Will Australia Censor Online Poker and Online Gambling?

Australia's new federal Labor government has introduced controversial Internet legislation, proposing censorship laws to stop computer-savvy children from looking at banned sites, including online gambling (including online poker and casinos) and pornography.

Australian Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy on December 31st announced a requirement for ISPs to provide a 'clean feed' for all homes, schools and any public PCs accessible by children. The feeds will exclude any age-restricted content.

According to the initiative, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will decide what gets filtered out.

This follows up on a pre-election Nov. 19th Labor Party press release which first announced a proposed Cyber-safety plan, causing critics to compare the direction with that of China's censorship policy.

Conroy stated in a press conference, "Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road. If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."

Notably, unlike China, Australians can choose to 'opt-out' and NOT receive the censored feed.

A Labor government spokesmen justified the new rules, which are due to come into effect January 20, claiming that the previous government's proposal of supplying free NetNanny software to all households who wanted it did not go far enough to protect children.

One group said the rules were ineffective, as "Anybody who's computer-savvy can work their way around these filters in about two minutes maximum."

Australian IT expert Sue Dunlevy also criticized the legislation, saying it will slow down performance of Australia's internet, which is in direct conflict with Rudd's pre-election promises to speed up Australia's Internet.

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