This whole online censorship debate keeps getting murkier and murkier. The latest example of its futility: Online forum Whirlpool (or more precisely, their web host Bulletproof) received the threat of an $11,000 a day fine for posting a link to a blacklisted anti-abortion website. Needless to say, Whirlpool took down the offending link. But the really scary part is that the ACMA blacklist now includes parts of Wikileaks, the whistle blowing website that is so set in their raison d’etre that they’ll publish their own sources.According to Asher Moses over at SMH, Wikileaks has been added to the ACMA’s blacklist for “publishing a leaked document containing Denmark’s list of banned websites”. Critics of the proposed filter have long argued that the blacklist will almost certainly end up published online, and the fact that it has occurred to Denmark’s list only strengthens their argument.
What’s more, onsidering that the ACMA’s blacklist is going to be the basis for the Rudd Government’s mandatory internet filter, this totally moves past the target of “child pornography” that Senator Conroy repeatedly mentions as the focus of the censorship scheme. How many more legal websites will we see blocked as the Government disagrees with their content and methods?
Murkier and murkier. And our faith that the Government will see the light and give up their pointless crusade is shrinking with each passing day…
[SMH, The Australian and EFA]