The impulse to censorship is something I have always found objectionable at best (and infuriating at worst). I can see the argument that certain types of extreme content mightn’t do one’s mental health much good (particularly for kids… Won’t somebody please think of the children!), but the idea that some group (who are presumably immune to said damage for some unstated reason) gets to decide for you which content you should see…. particularly when that group is a political party… I mean, just fuck off, seriously.
On which topic, our proposed ‘Net censorship blacklist; if implemented, will it creep beyond blocking ‘child porn’, and into other areas of discourse? Well, the leaked ACMA blacklist certainly looked that way, with content on it including information about euthenasia and religious groups, as well as poker sites and ‘normal’ (i.e. not kiddie) porn sites. Add to this the recent news that the govt intends to use the new censorial powers to prevent access to games that are not MA15+ classifiable (because, alone in the developed world, Australia has no R18+ rating for games), and I’m guessing that yes, if introduced this censorship will be abused.
In light of the fact that even a massive and hugely funded body of wowsers would have no hope of compiling a list of even 1% of the type of material that is genuinely objectionable at any given moment, in fact, it would seem that the abuse is really the only reason to implement it to begin with, eh?
