The new Labor Government's plan to require all Australian internet service providers to provide a "clean" feed to households and schools, free of pornography and other "inappropriate" material, which I blogged about on Monday (see here), has received some negative media attention in today's papers. In one such article in The Australian, the Internet Industry Association spokesman Peter Coroneos is quoted:
Internet Industry Association spokesman Peter Coroneos said the industry is working closely with the Government on the policy to be trialled later this year.
But he warned it could never be completely successful in blocking access to all pornographic sites, just the ones on the blacklist.
If new sites were launched that were not included on the blacklist the clean feed would not restrict access to them, he said. "You've got to be aware of the fallibility of the approach," he warned.
There were millions of pornographic websites and if all of them were included in the blacklist "there is a potential for slow downs in access to occur", he said.
"The more sites you attempt to block the greater the effect on the network performance and speed," he said.
This is because every time you type a request into your search engine it will have to be checked against all the sites on the blacklist, he said.
In Britain where a clean feed policy is being pursued, only between 200 and 1000 child pornography sites have been included on a blacklist.
But if Australia insisted on including millions of general pornography sites and others that include violence it could undermine internet users' speed of access to websites, Mr Coroneos said.
A 2005 pilot study carried out by the former Howard government found a clean feed approach could cut down speed of accessing the internet by between 18 to 78 per cent depending on what was being blocked.
Read more here. In another article in The Australian, Dr Roger Clarke, chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation, bluntly describes the proposal as "stupid and inappropriate":
"Not only will it not work, it is quite dangerous to let the Government censor the net and take control out of the hands of parents," Clarke said.
"It is an inappropriate thing for them to be doing. Mr Conroy is like a schoolmaster playing god with the Australian population, all because of the dominance of a moral minority."
...
One problem for the Government is that blocking child porn may unintentionally block acceptable sites.
The history of the internet is full of such examples; one blogger found that, due to spamware set to block ads for sex drug Cialis, he was unable to publish the word "socialist".
Another problem, according to civil libertarians, is that policing the net should be left to parents - not a big brother-style bureaucracy.
And, if it is disingenuous to compare Labor's policy to China's malevolent control over web access to its citizens, it is equally disingenuous of Rudd's Government to claim the issue simply relates to child pornography.
There are genuine concerns that the Government - backed by morals groups like Family First - will in time extend the powers outside of their intended target area.
Also of concern is that, under the Government's plan, users would be permitted to "opt out" of the scheme - and might therefore find themselves listed as possible deviants.
Read more here. The Sydney Morning Herald also raises concerns from civil libertarians:
Labor's plan to introduce mandatory internet filters will send Australia down a censorship path similar to China's and Singapore's, but will not stop computer-savvy children looking at banned sites, according to the NSW Council for Civil Liberties.
The council's vice-president, David Bernie, said the Federal Government plan was political grandstanding. It would force users to ask internet service providers to lift a block on extremely violent and pornographic sites.
"It is a gimmick," Mr Bernie said. "It's been sold to the public as protecting children from pornography but what is dangerous about these filters is that parents will think their children can't access pornography on the internet when in fact they can.
"Anybody who's computer-savvy can work their way around these filters in about two minutes maximum," he said.
Mr Bernie said the filters would lull parents into a false sense of security and discourage them from monitoring their children's internet activities. Only adults would be restricted by the filters, he said.
"Will there be some database of people who want to access adult pornography, which is legal in most democratic countries?"
"It has serious implications for freedom of expression. When you start filtering material on political grounds - even if the material is objectionable or quite awful - we're heading in the same direction as China and Singapore."
Read more here.
These articles in the mainstream media certainly reflect the attitude of Australia's online community. Over the past 48 hours, I have received several angry emails, it is has been recurring theme on Twitter, two Facebook groups have been set up opposing the plan - People against mandatory internet filters in Australia (currently 127 members) and Australian ISP filtering plan is stupid! (currently 77 members), and there have been numerous blog posts criticising the plan, including:
- New Govt same as the old (may be worse) on Larvatus Prodeo;
- Stephen Conroy storms into censorship teacup from Tinfinger;
- Compulsory ISP Level Filtering from James Purser;
- Conroy Lays the First Brick in the Great Firewall of Australia from deswalsh.com.
While I have my share of concerns about this proposal (as I outlined on on Monday - see here), I would make two further observations.
First, we do not know the details of this policy. The details may alleviate some of the concerns and ultimately make some of the more vitriolic rants against this plan seem to be dramatic overreactions.
Second, I have no doubt that this plan would have the overwhelming support of the Australian people. Most people would like pornography and other inappropriate material to be unavailable to their children (and to them for that matter), and would not be concerned about the big brother arguments relating to opting-out or the slippery slope of censorship. And maybe they are right. I disagree with that attitude, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm sure the Government is acting in good faith and would have the support of the Australian people.
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