As reported here, authorities in Sydney claim that by having the “blacklist” leaked, it will ‘”the concerned parent’s worst nightmare” as curious children would inevitably seek it out.’.
Oh come on! Kids can find anything they want anyways. I certainly could when I was younger – and it didn’t require the internet. Encyclopedias, libraries, talking to people. The list goes on and on.
Back to the article, ” half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.”
Fortunately there is [some] sanity in Australia, though – ‘”The Australian democracy must not be permitted to sleep with this loaded gun. This week saw Australia joining China and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries censoring Wikileaks.”‘
For such an otherwise [mostly] pro-democracy nation, Australia really bolloxed it up here.
‘”Adult supervision is the most effective way of keeping children safe online and people shouldn’t be led into believing by Labor that expanded blacklists or mandatory filters are a substitute for that.”‘ Right. That makes sense, and always applies.
On a related note, it’s funny that they compare the blacklist to a loaded gun, since fireams are [effectively] banned in the country, too. And like banning information, banning guns hasn’t dropped the crime rate – criminals still have them.
The piece de resistance, though, is this quote, “No one interested in cyber safety would condone the leaking of this list.” Huh? The list has nothing to do with “cyber safety”. It’s an attempt to control information, and a poor one at that. Blocking 2500 sites does nothing to the other 38 million “unsavory” ones out there.
Remind me to not move to Australia.