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November 12, 2008
I see that the Rudd Government is pressing ahead with its promise of protecting people from unwanted material. It has just called for expressions of interests from ISPs keen to participate in live trials of the proposed internet filtering system. The proposed filtering system is both a mandatory filtering of all "illegal material", and a second optional filter to block content deemed inappropriate for children, such as pornography. The claims by the Rudd Government that it is working within the boundaries of economic and political liberalism are undermined by mandatory filtering.
The justification for "mandatory" censorship is unclear---- Senator Conroy is going beyond Labor's election promise on this, as Labor had a policy of an optional filter for those who wanted it. We know that the first tier filters includes a blacklist of thousands of illegal web pages (a compulsory URL blacklist ) managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. We also know that Senator Conroy plans to extend the list in future -- to include terrorist material?
The definition of "illegal material" has been left vague, and presumably it is close to what the Australian Family Association and the Australian Christian Lobby define as inappropriate material, or what is needed to keep the internet safe for families. These moral panic social conservatives assume that unfettered access to the internet harms the fabric of Australian society and that anyone that does not want to be filtered, must be for the sexual abuse of children.
The pilot is only about technical implementation, and will not address freedom of speech concerns over what might be added to the blacklists in the future---the 'unwanted or inappropriate material.'
I guess it won't matter for the 2 million subscribers who remain on dial-up, despite the widespread availability of ADSL because their preference is not to pay for broadband; nor for the 25% of all households who do not have a computer. Nor does it matter to "clean feed" Conroy that mandatory ISP filtering inaccurately blocks content which should not be blocked; slows subscribers down even as he proposes to build a faster national network; reduces the ability of parents to adjust their filtering preferences to suit their own parental judgement about what is best for their children.
It is ineffective at inspecting or blocking “Peer to Peer” traffic that comprises over 60% of Australia’s Internet traffic; and is easily circumvented, either using a free web proxy, which acts as a middle man between you and the site you want to see, or an encrypted tunnel to the United States.
There seems to be little argument from the cultural conservatives for why there is a need to shift from a PC-based filtering system to an ISP one or little concern that a mandatory filtering system places Australia in the same basket as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. They misrepresent their critics as equating freedom of speech with watching child pornography. Mandatory filtering is another example of the social conservative's authoritarianism and antagonism towards individual freedom.
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I had low expectations of a Rudd Government so I did not expect to find myself disappointed at their behaviour. But I am.
Is there anything about this government that would not get the whole-hearted approval of B A Santamaria and the NCC? Looks like the DLP won in the end after all.