Reporters without Borders, a France-based organisation that, among other things, fights against censorship and laws that undermine press freedom, has written an open letter to Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, condemning communications minister Stephen Conroy's plan to introduce mandatory Internet filtering by ISPs.

 

In China, such practices are well publicized and long standing. However, Australia and France have quietly taken steps to adopt similar internet filtering, both on the grounds of piracyhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif" name="itxt-icon-77" style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline ! important; height: 10px; width: 10px; position: relative; top: 1px; left: 1px; float: none;" alt="" /> and child protection.

In Australia, the Labour party has defied critics on the left and right and repeatedly tried to enact legislation to censor the internet, filtering out what it deems harmfulwebsiteshttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif" name="itxt-icon-77" style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline ! important; height: 10px; width: 10px; position: relative; top: 1px; left: 1px; float: none;" alt="" /> such as those hosting content that depicted or condoned child exploitation.  Such legislation was considered to expensive and overreaching, and was shot down in 2008.

However, in December 2009, the legislation was reborn; this time the government agreed to public trials that would shape the final bill, raising its likelihood of approval.  Meanwhile, the government is pursuing other means to censor offensive material; the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) actively is using takedown notices and threats of fines to prevent Australian-hosted sites from linking to a blacklist of prohibited sites.