In a webcast to over 700 churches and thousands of churchgoers, Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard has announced he is to spend $189 million of taxpayers’ money “cleaning up the internet”.
It is always worrying whenever politicians talk about the internet, and there is no reason to believe the initiative will be anything other than a total flop. As top US technology site TechDirt.com points out, none of the proposals will actually stop porn or stop predators on the internet. The Australian government instead will instead merely crowd out private sector security products. If it is as successful as the UK Government’s hopeless security service, ITsafe, it will just be taxpayers’ money down the drain.
Unfortunately, when politicians talk about the internet, it is normally designed to get good column inches in the following day’s papers - but doesn’t actually lead to anything constructive.
Tags: australia, john howard