Clean feeds

"Last week, in an otherwise sleepy Senate Estimates session, Greens senator Scott Ludlum asked fellow senator and Minister for Communication Stephen Conroy a series of questions about the Government's proposal to 'filter' the internet sites Australians can view. As Ludlum thrust and Conroy parried, neither suspected their tussle would ignite mass action. But, like a landmine buried just below the scene of their affray, the whole thing has suddenly blown up.

"Campaigns have been launched, protests planned, reports filed throughout the broadcast media. Conroy now faces a rising chorus of complaints from backbenchers who suddenly find themselves deluged with emails from constituents.

"All of this is due principally to the emergence of a new kind of connectivity, the 'social message service'. Typified by Twitter, a web service now mushrooming in popularity, these social message services allow you to subscribe to messages from your friends, while your friends can 'follow' you and receive your messages. Across dense webs of interconnections (with many people all reading the messages of one another, forwarding the best messages along, etc.)

"Twitter has become a bit of an early warning system ..."
Source

See this item at Wilson's Blogmanac for background to Sen. Conroy's crazy plans to 'clean up' the Internet. See also the rather frightening Countrywide inet filters launched in Australia.

See also an articulate attack on Australia's misguided plan on Net censorship here at YouTube. (Lid dip to Nora from Extra! Extra!)

Categories: internet, australia, civil-rights, censorship, authoritarianism, social-network