Thursday, 19 March 2009

Linkage

The first rule of Australian internet censorship...

Josef K., call your office.
Pixy Misa:
The ACMA (which apparently stands for “petty-minded bureaucrats”) has a list of a thousand-odd sites that are banned in Australia.

This list is secret.

Also, it's just a list. The sites are banned, and viewing them is illegal, and linking to them incurs an $11,000-a-day fine, but no-one is allowed to know what is on the list...

So when, for example, popular Australian technical forum and news site Whirlpool found itself featuring a comment linking to a banned site, it also found itself facing a huge fine, and understandably removed the comment.

This even though the site in question has not been shown to be in breach of any law or regulation, and that the details of the site were made public by the original complainant, which is also not a breach of any law or regulation...
And, naturally, this is all “for the children.”

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 15:14:16 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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