The Rant-O-Matic

The proposed mandatory government internet filter has been under constant fire since it was first proposed – not just from me, but pretty much every other technically proficient, free and rational thinking person in the country.  The idea that there would be a secret, government controlled list of websites that couldn’t be accessed by anyone within our boarders was an idea so frightening and so Orwellian that you just have to question what the government was thinking when they decided that this was a good idea.  At best, this is another reactionary policy by a government that doesn’t understand how the internet works and at worst it’s a direct assault on an adult’s right to experience content of an adult nature.  While I agree whole-heartedly that child pornography is utterly abhorrent and that children need to be protected from material that isn’t suitable on them, it is not my opinion that such a broad-stroke measure is the best, or even an effective, way to do it.

The first place where the government filter falls down is the most important one: it doesn’t work in the area of actually stopping the distribution of illegal (so, RC content, in this case) content.  In its current form, the proposed mandatory filter would only block certain websites.  Now, as any good net denizen would know if you want something illegal you rarely head to a website to download it.  You use alternate, much more anonymous means.  Anyone who remembers where the whole illegal file trading thing start (jump in your ‘way-back machine’ if you have to, it was 1999 after all) it wasn’t by downloading music of a website, it was by trading it directly with other people on the internet; and guess what? Peer-to-peer file trading won’t be filtered under the government’s proposal.  So straight up, it’s going to miss the means through which the vast majority of illegal material is traded between those that partake in such things.

Secondly, just what does having a blacklist of sites do about stopping the original photographing and filming of child pornography?  Because, you know, this is what we’re protecting the children from.  I’ll tell you: absolutely nothing.  In fact (he says, turning on his talk-back radio voice), isn’t then logical to suggest that if you make the material harder to find online, that could drive these disgusting people out into society to molest more children there.  Hardly a suitable side-effect, you’d think? A black list isn’t going to cut down on the amount of child pornography on the internet, it’s not going to stop the sick fucks that make and enjoy it.  It’s not going to protect children from paedophiles.  It’s not going to help police track down these sick fucks.  Just how, exactly, is this saving the children?

Thirdly, even if, in some bizarre and hypothetical world, it did do all of the above: it’s piss-easy to bypass.  Anyone with anything more than basic brain-function is capable of easily finding a way around the filter and the using that knowledge to bypass it and access the content anyway.  Not to mention, that once the filter is in place, information about bypassing it will go from being of interest to the more techy of people straight into the mainstream as the public at large revolts at being intentionally blocked from accessing the entire internet.  I firmly believe this will happen regardless of the persons intentions (nefarious or otherwise) when bypassing the filter.

However (!!), having a program that can stop children stumbling across things those things that are not suitable for them to be viewing is, of course, a good thing.  Children shouldn’t be watching hard-core pornography; they should be viewing things that are extremely graphic and violent.  Such a policy is a no-brainer.  That said, parents (you know, those people that got together and brought a child into the world) are the ones that should be responsible for raising their children.  Not society at large.  What I do, in my home, that doesn’t affect anyone else, should not be restricted because it’s not suitable for a child.  That’s just absurd.

What’s most irritating about the proposed filter is that fixing it, and appeasing everyone, isn’t really that hard.  There are only a few simple things that need to change to make it a brilliant piece of governance rather than the stupid, “we really don’t know what we’re doing” one that it is currently.

Obviously, the best thing to do is change this policy from one that is mandatory to one that is optional.  Make it compulsory for ISPs to offer the filtering and an optional (opt-in) choice for consumers when they sign up for internet service.  This works in two ways.  First, it allows the parents of young children to subscribe to the filter and prohibit their children from accessing content that’s not for them.  Secondly, it allows people with no children (or parents that have a bit of a clue about what their children are doing online) to surf the internet unrestricted.

The other thing that would go a long way to at least alleviating some concerns about the content and scope of the filter would be to make the contents of it public knowledge.  In its current form, the contents of the black list are kept secret by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (the regulatory arm of Stephen Conroy’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy).  This is a problem on two fronts.  First; there’s no public accountability.  If your site ends up on the blacklist you probably won’t know it.  There’s no way to find out.  Secondly, it leaves a gaping wide hole open for abuse further down the track by either this government, or another one.  It’s not a stretch to imagine a government using a secret black list to censor free-speech by blocking critics or anyone they didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with.  In a free and democratic society that is just not acceptable.

If the list was open and available, not only would it allay concerns of abuse.  If anyone and everyone could see the list then mistakes and misclassifications would be quickly identified and remedied.  There’s no argument that this would improve the accuracy of, and the trust in, the list.  They say that the list will only contain material that has been refused classification (RC) by the Classification Review Board.  While everything else that is classified (or not) is announced and the reasons for the classification are publically available, the black list isn’t.  While the double standard is one thing, knowing what the Chinese government does in that country makes a secret internet list so much worse.  If you’re going to classify the internet  the same way you classify books, movies, television and magazines then you should do all of it the same: including disclosure.

Finally, where’s the plan to educate parents about the dangers of the internet and how best to make sure that their children practise safe online behaviour?  Parents should be the one’s looking after their children.  They should be the ones looking over their shoulder and protecting them from the nastier, more naked, side of the internet.  It shouldn’t fall on a blanket ban to make sure this is the case.  Parents should be educated and informed and taught how to protect their children and make sure that they’re raised to be safe citizens of the internet.

Protecting children isn’t hard.  Any fool should be able to see that the current government proposal fails across the board at what it’s supposedly sets out to do.  It doesn’t stop the people who want to access restricted content; it doesn’t stop children from being abused by paedophiles.  What it is, is easily by-passed, totally ineffective and a complete waste of money.  The filter is going to send Australia back into the technological dark ages and comes in a stark contrast to the governments other plan to run out a national fibre optic broadband network.  But the important message here (a message that doesn’t seem to be getting through to the government) is that the internet doesn’t molest children.  The internet doesn’t abuse children, it doesn’t ruin their lives.  People do.  It is people that commit these heinous acts.  The internet is a tool for this, not the cause of it.