The Australian Government's plans to censor the internet is something I do not agree upon, nor is it something that I think would 'solve' issues with the usage of the internet for obscene things like child porn. Internet censorship has been implemented heavily in China, but thats also due to the fact that they are under Communism rule, so one of the main reasons to filter the internet there will also be to limit the media exposure of people to ensure a 'common' ideology to exist.
Australia is a democracy and implementing internet censorship goes against one's freedom of speech and expressing ones opinion. This analogy I will state now is my own personal interpretation of having internet censorship.
Imagine there is a family which consists of a mother and a son, the mother in this case would represent the Australian Government and the son would represent the Australian people. So ever since the son was born, the mother wanted to limit the son's exposure to everything that could potentially harm him, even if it was so minor. Every little cut he had, she cleaned it excessively with disinfectants, every little cough he got she made sure he took medicine.
So, 20 years later the son is grown up, and has an immune system that is terribly weak. How does this relate to internet censorship? By the simple fact that it takes away our ability to make right decisions on our own, which is a very important thing to enable society to move forward in the long run.
Even then, censorship wont really prevent anything. There will always be a way around it, and a perfect example of this is peer to peer sharing and downloading. In the end, censoring will not solve the problems and will instead prevent us from fully utilising one of the most resourceful and important tools in existance. Every tool can be used for good or bad, but taking away our means to use the tool also takes away our rationale and responsibility to use it properly.
-Sign an e-petition
So I went over to Queensland Parliament Petitions to try and sign one, decided to choose the 'Stop mining on the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve' however due to terms of use requiring me to be an Australian citizen or residents, which I am neither, I didnt end up signing it.
Instead I went to a different site and signed the "internet censorship" e-petition. http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet/442
- Blog http://digihub.smh.com.au/node/1993
- What is Obama up to today?
Obama speaks on ramping up Innovation, more details can be found at http://ochairball.blogspot.com/.
- Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.
Local representative is
Rudd, Hon. Kevin MichaelState representative is
Langbroek John-Paul, Honore
Federal representative is
Hon Teresa Gambaro
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/mi-state.asp
http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/attachment/factsheets/fs357_government_members.pdf
- Look up the Queensland or Australian hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr251110.pdf
- Let your local member know what you think about their last speech.
I really dont have anything to say....
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