Australian authorities are proposing to ban includes such innocuous
destinations as a dentist's office.
Australia's government denied that the list — published by renegade
Web site Wikileaks.org — was the same as a blacklist run by the
Australian Communications and Media Authority, or ACMA. However, a
manager at the dentist's office said the ACMA had confirmed her site's
inclusion on the ban list.
Wikileaks' publication of the list this week reignited a debate over
whether a government proposal to impose an Internet filter for all
Australians could have unintended consequences for innocent
businesses.
The list in question is provided to the creators of Internet filtering
software that people can opt to install on their computers. But
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has proposed mandating that
Australian Internet service providers implement the list, which would
make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among
democratic countries. Several Internet providers are conducting trials
of the filter through June.
The authority says the list largely contains the addresses of Web
sites promoting child pornography and sexual violence, but it has
refused to release its contents publicly.
The proposal has prompted protests across the country, with critics
slamming it as censorship. Internet providers argued that a filter
could slow browsing speeds, and pointed out that illegal material such
as child pornography can be traded on peer-to-peer networks or chats,
which would not be covered by the filter.
On its site, Wikileaks accused Australia of "acting like a democratic
backwater," and said "Australian democracy must not be permitted to
sleep with this loaded gun." The site — which casts itself as an
outlet for "untraceable mass document leaking and analysis," with a
focus on exposing oppressive regimes and unethical behavior — did not
explain how it obtained the purported blacklist.
No comments:
Post a Comment