Week 9 - Response To Content ( The 'Clean Feed' )

What are the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the so-called "Clean Feed")

The Australian Government plans to limit what people can and cannot do over the internet. Part of their plan is to block illegal sites, hate speech and violence feeds from public eyes. (1) Illegal activities that will be blocked include sites where people can download music for free and pirating of movies. Other Legal but potentially unwanted sites will also be blocked from the internet due to the censoring. (2). The Government has also given up ‘internet speed’ to make this attempt at censoring the internet work. Even though a pilot test shows that internet access speed decreased by 86%. (1). It would seem that the Australian Government prefers their online usage slower but cleaner. The idea of the ‘clean feed’ was created to make the internet a safer and more secure environment for people, especially children. (2)

What place does censorship have in a democracy?

According to Oxford online dictionaries; democracy is a governmental system where representatives of state are elected by the public. (3). Censorship holds its place with the representatives that are proposing its effect. In Australia’s case the proposition lies with the Labour Party. (1). When a citizen votes for a specific party, they vote for the views and ideas held by said party. When Labour party was voted in by the majority, the idea of censorship was also voted in hence giving it a place in our democracy.  

1.  Bambauer, Derek E. 2008, ‘Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray into Internet Censorship (December 22, 2008).’ Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 125. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1319466

2.  Maurushat,  Alana, Wat,  Renee 2009, ‘Clean Feed: Australia’s Internet Filtering Proposal’, The Berkeley Electronic Press, paper 7. Available at: http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=unswwps&sei-redir=1#search=%22clean%20feed%20australia%22

3.  Online oxford dictionaries 2011, viewed at http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/democracy accessed on 23/09/2011.