Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day
The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.
Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark's list of banned websites.
The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA - an anti-abortion website.
ACMA's blacklist does not have a significant impact on web browsing by Australians today but sites contained on it will be blocked for everyone if the Federal Government implements its mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme.
Not much to say about this, run of the mill fascism. Let’s be clear here, the government has added a political thorn in its side to the list of sides which are banned, it also added an anti-abortion site. So this is censorship of views the political party on power agrees with. What could be the political orientation of the current Australian government be? Hmm, I took my guesses but looked it up as well.
The Australian Labor Party. Who are affiliated with Socialists International. Yup, I win. I give myself a hi-five and freedom dies some more. Let’s file this away under the “the threat to freedom comes from the left” case shall we?
Freedom of speech means nothing if it does not mean the freedom to speak and hear unpopular views.
Watch Hitchens for more:
Posted on: Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:43 AM