Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Australian Christian Lobby's misleading press release on GetUp's "misleading" ad

GetUp was planning to run some satirical ads opposing the Australian government's proposed mandatory Internet filtering scheme on Qantas fights in Canberra. Qantas has now refused to run them, citing a long-term ban on running "political advertising". While Qantas and GetUp tussle over the exact definition of the term "political advertising", the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has put out a press release entitled "ACL Welcomes Qantas move to ditch misleading GetUp ad".

The supposedly "misleading" ad is not misleading at all. It is ACL who is being misleading in their press release. The ad itself briefly makes mention of Iran and the alleged cover-up of a rigged election there, prompting the response from the ACL:
We have been concerned that people might be responding to GetUp's plea for money to screen its ad because of the misleading claim that the Rudd Government's clean feed for kids election promise might lead to Iranian-style political repression,

Yet again, proponents of Internet censorship misleadingly try to dodge the real problem with Conroy's filter: that under his scheme, Internet censorship will be mandatory for adults. It is the ACL, not GetUp, who is misleading the public by trying to suggest otherwise.

I thought "Christians" weren't supposed to bear false witness?

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