The legion of No Clean Feed activists have developed several campaign sites, one of which is The Great Australian Internet Blackout. Their call to action (in addition to writing to the Government and adding a twibbon to your Twitter profile picture) is to blackout (darken) your website on Australia Day.
Their reasons for doing this are:
- The filter won’t protect children because it is ineffective;
- It will cost consumers more and may negatively impact speeds;
- Australia will be joining a censorship club with Iran, China and Saudi Arabia.
The first two reasons are (more or less) fine with me, as I’ve discussed here. I’d put them differently to how it’s phrased on TGAIB.
The last one, in my view, is wrong-headed. It is this argument (the filter = censorship) that is the least effective:
In my view, the No Clean Feed campaign’s focus on the Internet filter equating to political censorship is foolish. It does not live up to most Australians’ lived experience. Few Australians are affected by the “censorship†inherent in the current refused classification material regime.
I would be very interested to know what your definition of censorship is.
Good idea for a post.