Australian Online Gambling Censorship Cause for Concern

February 11, 2010 | News Category: Online Casinos

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Australia has recently been in the news in connection with their censorship decisions regarding not only online gambling, but also in connection with pornography, or nudity, censorship.

As far as online casinos, and other online gambling establishments go, it is quite unclear as to when an online gambling site will be considered harmful, and therefore, censored, and when it will be considered unharmful. The Australian government has recently committed itself to censoring the Internet, and blocking any sites that they consider to be harmful.

Unfortunately, the decision as to what websites are considered harmful is being decided in a surprisingly non-democratic, and arbitrary way. The censor board consists of arbitrary officials. They are simply a group of bureaucratic employees who can decide which sites should be blocked, and which should not be blocked. The decisions are made by this small group of people, and are then enforced. Concerns would not be so great if there was a review system in place to check the decisions that have been made, however, there is no review, and there is not even an announcement made to the public. Once the board decides to block a site, it is simply blocked.

In a somewhat strange move, this board has managed to enrage many women, with a decision that they recently took. Although nudity is generally acceptable according to the board, they have now decided to ban any sites, or movies, that show women with small breasts. The Adult Classification Board has decided that nudity involving women wearing A-cups is simply a backhanded form of pedophilia. They have therefore decided to exclude websites containing these “offensive” images.

Apart from generally offending women, one might wonder why the online gambling community is concerned over this ban. The reason for concern is that this kind of censorship seems to be the beginning of a slippery slope. When a board brings up the idea that a concept is offensive, even though it had never been seen as such, one wonders where the censorship will stop, if ever. Who knows what will be considered offensive or dangerous tomorrow, if this is where things stand today.

One can always argue for or against any censorship, but surely censorship, if it is to be effective at all, should be open to review, and should hold up to public scrutiny. Arbitrary and subjective decisions should not be allowed to become government policy in Australia, or anywhere else.

One hopes that complaints from the public and Internet service providers will help to prevent this kind of censorship from continuing, and that reputable online gambling sites will not need to be concerned as to whether they may offend some official or not, and end up being banned along with images of small breasted women!