It’s one thing to introduce Internet censorship in Australia. It’s Nazi like at the basics. But in the last few days the media, led by News Corp is pushing this country into the dark days of fascism.
The target is Facebook, as I wrote yesterday. But the scope continues to get darker.
Let me say upfront that I believe that the attacks of the two dead kiddie sites, and the sick Daniel Morcombe page is wrong.
However, the response is more wrong.
There’s a push here now to censor the sites where these things happen. There’s very little interest in tracking down those that wrote those things, well, presuming they did something illegal. In context, most didn’t. Sure, a lot was offensive, but illegal activity was with the minority.
As I’m watching Sky News before I go to bed, I hear that there will be a “crack down” on such sites. The part ownership in Sky News from News Corp of course is never disclosed, and it’s key, because News Corp owns MySpace, Facebook’s biggest competitor. But that’s irrelevant in an Australian context (well, some what) because the pollies are gunning as well.
As I said in the aforementioned post, the only way what is being called for could be implemented was with pre-approval of all content; and that would kill free speech and social media in Australia.
I’d excuse the media to some extent, except that the obsession by News Corp vs Fairfax is so obvious: News Corp is gunning for a change, and it shows in the attention.
One only needs to read the past history of News Corp (News Ltd locally) in politics to know their influence. Things may have changed, but News Corp, as the biggest publisher here has always had their ear on changes; that we’re reading this is fore warning of a change to come.
It is in Australia the end of days when it comes to free speech.
I’ve always been a proud Australian. When I’ve traveled overseas, I’ve always thought of home and never though of moving off shore. Ever. Not once, despite the advantages moving might present.
But today I’m worried about the future of this country. Internet censorship is bad enough, but the mood led by the media here is now scary. Indeed, more than scary.
A story I may have once told here: I wanted to be an historian when I was young, but realised that there was no money in it. I then thought I wanted to enter the law, but missed out score wise when I left high school. But I never gave up my interest in history. I still read it extensively, particularly my high school specialisation: inter-war. I’ve also read extensively in WW1 and WW2 history. And I still do. That doesn’t make me an expert, and I’ve been tempted recently to go back to Uni to get a BA in History…and I might still do so.
But I’ve read enough to get my head around the failures of the past. My sons school has a saying: to understand where we are going, we must understand where we have been. In this country, the population seems blind to the past globally, and may allow the mistakes of the past to happen here again.
Am I really going overboard? In the past month, Conroy has attempted to censor YouTube AND Facebook, on top of the general evil that will be the Great Firewall of Australia.
Seriously, think me a nutter, but can you really believe that the Australian Government’s attempts to censor YouTube and Facebook are a good thing?
The dark days are here. It started with the firewall, and now it extends into social networking. What next? what next will the Government target? Already Conroy’s lies about it all being about kiddie porn have been exposed: it’s not just games as well, he’s now gunning for Facebook, and on top of that, his comments on the iiNet case would suggest that copyright is next. Soon, China and Iran may look like minnows in the censorship stakes, and most Australians will stand by and let this happen. If I could move with my son (and I can’t, custody issues post divorce) I’d consider it. This once proud, free country is heading into the dark days of fascism.
