What people are mostly overlooking is why the censorship. Why did China censor their internet?

The reason for internet censorship in China is to prevent freedom of speach and ideas. To prevent disent in the communist government, and for the government to have control over what the people see and read.

Are the Australian government plans to do the same to Australians? In theory, our government is supposed to govern for the people through listening to the people. Unfortuneately there are thoise in governmnet that are of the minority that will use their power to force their will on others - this can NOT happen.

As it has already been pointed out, no matter what the government does to try and stop the actions of a very minor minority, this same minority will find ways around the government's actions at the cost of loss of freedom of choice and speach of the mainstay of the population. I for one am not a sheep and value my individuality, my freedom of choice and my freedom of speach.

This website could easily be blacklisted by the government under communist censorship laws because a few politicians don't like what is said. Think about that.

If Govt censorship can be narrowed to child porn and the like ,well and good,but who is going to watch the censors?Do we also have a private body involved to keep them honest?

I, as a family therapist, am tired of the devastation on individuals and families from Internet pornography and gambling.

Go for it, Mr. Rudd and company! This is your chance to help save some families from the horror of sexual abuse, paedophilia, financial devastation, and severe family conflict from problem gambling.

Ozspen,

If you are interested in stopping internet gambling, there is a simple way to do this without all the trouble and cost of internet filtering. All you do is to amend the banking act to provide that any person whose credit card is debited by an overseas gambling site shall be entitled to have the debit reversed. The result will be that no overseas gambling site will allow an Australian player to gamble with them.

The fact that this has not been done shows how spurious and misleading the government's actions are. What they want is control.

A couple of weeks ago the young nerd at my computer store informed me that 50-60% of Internet traffic is porn-related. I have no idea how accurate that figure is, nor what proportion of it might constitute kiddie porn.

I agree that the proposals seem overly draconian, and while I wouldn't label them "communist", I think they're way over the top - particularly since they won't stop serious Internet criminals anyway.

I'm becoming increasingly concerned at the ways that our freedom of speech are being eroded lately. We should resist this sh!t - how about an OLO-based petition?

Kiddie porn peddlers do not post their wares on open websites. These censorship proposals will do nothing, NOTHING, to stop that sort of behaviour. Peer to peer file sharing will not (cannot) be filtered. All this will do is slow down your download speed and enable the 'security'overseers access to what you're looking at.

What really strikes me as odd, is that all the fundies that believe in the coming 'end of days' and fear oppression at the hands of an Antichrist, will quite happily build and hand over all the tools needed to enable such oppression in the name of morality. How stupid is that?

While I don't believe in the Antichrist, I do believe in freedom, and this ain't it. Not by a long shot.