Australia a model example of Western censorship protecting children

Australia’s attempts to move ahead with internet censorship may have given other Western democracies the excuse they need to censor the internet in their countries as well.

The UK Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, has proposed a system of website ratings similar to the way films are classified. It sounds somewhat sensible but he also believes that there are things that just should not be available at all and that these should be blocked. Sound familiar?

I like the idea of website ratings, it’s far less authoritarian than Stephen Conroy’s plan. Website ratings is one of the solutions that Lawrence Lessig looks at in “Code Version 2.0″, as is the idea of a special HTML tag in which website developers must wrap material deemed “harmful to minors”.

Burnham pays lip service to the idea of parental involvement. He says the ratings system will allow parents to know what level of material their kids are browsing. Of course, that knowledge is no substitute for the parents actually supervising their kids online.

These attempts by government to interfere with the internet are, according to Burnham, something that the original designers of the internet explicitly tried to avoid. Net neutrality and a free and open internet are necessary, I believe. Burnham believes that we need to revisit those assumptions of neutrality in order to “protect kids”. I hope Conroy’s plan fails, I hope Burnham abandons his plans and I hope Barack Obama doesn’t listen to what Burnham has to say.