Is the Labor Governments censorship/blocking plan like censorship in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran?
Yes, notwithstanding that Senator Conroy has tried to distance the Labor Government’s censorship ‘plan’ from government policy in such countries. The Labor Government (and prior Australian governments) have long been sensitive to comparisons with censorship policies of repressive/authoritarian governments. Demonstrating this, in December 2008 Senator Conroy attempted to distance the Labor Government’s censorship/blocking ‘plan’ from such comparisons: [T]he Government does not view the ISP filtering debate as an argument about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is fundamentally important in a democratic society and there was never any suggestion that the Australian Government would seek to block political content. In this context, claims that the Government’s policy is analogous to the approach taken by countries such as Iran, China and Saudi Arabia are not justified. For many years, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has had the power to issue a ‘take-down’ noti
