Internet Censorship and The Arts BY MARCUS WESTBURY
Late last year the Federal Government announced that it intended to go ahead with one of the worst ideas I’ve heard in a long time. The Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy – presumably assuming Australia was distracted by Christmas and Copenhagen to notice – announced that an expensive, ineffective and intrusive filter will be installed on every Internet connection in the country. It’s philosophically dubious and practically unworkable. It will leave artists and creative enterprises particularly vulnerable to its errors, complexities and abuses. It calls into the question the very idea of Australia as a culturally liberal western democracy that values open cultural exchange, free speech and freedom of expression. As commentators from left and right, from Australia and around the world have noted that it would put Australia in a select and dubious club whose members include China, Iran and Burma. I hope and expect that it will profoundly resisted by artists and the creative community. http://meanjin.com.au/spike-the-meanjin-blog/post/internet-censorship-and-the-arts/ _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
