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December 29, 2008
The Australian Minister Against Communications is not on his own in seeking to control what can and can't be done with the internet. The US has been toying with the idea for a while, and the UK is scouting around for an ISP-level solution that won't result in humiliation. It's hardly surprising that some would begin to suspect some kind of multi-government conspiracy against the people when the 'saving the kiddies' argument is so flawed.
Could the think of the children line simply be a smokescreen for repression of free speech? After all, I’m not exactly seeing protesters calling for repressive internet censorship anywhere in the world at the moment.
Could it be a play by big media to take back control of news gathering, or the movie and music industry to kill the internet so as to kill piracy (notably Burnham throws piracy into the mix).
And why left wing Governments? And more than one of them….at the same time, out of the blue.
A left wing conspiracy to kill the internet?
I know, far fetched, and a little loopy on the suggestion side, but we’re not getting the whole picture here, and something more than kiddies is driving this.
Comments sensibly point out that there's nothing left wing about it. Also in comments, Clarencegirl argues it's in the interests of corporate profits, which makes more sense:
This push to censor the Internet is nothing more than business wanting a bigger share of hyperspace or, more accurately, the profits that can flow from creating software/systems which are required to use the world wide web.
Censorship/security via filtering is a growing commercial opportunity that certain big IT companies are eager to get a piece of and, many are already actively lobbying for or privately supporting the government plans to legislate mandatory ISP-level filtering.
Mandatory filtering is also being supported by those companies which feel that sales and royalties are being lost due to file sharing.
A brief Google will bring up pages of IT companies selling programs capable of limiting what can be viewed or downloaded and many are apparently quite happy to encourage calls from religious and community groups to 'protect' children from the evil Net.
It's a fair argument, and there are others to play with as well.
Common knowledge has it that the Vietnam war would have gone altogether more splendidly if the ugly bits weren't broadcast into civilian living rooms every night. Embedding media with the good guys in Iraq should have solved this problem, but now you've got odd bits of citizenry describing civilian casualties to one another on the internet. It's hard to convince people everything's under control when you've got people on the ground in Mumbai tweeting and blogging contradictions to your official pronouncements about how fantastically well you handle your duty to protect citizens in such circumstances. And now Israel's idea of reasonable force is escaping its proper narrative confines.
Add to that the citizenry's newfound ability to organise dissent (what's the point of having a monopoly on violence if they won't leave their houses and mob in the streets?) and clearly something has to be done.
For people already doing the digital thing a digital economy is naturally emerging in its own chaotic way, with some following whatever is fashionable at the moment and others sticking with what works. But what makes anyone think this kind of thing is what Conroy has in mind when he uses the words digital economy? It's way more likely that he's talking about Microsoft's and Disney's and Warner Bros' version, which is altogether different.
When it comes to controlling the internet, the corporates and government both have an interest in McDonaldising it. Their chances don't appear to be all that good from a geekish point of view, which will probably burrow its way around whatever ISP nick nackery they come up with. But where the broader citizenry whose internet use is currently limited to banking, email and maybe Facebook is concerned, the internet must become an orderly reproduction of the offline status quo.
Conspiracy theory? Maybe. But maybe not.
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The production of distributed information content and the ability for small collectives to act politically was hailed as a major social impact of the net.
But for every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Within densely populated areas, wireless mesh can bypass government/business control, and if someone has the $$ for a satellite or microwave link to other meshes (something that will doubtless get cheaper over time), then a worldwide mesh might come about.
I wonder if the "save the kiddies" misdirectors even know about the use of meshes.