Australia Bans Wikileaks
HAVING outlawed adolescent porn doodles, the Austrlaiaqn government is bannign Wikileaks, “the website that publishes anonymous submissions of sensitive info on everything from corporations, religion and governments”.
We know this because – oh, the irony:
On its website, Wikileaks, which leaked the news that the government had banned it for leaking information, simply said: “The first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship.”
The Australian communications regulator has issued a stark warning that websites who link out to ‘banned’ hyperlinks are liable to fine of up to Aus $11,000 a day.
The news comes after web forum Whirlpool was threatened with the fine for posting a hyperlink to a blacklisted anti-abortion website.
Why Wikileaks?
The blacklisting of certain pages of the site has come about after Wikileaks posted a list of websites at the tail end of 2008 that comprised the ‘secret internet censorship’ list for Denmark. On this list were over 3,500 sites that were censored or banned in the country…
Says the Sydney Morning Herald:
The site [Wikileaks] has also published Thailand’s internet censorship list and noted that, in both the Thai and Danish cases, the scope of the blacklist had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.
Already, a significant portion of the 1370-site Australian blacklist – 506 sites – would be classified R18+ and X18+, which are legal to view but would be blocked for everyone under the proposal. The Government has said it was considering expanding the blacklist to 10,000 sites and beyond.
Child porn is a sickness. But if it is banend, will it go away? Or will it just go further underground and make it even harder to catch they who produce the stuff, and save the victims..?
Spotter: Tech Radar
Posted: 18th, March 2009 | In: Technology Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
