So, apparently this year is an election year, and we’ll be forced to choose between the policies of Rudd and Abbott. But whatever happens, it is going to be full of crazy stuff, because election years always are.
Unfortunately, some of the crazy stuff is likely to go beyond ordinary crazy, and be crazily bad. One example is the proposed Internet filter. It must appeal to voters in key marginal seats, or something, because it’s hard to see any good reason to introduce such a thing.
On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons why it would be a terrible idea. If this is an issue you care about, you’ve heard them already, so I won’t rehash them here. Although, today Senator Conroy publicly released the submissions that various people and companies made on the proposal, and it was clear that there was wide condemnation that the proposal was unworkable, ineffectual and would prevent legitimate uses.
Since I’m not able to effectively fight against it myself, I’ve donated some money to the EFA (Electronic Frontiers Australia) to go into bat for me. They make it more likely that we’ll all have the freedom to use the Internet unencumbered by crazy stuff like filters. The EFA is a volunteer-run organisation that survives on donations and is currently running a fund-raising campaign. This is just a free plug to say: help them out and they’ll help us all out.