about governments and individuals that feel the system administrators and ISPs should play a part in the restriction of the Internet. At a recent Content Summit in Germany gave way to new ideas about content restriction. The Bertelsmann Foundation of Germany proposed a set of self-regulations for Internet content. One of these regulations was that there should be codes of conduct for each ISP to operate by. If these codes are broken, the ISPs will have to suffer the consequences. David Frith states in his article that Australia is already trying procedures such as this. Rumors had been set that ISPs in Australia that did not block certain restricted content would face fines for every day they ignored the problem sites. This, however, is not true. Frith goes on to explain that ISPs have no possible way of being able to restrict all the problem sites that come through their servers. Content restriction in Australia has already been a huge problem as discussed by Rachel Chalmers. The Australian government has made laws on Internet content that are stricter than that of Malaysia and Singapore. Only three countries, China, Burma, and India, have stricter laws that Australia has adopted. Civil Libertarians are appalled by the recently passed Broadcasting Services Amendment. This bill basically calls for a proxy server that would block all illegal content for the entire nation. Senators say that this will help protect the country’s citizens. Civil groups, however, see it quite differently. They fell now that Australia is beginning to look like the “global village idiot.” Not only that, but such things as this proxy server will cause a decrease in the performance of the country’s Internet. With every side, however, there is an opposite. The opposing argument in this case is that of John Barlow. In an article he has written for Time, he gives clear reasons why censorship is actually going to damage the Internet, not make...
