Less Than A Third Of Australia's Censor List Actually About Underage Images

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the moral-panic-for-censorship dept

For years and years and years, the Australian government has been looking to come up with a rationale for censoring the internet. The most recent plan has gone through some hiccups with mass protests. But, of course, the gov’t has continued to push on, claiming that such a censored blacklist is important to stop child porn. Except… a few months back, the censored list was leaked, and a review of the list now shows that less than 32% of the sites were actually about child porn (via Michael Scott).

This is one of the (many) reasons why such secret blacklists are always a bad idea. Given the opportunity to censor content, it’s too tempting not to expand the list with general stuff the censors “don’t like” rather than the actual intended purpose of the list. And that, of course, is why gov’ts always insist that such lists should be secret rather than publicly reviewable. Of course, it’s worth noting that as part of the admission that the list has such a small percentage of what was supposed to make up the entire list, the Australian government says that it’s having the police look into the leak of the list. Why? The only thing the leak exposed was how the gov’t was lying to the public. That shouldn’t be illegal. That should be welcomed whistle-blowing of gov’t abuse.

Filed Under: abuse, australia, censorship, filters