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Support Aussies in to say NO to censorship (and slow broadband)!

För att hjälpa Australiensarna nu med att behålla ett öppet internet, kommar jag att släppa in Moggs Oceanlane att gäst posta på min blog. "Take it away".

This is just a quick post from real life me and second life me asking friends, aquaintances and yes, even strangers who have passionate anti-censorship views to show support for Australians in the current campaign against centralised Internet Filtering/censorship.  AND ...  no, you don't need to be an Aussie to help raise awareness.

It can take as little as 5 minutes to show your support - or say NO to the Australian Government.

Yes, there was a lot of discussion in certain circles about this topic last year - there was a little noise but still, a lot of Australians are totally oblivious and the Government has taken a few more steps forward and is closer to making this a reality.

Last year when I posted, I received a few responses from fellow Aussies (or were they Ostriches?) saying, "It'll never happen, we are not Russia", "It's all scare mongering" and other such things. But here we are, in 2010, with the Government planning to put the proposal through Parliment - without providing any real response to some key questions that many Australian citizens have.

And ... if we were [like] Russia, we'd probably be better off.

You see the elite club that the Australian Government would have us join is China, Iran and Saudi Arabia - those are the countries that already have centralised Internet Filtering - scary huh? (and you know, we are meant to live in a democracy!!).

The filtering will not only limit what you have access to on the Internet but will significantly slow down the broadband network AND is likely to negatively impact the cost of your internet.

So what can you do to show your support?

• black out your online profile pictures (overlay your profile pics with a black layer)  and display the #nocleanfeedtext.  What will this do? It will hopefully help raise awareness in the media and amongst the general population who still haven't even realised this is now a very real possibility.  New Zealand carried out a blackout campaignwhich was quite effective, Australia hopes to do the same.
• Inform your friends via your social networks - if you tag your blogs or twitter posts use the tags nocleanfeed and if you wish, openinternet
• There's a petition you can sign - and yeah, it's not some shonky 'net petition - it's run by the Electronic Frontiers association who are very credible when it comes to online and digital rights
• and of course, you can write letters and more for a good list see the EFA what you can do to help list;  the great australian internet blackout website and thenocleanfeed.com website.

I am, of course, biased. I do not want my Government to dictate what I can see, do and read online and I do not want slower broadband or increased prices for Internet because the ISPs suddenly have a lot of new requirements... I urge you to do your own reading and make up your own mind- you'll find lots of information with a quick search on Google.

Search syntax example:
("internet filtering" OR nocleanfeed OR openinternet) Australia

And yes... this search is possibly biased but it will give you a starting point to come up with your own searches.

Smiles. Thanks for reading... I hope you'll feel the urge to show your support.

The implications of what could happen should this go ahead - and thinking about where Australia might be in a few years if it does are ... potentially horrifying.

- Moggs.

More related links:

• Google on mandatory ISP filtering in Australia - Wednesday, December 16, 2009
• Twitters - get a nocleanfeed twibbon
• My guest post on Ana Lutetia's blog
• Post on Boy Lane's Cool Viewer blog
• Post by ArminasX Saiman on his Second Effects Blog
• Post from Nimil Blagflag on her blog

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