The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) just got sillier.
Last week ACMA banned a post on the Whirlpool forum because it linked to a banned page that the Whirlpool poster has asked AMCA to ban – a page that had nothing to do with child pornography and had a public interest defense (anti-Abortion advocacy).
This week, ACMA banned a page on the anti-censorship website Wikileaks. But Wikileaks is hosted outside Australia, so ACMA can’t order a take down. Consequently, the page that ACMA banned for Australians is still on the web. So, peevishly, ACMA is threatening every Australian who links to that page with an $11,000 per day fine. Ouch!
What to make, then of the fact that the URL of the offending page is available to the public via AMCA’s own website? Should ACMA fine itself? Let’s hope.
The page on the ACMA website that contains material banned by ACMA
One consequence of this latest nonsense must surely be to pursuade yet more Australians to host their websites overseas, safely out of reach of the kind of totalitarian capers that hit Whirpool last week, when pressure was exerted via its Australian-based webhost.
Is Australian Communications Minister Senator Conroy a foreign agent? Certainly, he behaves like he has a personal vendetta against the quality of Australian communications.
The whole Conroy Affair has gone on too long. Far too many episodes! It’s amusing, yes, but increasingly in a tragic way. It’s become like a long-running comedy show after exhaustion sets in. Australia really does need to snap out of it and get on with real life.
Acma Banned Webpage v.2: the same URL - by the time I'd finished this article!
Time to fix this, Mr Rudd! Within months you may have spawned scores of anti-censorship independents. Fancy that at the next election?
You can only fool some of the people some of the time.
On this occasion, you missed out.
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