Australia One Step Away From Becoming An “Internet Enemy”

International journalist advocate body Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) has put Australia on an “under surveillance” list of countries with increasingly rigorous control over Internet information flows.

The addition puts Australia in company with South Korea, Malaysia, Turkey and several other countries in a group that sits just below RSF’s “Internet Enemies” list, which hosts 12 of the usual suspects including Iran, North Korea, Burma and China.

Australia’s inclusion is based on the following:

Under the guise of fighting child pornography, the government wants to set up a filtering system never before seen in a democracy. The State of South Australia has passed a law prohibiting online anonymity in an electoral context.

With Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey joining the calls for the Internet Filter to be stopped and now an International reporting organisation joining the cause too, it’s starting to feel like the No Clean Feed message is getting some real heavyweights behind it.

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Hopefully, this is just one more step on the path to making the Government understand the proposed filtering system needs to be reviewed as a matter of urgency.