Australia has recently been added to the list of countries ”under surveillance” in relation to internet censorship. It was published in a recent report released by a media rights group based in France called “Reporters without borders“. Along with Australia the other countries under surveillance include Bahrain, Belarus, Eritrea, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
A senior manager of Google, David Drummond has recently commented on Censorship around the world, he says , “there is an”alarming trend” of government interference in online freedom, not only in countries that are judged to have poor human rights records”. In my view Australia is the country that sticks out in this “under surveillance” list. Australia is the only real western democracy on the list, and most of the other countries have a poor human rights record and oppressive governments. It’s no wonder that Australia has caught the eye of a critical international audience.
Google has also recently refused to censor YouTube videos in Australia . The Australian Government requested that Google censor any YouTube videos that come under the refused classification content rules. Google believe that such censorship would be a threat to democracy.
International interest in this issue continues to grow. Attacks by Anonymous (see earlier blog post on censorship), Google taking a stance against the issue, Reporters without borders publishing Australia as a country “under surveillance”, What will be the next saga in this ever-growing topic?
further reading
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/12/2843865.htm
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