I've blogged before on the Great Australian Firewall - this being the plans of the Australian Government to take concepts of child protection to the extent of internet filtering to levels seen in (for example) China. The whole process got rather murky with the release of the details of banned sites via Wikileaks.
Now, The Register reports (Great Australian Firewall to censor online games) that as one might predict the repertoire of websites deemed unsuitable will include those offering games rated as suitable for over-15s (because Australia doesn't have a game certificate for 18+). Colin Jacobs of Electronic Frontiers Australia is quotes as saying:
This is confirmation that the scope of the mandatory censorship scheme will keep on creeping. Far from being the ultimate weapon against child abuse, it now will officially censor content deemed too controversial for a 15-year-old. In a free country like ours, do we really need the government to step in and save us from racy web games.
Indeed. And where will function creep take the Australians next? And we in the UK need to watch out for expansion of the IWF's net nannying.
Ars Technica has an excellent article on this story - Australian 'Net filter to block video games, too