The internet shouldn't be censored

Not if Australia is calling itself a country with free speech it shouldn't.

Originally the government were talking about making a 'black list' of illegal sites (you know, child porn, etc) and blocking them, however the black list somehow got out and there were many sites on there that weren't actually illegal.

There was outcry about it because, well, if they can block these sites, whats to stop them from blocking others? Where does it actually end? What's the line between a country with freedoma nd free speech and a country that is oppressed and doesn't.

Say, there's a site questioning the government and it's policies... whats to stop the government blocking that site?

This was earlier in the year and it's started up again now (I guess it probably didn't go away, it's just the government is now taking more steps towards it so it's being talked about a lot more) because they're going to introduce this legislation next year.

Now, I'm all for illegal sites, especially ones that promote serious crime, child pornography etc to be banned. I don't think anyone would actually argue that it's wrong to try and get rid of these sites.

But it's the fact that right now there's no clear line as to what the government will and wont be able to block.

They're saying that want to protect children from things, and fair enough. Kids these days know how to use computers, probably better than some adults (I've sat and watched a 2 year old work an iphone likes it's nothing. She can barely speak full sentences but knows exactly how an iphone works). But at the same time, parents do have to take some responsibility for what they're kids see online.

Just like, no one stops R-rated movies being made to 'protect the children' because people assume parents will stop their kids from seeing that sort of stuff. And parents can filter their own internet, so I find that argument quite invalid. If I parent isn't going to bother, they may have to deal with the fact that they're kid might stumble across something, whether accidentally, or out of curiosity (seriously, if when I was 9 years old there was a fascination in looking up things like sex etc in a dictionary, of course kids are going to be typing into google these days. It's a curiosity thing. Just that, a dictionary definition is a lot more harmless than the sites that can come up on google)

It's just the matter of where it actually stops. If they stick to only blocking illegal sites, then I'm for it. But the frustrating part is, it's hard to know that if we do willingly give the government this freedom (as in, if we don't try and fight it) there's not really any knowing how it might possibly be abused until it's too late.

That's why I'm mostly against it. The boundaries aren't clear enough, and yeah, truthfully I don't really trust the government enough to be able to trust that they'll stick to just blocking illegal sites (not when the original list had sites that weren't illegal on it). It just doesn't seem right that this could potentially mean we're heading to a era where we don't have the freedom to say what we want, especially since the internet has become such a forum for it and the epitome of free speech.