Yes, Australia will have a mandatory ISP-level Internet censorship system. It was announced earlier today by Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy when he released the final report of the recent filtering trials.
According to the ABC News report, legislation will be introduced into Parliament next year which will require all ISPs to block material hosted in other countries which has been refused classification. That’s actualy not quite correct. It will block material which, in the opinion of an ACMA staff member, would potentially be refused classification if it were actually submitted to the Classification Board.
Provided, that is, that a concerned citizen went to the trouble of complaining about the material in the first place.
I’m still ploughing through the final report from Enex Testlab for a couple media articles I need to write tonight.
Meanwhile, have a listen to this 10-minute interview I did earlier today with Jason Jordan on Radio 6PR Perth.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:58 — 12.5MB)
[The radio interview is Copyright © 2009 Radio 6PR Perth Pty Ltd, but since they don’t archive these interviews it’s fair enough putting it here provided you just listen to it and I link back to 6PR and encourage you to listen. If you’re in Perth. Or if you want to stream it.]
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