Is censorship of the internet and computer games in Australia a good thing?
Initally the Australian Government had intended to use internet censorship to prevent child porn from being viewed in Australia and to protect children from viewing content that was explicit or exceptionally hateful. However, it will now be used to censor online content that had not previously been properly discussed or defined such as online games. Australia is the only developed country without an R18+ classification for games, meaning any titles that do not meet the MA15+ standard – such as those with excessive violence or sexual content – are simply banned from sale by the Classification Board, unless they are modified to remove the offending content. This has resulted in numerous games being turned away from Australian shores and now threatens to stop online games that have not been classified from being played. This includes many notable online-only games such as World of Warcraft & Half-Life which can be refused classification due to a single player’s actions. The question is: I
