Under current plans, Australia will be joining the likes of China by spending spend $50 million dollars on an official program of censoring the internet for anyone using a computer down under. Government officials had initially promised that citizens would be able to opt-out of the two-tiered system, but they have no reneged on that promise. The first tier, which internet users would not be able to opt out of, would block all "illegal material".
The second tier, which is still optional, would filter out content deemed inappropriate for children, such as pornography. But neither filter tier will be capable of censoring content obtained over peer-to-peer file sharing networks, which account for an estimated 60 per cent of internet traffic.
To make matters worse, it has been reported that the Australian Government is attempting to silence critics of its controversial internet censorship plan, which experts say will break the internet while doing little to stop people from accessing illegal material such as child pornography. Internet providers and the government's own tests have found that presently available filters are not capable of adequately distinguishing between legal and illegal content and can degrade internet speeds by up to 86 per cent.
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