AIMS review of internet rules: less than required, more than expected

December 3, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Voices of the People 

by Cherian George, posted at journalism.sg
December 2nd, 2008

When I joined a group of bloggers lobbying for internet freedom, I abstained from one of my peers’ proposals: that the government end its symbolic ban on 100 pornographic and religious-extremist websites. I had no quarrel with my fellow bloggers’ logic. However, I feared that our proposal to un-ban the 100 sites would be exploited by our ideological opponents. They might paint our group as a decadent pro-pornography lobby, thus reducing whatever little chance that our other important proposals would receive fair hearing. Political prudence demanded that rationality and reason be suppressed, or so I thought.

You can imagine my pleasant surprise when the government-appointed AIMS panel suggested in its consultation paper, and now recommends in its final report today, that the government do away with the Banned 100. Sure, the proposal is packed with caveats: AIMS wants the ban lifted only after its proposed new Coordinating Agency for the Protection of Minors is satisfied that other measures, such as voluntary filtering by households, are working. Nevertheless, given my own discomfort with the bloggers’ unbanning proposal, I can hardly deny that the AIMS report is bolder on this point than I dared to expect.

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