Not sure if anyone is aware of the censorship currently going down in Australia; basically one of the politicians is trying to get a content filter set up, mandatory in nature, that blocks certain graphic content. Right now it's not entirely disagreeable but the reality is that it's a huge step backwards for internet censorship, even though the list consists mostly on blocking pornography of small breasted women, female "squirting," and hentai. This is done under the guise that they're doing it to filter out child pornography.

In spite of the fact that I act like an idiot on here, I'm all for seeing child porn taken off the web. But the censorship has already markedly spread from pornographic material; they're also blacklisting websites related to drug use, last I checked. These websites are not encouraging drug use, but rather showing individuals how to safely use drugs in a fashion that is not immediately harmful to their person. If you care a lot about free speech or freedom to information, this should probably concern you.

Furthermore, these content filters are starting to go up in a lot of countries. France apparently recently enacted a working filter, and Germany had legislation in the works. I don't know the detail of those filters but even if it's under a supposedly noble guise (i.e. taking 12chan down), it seems to be a great way to try to circumvent actually catching the pedophiles and sex offenders.

To those particularly e-savvy, you probably know that my opening post is so titled because of the recent string of DDoS attacks that Aussies leveled against their own government website (though probably 75% of that was bored white American kids, if we're being realistic). Obviously this didn't do much (except encourage more media attention), but now the anons and other groups doing this are moving towards real life protesting, now dubbed Project Freeweb (smells like Chanology).

I'm not sure I particularly care about the DDoS because they never accomplish anything but mild annoyance (or brb, soup), but I am sort of curious what a forum mostly consisting of (mostly) non-channers has to think about people actually protesting this legislation, etc. I haven't gotten involved but it's sort of funny to watch, but I am pretty leery about e-censorship enacted by governments. Any opinions, or am I just wasting my time here?

Personally I didn't care about it that much until I heard they were "extending" the censorship to websites promoting safe drug use. I'm not a druggie, but that just crossed some sort of line for me.

Well, to be honest, I can even understand people being ticked off about the issue with content. I mean, they are literally banning "small breasted women". What...? I know the industry isn't well known for its feminist roots but it somehow seems wrong to ban people for not having disgusting implants or something.

And the censorship allllways spreads. It'll be pr0n & drugs, but then it ends up applying to other stuff before you know it.