Posted by John, December 19th, 2009 - under Internet filter, reddit.

Tags: Australian politics, Censorship, Conroy

Reddit Australia quite rightly has a number of articles on Senator Conroy’s internet filter plans, almost all of them critical.

For those who don’t know, here in Australia our Labor Government is implementing a plan that will see ISPs block certain named sites because of their content.

The plan is to ban access to about 1,300 sites that show child pornography, bestiality, sexual violence or have instructions about committing crime.

An independent body will blacklist sites by refusing them classification. The public can make complaints to the body about a site.

In doing this Australia will be joining China and Iran among others in the internet filter club.

The US led war of terror against its enemies, big and small, around the world has had as one consequence a lessening of personal freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.

The internet filter is driven by the same mindset – to control our minds and make sure we don’t think dangerous thoughts. For Senator Conroy any thought that differs from his narrow world view is a dangerous thought.

For example sites advocating Palestinian resistance to the genocidal zionist regime could well be refused classification and access blocked for “inciting crime”. One can imagine pro-palestinian articles in Socialist Alternative being the subject of complaints to Conroy’s censors and the ISP being forced to block those articles, if not the whole magazine.

There is an irony in Reddit Australia running all these anti-censorship articles.

Reddit Australia has banned me from submitting links to my articles on their site. Every time I hit the submit button it comes up in bright red: forbidden (reddit.com)

Requests to the moderators of Reddit Australia have gone unanswered.

While Reddit politics and Reddit socialism publish my material, the fact that I am Australian and write often about Australian politics means the Reddit Australia ban impacts heavily on me and my ability to gain access to an Australian audience for my left wing ideas.

Reddit itself proclaims that ‘Reddit is a source for what’s new and popular on the web. Users like you provide all of the content and decide, through voting, what’s good ( ) and what’s junk ( ).’

Apparently that is not the case for my articles on Reddit Australia. They are presumably too left wing to be published.

The ban seems to have started after I submitted an article called Iraq’s butchers: truly the Anzacs of today.

In that article I made the point that the Iraq War walk past was ‘… an attempt to bring the Iraq invasion into the circle of national myth to ensure the next round of soldiers will gullibly march to war for Australian imperialism.’

So when you read about Conroy’s censorship plans, bear in mind that censorship is not just something the State does. The struggle for free speech is just as often against private as well as State interests.

Note: I got a response from one of the Reddit Australia moderators saying I had been banned for spamming my blog. Evidently submitting my own material is spamming. No other reddit site has yet used this as a reason to ban access to my material. In any event it just proves the point. An unelected moderator decides for whatever reason to ban my site and I am blocked automatically from submitting any material (not just my own.) No right of appeal. Not right to dispute the decision. It is just done. Very Senator Conroy, except that in the internet filter case people may at least have a right to challenge the decision. So more Conroy than Conroy.