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Greens Challenge New Internet Censorship Rules

The Federal Government is currently seeking to impose a new regime of internet censorship. The Minister for telecommunications, Steven Conroy is on record as being firmly committed to a mandatory filtering of the internet to Australian homes, schools and public computers. The scheme is currently being piloted voluntarily by a number of ISP's. This pilot is based on similar trials conducted in some European countries. Dubiously named the "Clean Feed", the minister claims that the scheme will better protect children from pornography and violent websites. The filter will consist of an initial blacklist of 1300 urls later being increased to 10,000 to cover sites that display prnography and other "unwanted material". It is the use of such a broad term such as "unwanted material" that is causing concern for Greens and other civil libertarians. According to Greens Senator Scott Ludlum this proposal raises serious questions relating to issues of freedom of speech, personal privacy, and the efficient functioning of the internet. Senator Ludlam used the opportunity of Senate question time to seek some clarification from Minister Stephen Conroy about the mandatory internet censorship proposal. (see video)

All of us want to see children protected from content that could be disturbing or harmful. The clean-feed filter is not a good way to go about this. Supporters of an open online environment believe that the proposed filter will do little to protect users from accessing illegal material, but will potentially slow down the internet. They argue that there is no problem to solve because actual illegal material on the Internet is so rare that nobody ever finds it and even if there was a problem to solve, there's no serious public demand to solve it and even if there was a public demand to solve it, none of the solutions proposed by the ALP will be effective.

See also Sky News Report


What do we know so far?

    * Filtering will be mandatory in all homes and schools across the country.
    * The clean feed will censor material that is "harmful and inappropriate" for children.
    * The filter will require a massive expansion of the ACMA's blacklist of prohibited content.
    * The Government wants to use dynamic filters of questionable accuracy that slow the internet down by an average of 30%.
    * The filtering will target legal as well as illegal material.
    * $44m has been budgeted for the implementation of this scheme so far.6
    * The clean-feed for children will be opt-out, but a second filter will be mandatory for all Internet users.7
    * A live pilot deployment is going ahead in the near future.

What we don't know is just as important.

    * What age level is the country's Internet to be made appropriate for? 15? 10? 5 years old?
    * Who decides what material is "appropriate" for Australians to see?
    * How are lists of "illegal" material compiled?
    * Who will maintain the blacklist of prohibited sites?
    * How can sites mistakenly added to the list be removed?