Comments on: The internet and being Aussie - on Australia Day

By: ALIA Board Blog » Blog Archive » The week ahead

ALIA Board Blog » Blog Archive » The week ahead — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:25:35 +0000

[…] our opposition to mandatory filtering and pulling together case studies and comments for the ALIA submission. Also catching up on Parliament too - and the positive and supportive comments by Senator Trood […]

By: bookbuster

bookbuster — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:31:01 +0000

If the illegal content is not hosted in Australia, how can the authorities accomplish its removal?

They contact the authorities in the host nation, or the hosting service itself. Few things are more universally despised than child pornographers; as a result you will find, almost without exception, that the material is brought down in a matter of hours - unless it’s being used to conduct a police sting operation. Arrests are made. On the other hand, it’s been demonstrated that adding material to the current ACMA blacklist can take upwards of legally-mandated two months. Even with a massive injection of funding to administer the new blacklist, I expect that timeframe would not improve as the number of complaints, particularly tricky requests made by politically motivated filtering opponents well versed in the peculiarities of our classification code and guidelines, soar.

Additionally, child abuse material appears on the web only rarely, typically briefly, and in particular circumstances. The vast majority of it is traded via encrypted peer-to-peer networks by people who are well aware of the illegality of what they do and no desire to be caught. As a result, filtering is utterly ineffective in this arena - the Australian Federal Police and various child protection and welfare organisations have said as much. The only solution is dedicated police work.

By: OzFenric

OzFenric — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:19:41 +0000

I think most reasonable persons - information workers included - agree that some form of control of internet content is supportable. As Harold says, illegal content ought to flag legal outcomes - if child pornography exists online, find those who produce and distribute it and treat them according to current law. Also under Australian law, the offending content should be removed from the internet. If the illegal content is not hosted in Australia, how can the authorities accomplish its removal? To protect Australians from this content, the filter would be designed to block access. Whilst the idea of censorship does rankle some of us, we should (reluctantly) accept that some mandatory filtering of content may be justified.
The biggest problem with the proposed filter, in my view, is not its existence but its opacity. Detractors have challenged its openness to abuse (e.g. suppression of websites critical to the current government); its potential for bias (e.g. blocking a site on homosexuality as being out of line with community standards); and its capacity for error (e.g. blocking sex education sites, or Queensland dentists. Certainly nobody likes dentists but they don’t deserve that…).
The proposed filter doesn’t just block sites, it does so invisibly. Internet users would have no way of telling that the content they want to access is blocked, or why. This leaves no visibility of the accuracy of the filter, and it leaves no recourse for those who have a valid reason to access content or who are adversely affected (such as Queensland dentists). A viable mandatory filter system ought at minimum to provide basic information about the site that has been blocked and the reasons for its suppression, and a system needs to be in place whereby such a filter can be challenged for any specific content.
A knee-jerk reaction to internet filtering serves nobody and puts information workers at odds with the majority of the Australian populace. We should instead be working to mitigate the risks and dangers of the filter so it can serve its valid purpose without endangering our “truly democratic society”.

By: Harold

Harold — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:20:10 +0000

Thank you very much for your post, but I would like to address one minor issue.

You suggest that illegal material should be reported to ACMA. I would contend that GENUINELY illegal material (such as child abuse material) should be reported directly to the Federal Police, not a broadcast regulator.

After all, if you witness a child kidnapped in the street, would you report it to the traffic authority?

While it is true that ACMA have a complaints form, it is really intended for “offensive” content, as evidenced by ACMA’s control over the old “Prohibited Content” list, which can contain material rated as low as MA15.