems to be what we are ending up with here.

Our nanny Prime Minister Kevin-07 is a conservative Anglican, and co-nanny Conroy is a conservative Catholic. And the good people of the Australian Christian Lobby could not be much smugger about it.

"FOR GOD'S SMEGGING FUCKING SAKE - THINK OF THE CHILDREN! THEY MIGHT SEE NUDIE THINGS! AIYYYYEEE!"

...more or less sums up their brilliant arguments for filtering. Filters that will slow the net. Filters that will ban sites that shouldn't be banned including, for instance, Wikipedia Articles that might discuss banned or politically inconvenient subjects. When anyone plays the "think of the children!" card, you can be guaranteed the underlying arguments are crap.

While no sensible person would want to expose their children to the dark side of the net, this sort of filtering just doesn't work. Bad guys with minimal technical skills will still do bad things and the rest of us have to wear the collateral damage from living behind the inevitably self-bloating firewall. Just watch that blacklist grow.

Just like in the great democracy of China.

Sorry Kevin-07. I won't be voting for Kevin-10.

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