Government's web filter plan slammed

16 Dec 2009, 5:34 pm   -   Source: SBS - Shalailah Medhora
41 Comments
Share This
+ Comment
41
The Government is pushing ahead with its planned Internet filter (Getty Images)

The Government is pushing ahead with its planned Internet filter (Getty Images)

The Government's plan to introduce an Internet filter to block out offensive and illegal material has been met with widespread criticism from the online community.

RELATED

The Government's plan to introduce an Internet filter to block out offensive and illegal material has been met with widespread criticism from the online community, but has found support from child protection groups.

The filter will require internet service providers to blacklist refused classification (RC) material, including content on bestiality, child sex abuse, sexual violence and instructions on crime and drug use.

Child protection group Child Wise has said the filter would be 'no silver bullet', highlighting that many children are more Internet-wise than their parents, but say that ISPs have a responsibility to stop illegal material from reaching home PCs.

The group's CEO, Bernadette McMenamin, says parents would be well-advised to keep monitoring what their children look at online even when the filter is in place, but stress that the Internet has gotten 'out of control'; and needs some kind of regulation.

But critics of the move say there is a potential for misuse of the technology.

"Although it (the document detailing the government's proposal) may address some technical issues, what it leaves out is far more important – exactly what will be blocked, who will decide, and why is it being attempted in the first place," Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) spokesman Colin Jacobs says in an online statement.

"We’ll be interested to see how the Internet service providers (ISPs) respond. We know they are critical of having such intrusive Government interference in their networks," he says.

EFA is running a campaign against the Government's proposal, entitled No Clean Feed. The campaign has been featuring heavily on social-networking site Twitter, were the hashtag #nocleanfeed has become a trending topic.

The campaign has urged Tweeters to add a ribbon to their avatar stating their opposition to the plan, and write letters to their local Members of Parliament urging them not to vote for it.

Though the federal Government's proposal affects ISPs in Australia, the move is gaining considerable international attention through the use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The BBC has an article on it for UK audiences, and comments from the US, Canada and Brazil have been noted.

By and large, the comments posted on SBS Online have been against the move, with some saying it amounts to censorship, and others claiming the Government is penalising everyone for the few people who break the law.

 

Tell us what you think of the filter here.

Internet search giant Google has also weighed in on the debate on their official blog.

"We are concerned by the Government's plan to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for ISPs in Australia," the online statement says.

"Our primary concern is the scope of content to be filtered is too wide."

Google says the Government's filter is 'too heavy-handed'.

"RC is a broad category of content that includes not just child sexual abuse material but also socially and politically controversial material -- for example, educational content on safer drug use -- as well as the grey realms of material instructing in any crime, including politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia," Google says.

"This type of content may be unpleasant and unpalatable but we believe that government should not have the right to block information which can inform debate of controversial issues."

The search engine giant goes on to say freedom of speech is vital to the effective running of a democratic society.

"Political and social norms change over time and benefit from intense public scrutiny and debate. The openness of the Internet makes this all the more possible and should be protected."

The legislation is to go to Parliament next year, with the federal Opposition slamming it for being 'unworkable and ineffective'.

One commentator on the SBS message board welcomes the plan: "I fully support the government on a filter of the internet as there is so much rubbish on the net. Children and even adults are affected by porn and drugs .It is far over due," says Robert.

Political support

The Australian Christian Lobby and Family First's Steve Fielding welcomed the announcement, arguing a filter would help protect children.

Leading telcos also offered support - albeit qualified.

Telstra said filtering sites was "feasible and practical" so long as the blacklist was "limited to a defined number of URLs".

Optus similarly stated it was "technically feasible to block a finite list of illegal content without significant impact on the customer's experience or network performance".

 

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Your Comments

Display: 20 | 40 | All comments per page
Previous 10 | Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next 10

protest

thomas vesely - from melbourne, 2 years ago

do not give them the power to deny you information/debate.they do not like the oversight the free internet provides.they lie and scheme and do not want the scrutiny.

YOU SERIOUS?!

Dustin - from Hervey Bay, QLD, 2 years ago

This filter is going to be so easy to get past so whats the actual point, plus it slows down your internet times a million. So all the government is doing is effectively creating a program that slows down the internet of all Australians. The filter can only handle 10,000 URL's at a single time. There is already 1trillion URL's on the internet and it is currently increasing by 1million per day. Good Job Rudd.

Impossible

Lol@governments - from Lismore, 2 years ago

Proxy servers for the win. Good luck stopping anybody from accessing these sites, it is so incredibly easy to bypass the filters that i wouldnt get upset people. Your friendly local geek will quickly show you how to ignore any attempt at censorship. Virtual Private Networks, proxy servers, torrents, etc, o how it amuses me when the fools that seek power over us try this crap.

CHILD GROUPS

Steve - from Perth, 2 years ago

Of course Child groups will supoort the government, after all its normally government funding that keeps them all bleating on about this sort of thing. I dont suport child porn at all - but it was earlier generations of do good bleaters who pushed for the abolishment of capital punishment and chemical carstration. People who pray on kids are a disease to society and need to be cut out- permanently. Not molly coddled by more tax payer funded do gooders hoping to changea Leopard spots.

Ashamed to be Australian

Tony - from United Kingdom, 2 years ago

I'm an Australian currently living in the United Kingdom. I've always planned on coming home at some point, and living in (what I use to think was) the best country in the world. After this I'm happy to stay here in brilliant, cold, grey, FREE UK. Pull your head out of your advisors' spit shined arses Conroy and listen to the people - we don't want this! And take some advice from people that actually know (i.e. Google). The filter is not only wrong, but it will not work. CENSORSHIP!

Mr

David - from Townsville, 2 years ago

Would it not be better to use the legal system to deal with the people putting these sites on the web? It would appear that we are going to try to stop these people by taking away the means they use to distribute their child pornography not actually dealing with them and putting them in jail as they deserve. Wont they still be doing harm to children? This is just the foot in the door. Once the Labor party has laws in place letting them censor the web where will it end?

Let God play God

Rolly - from Perth, 2 years ago

Who on earth gave the political rabble the right to play God and dictate what is right and wrong in the matter of "decency" or otherwise. Quite apart from the fact that the proposed filter is unlikely to be more than temporarily effective and likely to be permanently obstructive, a government is elected to govern, not to manipulate the masses in a Stalinist manner. This is an example of social engineering at its worst and flies fully in the face of democracy.

Try asking people who know the tech

Steve - from Perth, 2 years ago

Other than those selling filter solutions, people with a technical grasp of how the internet work are almost of one mind. Whilst you can set up filters, they're almost trivial to circumvent. Why not spend the money on enforcement rather than hiding the evidence of inaction?

Filtering is just a joke

Afshin - from Melbourne, 2 years ago

I´m Iranian and I migrated to Australia to have the choice to choose not government censoring my Internet content. If this happens then what is the different between Iran, China and Australia. I´m afraid it´s the most dangerous action by any government. They start it by using child pornography as an excuse and then give them enough power to filter more contents down the track. Lets stop it now rather than being sorry a few years later.

Disgusted

Jonathan - from Bull Creek, WA, 2 years ago

The government has ignored the community over this matter time and time again. Blocking child pornography is definitely something we all want, but the government isn't doing it right - the censorship will only dent child pornography networks and syndicates... while disrupting access to all of us. We do not need a Great Firewall of Australia. If Rudd threatens a climate change election, we'll turn it into an Internet Freedom election.

Display: 20 | 40 | All comments per page
Previous 10 | Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next 10

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.