Rudds’ Australia: Iran,Australia and North Korea a threat to internet via censorship regulation

 

Media rights group puts Australia on internet watchlist

SMH
March 12, 2010

A top media rights watchdog has listed Australia along with Iran and North Korea in a report on countries that pose a threat of internet censorship.

Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Thursday put Australia and South Korea on its list of countries "under surveillance" in its "Internet Enemies" report.

Australia was listed for the government's plan to block access to websites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse. Critics say the plan is a misguided measure that will harm civil liberties by blocking a broader range of content than just nasty material.

 

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has said he plans to introduce legislation by the end of next week that would require ISPs to block a blacklist of "refused classification" websites for all Australians. It is not clear if the government will meet this deadline; a spokeswoman for Senator Conroy said the legislation would be introduced "after it has been considered by caucus and cabinet".

In South Korea, the RSF report added, "draconian laws are creating too many specific restrictions on web users by challenging their anonymity and promoting self-censorship".

Lu Kewen aka. Australian PM “Kevin 07” Rudd

“It’s all about getting the balance right”

"These countries are worrying us because they have measures that could have repercussions for freedom of expression on the internet," RSF secretary general Jean-Francois Julliard said at an internet rights award ceremony on Thursday.

Russia and Turkey were also added to the watchlist, which is a category below RSF's top "Enemies of the internet", the countries it considers the 12 worst web freedom violators.

These include Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Iran and Vietnam.

"The world's largest netizen prison is in China, which is far out ahead of other countries with 72 detainees, followed by Vietnam and then by Iran, which have all launched waves of brutal attacks on websites in recent months," RSF's report said.

A senior manager of US internet giant Google, David Drummond, said there was an "alarming trend" of government interference in online freedom, not only in countries that are judged to have poor human rights records.

He cited Australia's plans as an example, saying that there "the wide scope of content prohibited could include socially and politically controversial material".

The Australian case "is an example of where these benign intentions can result in the spectre of true censorship", he added, speaking at Thursday's ceremony.

"Here in Europe, even in France, at this very moment, some are tempted by this slippery path of network filtering."

Click HERE for further information on Lu Kewen’s internet censorship plans for Australia

Last month, after Senator Conroy called on YouTube to censor videos in accordance with his filtering scheme, the search giant's head of policy in Australia, Iarla Flynn, said: "The scope of RC is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information. RC includes the grey realms of material instructing in any crime from [painting] graffiti to politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia, and exposing these topics to public debate is vital for democracy."

Update on Rudd's internet censorship laws

Americans BEWARE Australian internet to be CENSORED by Australian Labor Party

Compulsory censorship for internet.

Daily Telegraph 29 10 08 Pg. 4

THE Federal Government will make internet censorship compulsory for all Australians and could ban controversial websites on euthanasia and anorexia. Australia's level of net censorship will put it in the same league as China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea.

 

The Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter. Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy said the Government's $44.2 million internet censorship plan would now include two tiers — one level of mandatory filtering for all Australians and an optional level that will provide a "clean feed", censoring adult material. Despite planning to hold "live trials" before the end of the year, Senator Conroy said it was not known what content the mandatory filter would bar, with euthanasia or proanorexia sites on the chopping block. "We are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material," he said.

'Australia's level of net censorship will put it in the same league as China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea. The Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.

The Ascension of Lu Kewen

Technorati Tags: Australia,Iran,North Korea,Cuba,Venezuala,Saudi Arabia,Burma,China,You Tube,Google,David Drummond,Senator Stephen Conroy,Kevin 07,Lu Kewen,Australian PM Kevin Rudd,Reporters Without Borders

Equality Loons: When they are done with business your bedroom will be next

The Coercion Of Tolerance At eHarmony

By MICHELLE MALKIN
Friday, November 21, 2008

Congratulations, tolerance mau-mauers: Your shakedown of a Christian-targeted dating Web site worked. Homosexuals will no longer be denied the inalienable "right" to hook up with same-sex partners on eHarmony. What a landmark triumph for social progress, eh?

New Jersey plaintiff Eric McKinley can now crown himself the new Rosa Parks — heroically breaking down inhumane barriers to Internet matchmaking by forcing a law-abiding private company to provide services it was never created to provide.

"Men seeking men" has now been enshrined with "I have a dream" as a civil-rights rallying cry of the 21st century. Bully for you, Mr. McKinley. You bully.

Neil Warren, eHarmony's founder, is a gentle, grandfatherly businessman who launched his popular dating site to support heterosexual marriage. A "Focus on the Family" author with a divinity degree, Warren encourages healthy, lasting unions between men and women of all faiths, mixed faiths or no faith at all.

Don't like what eHarmony sells? Go somewhere else. There are thousands upon thousands of dating sites on the Internet that cater to gays, lesbians, Jews, Muslims, Trekkies, runners, you name it.

No matter. In the name of tolerance, McKinley refused to tolerate eHarmony's right to operate a lawful business that didn't give him what he wanted. He filed a discrimination complaint against eHarmony with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights in 2005.

To be clear: eHarmony never, ever refused to do business with anyone. The company broke no laws. Their great "sin" was not providing a politically correct service that a publicity-seeking gay plaintiff demanded they provide.

For three years, the company battled McKinley's legal shakedown artists — and staved off other opportunists as well. The dating site had been previously sued by a lesbian looking to force the company to match her up with another woman, and by a married man who ridiculously sought to force the company to find him prospects for an adulterous relationship.

This case is akin to a meat-eater suing a vegetarian restaurant for not offering him a rib-eye, or a female patient suing a vasectomy doctor for not providing her hysterectomy services. But rather than defend the persecuted business, the New Jersey attorney general intervened on behalf of the gay plaintiff and wrangled an agreement out of eHarmony to change its entire business model.

The company agreed to offer not only same-sex dating services on a new site, but also six-month subscriptions for free to 10,000 gay users, pay McKinley $5,000 and fork over $50,000 to New Jersey's Civil Rights division "to cover investigation-related administrative costs." Additional terms of the settlement require eHarmony to:

• Post photos of same-sex couples in the "Diversity" section of its Web site as successful relationships are created using the company's same-sex matching service.

• Include photos of same-sex couples, as well as individual same-sex users, in advertising materials used to promote its same-sex matching services.

• Revise anti-discrimination statements placed on company Web sites, in company handbooks and other company publications to make plain that it does not discriminate on the basis of "sexual orientation."

• Commit to advertising, public relations and marketing dedicated to its same-sex matching service.

• Retain a media consultant experienced in promoting the "fair, accurate and inclusive" representation of gay and lesbian people in the media to determine the most effective way of reaching the gay and lesbian communities.

I have enormous sympathy for eHarmony, whose attorney explained that they gave in to the unfair settlement because "litigation outcomes can be unpredictable." The recent mob response to the passage of Proposition 8, the traditional marriage measure in California, must have also weighed on eHarmony management's minds.

But capitulation will only yield a worse, entirely predictable outcome: more shakedowns of private businesses that hold views deemed unacceptable by the Equality-at-All-Costs Brigade.

Perhaps heterosexual men and women should start filing lawsuits against gay dating Web sites and undermine their businesses. Coerced tolerance and diversity-by-fiat cut both ways.

Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc