One of Australia's top communications experts says the Government's internet censorship trials were designed to succeed from the outset, presented no new information and are now being used by the Government to further its political agenda. His comments came after the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, yesterday announced he would introduce legislation before next year's elections forcing ISPs to block a secret blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australian internet users. Separately, a report into the scope of content that will be caught up in the net filters concluded that the Government's policy may see a wide range of innocuous material disappearing from Australians' computer schemes. Commentators in Australia and overseas have interpreted Senator Conroy's policy as pushing the country towards repressive regimes such as China and Iran.
One of Australia's top communications experts says the Government's internet censorship trials were designed to succeed from the outset, presented no new information and are now being used by the Government to further its political agenda.
His comments came after the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, yesterday announced he would introduce legislation before next year's elections forcing ISPs to block a secret blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australian internet users.
Separately, a report into the scope of content that will be caught up in the net filters concluded that the Government's policy may see a wide range of innocuous material disappearing from Australians' computer schemes.
Commentators in Australia and overseas have interpreted Senator Conroy's policy as pushing the country towards repressive regimes such as China and Iran.
