Austrasia, the new Republic of China

Australia is quickly following China's lead to implement Internet Censorship under the guise of protecting the children (my personal favourite).

“Censorship is quite an industry in China. Every village has spies to watch neighbors; the mail and the poster boards are watched, say expat Chinese. It is said (by dissidents) that China has 40,000 Web police hard at work just in Beijing, looking over the shoulders of Web users and composing lists of banned words that cause a Web search to freeze up or a site to automatically be blocked.”

The Australian government originally stated that the Internet Filter would be an opt out filter for porn, but like the proverbial frog in the boiling water, the Australian government has changed its mind.

"The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter. The plan was first created as a way to combat child pornography and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia".

Now, the government is going to block websites it deems unwanted, without actually explaining what unwanted content is.

"AUSTRALIA'S mandatory net filter is being primed to block 10,000 websites as part of a blacklist of unspecified "unwanted content". Some 1300 websites have already been identified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority."

Get involved in opposing the internet filter with No Clean Feed and Civil Liberties groups

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptccZze7VxQ

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Australia

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24645676-5006922,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24568137-2862,00.html