Stu

There is no doubt that the internet has revolutionised every aspect of modern life. I could talk about the improvements the internet has brought us (such as free access to the sum of all human knowledge, and instant communication with anyone in the world), but in a blog post, I'd only begin to scratch the surface. A better question to ask is this: "Why is a Western government in 2008 taking us back to 1996, when a profound fear and ignorance of the internet was the status quo?" We know the filter won't work, but advice to that effect has only been ignored by Senator Stephen Conroy. Instead, every packet in Australia will be analysed by the government for approval, and in the process our digital economy, internet connectivity and online freedoms will be severely crippled. The blacklisting of Wikipedia by UK authorities in the last few days is a perfect example of this. It was reversed, however, when it was shown to be enormously counterproductive - the banned article became the most popular article by far, going from a few hundred views per hour to hundreds of thousands of views per hour. If the government is taking its responsibilities to the digital economy seriously, they will abandon this disastrous and internationally humiliating plan.