As time goes on, calls for censoring the Internet or individual websites or bloggers only seem to escalate. As 2008 kicks in, freedom of speech on the web is already suffering some new blows.
Case in point: The government of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has a plan to censor adult content and violence on the Internet by forcing ISPs to supply a "clean feed" of Internet content free of "inappropriate" material. The feed will be achieved by getting the country's Communications and Media Authority to develop a blacklist of unsuitable sites, which would then be blocked.
The worst part of this scheme is that citizens don't opt into the clean feed. They have to opt out if they want an uncensored Internet. Aside from the fact that this clean feed process smacks of Orwellian government control of information, and would no doubt be subject to all kinds of political monkey business, it will be ineffective in blocking "objectionable" content because the real purveyors of adult and violent content can always stay one step ahead of any government censors. Moreover, the system will slow down Internet access because any searches for content will have to go through the filters first.
Although dressed up as a system that protects children, this kind of censorship is little better than the hardball tactics employed by authoritarian governments to silence critics. The latest example of this form of censorship comes from Saudi Arabia, which has arrested a prominent blogger.
Fouad al-Farhan, the first Saudi blogger to be detained by the government, was arrested on December 10 for possible violations of "nonsecurity laws." Fouad thinks he's become a target for questioning the government's claims about some of its political prisoners. His friends have kept up Fouad's blog, which is written in both Arabic and English and is now devoted to freeing the writer.
Let's hope that these two developments are not harbingers of things to come this year.
Cynthia Brumfield at 10:04 AM|Comments(0)
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