censorship
20 Nov 2008
Conroy's Web
Raena Lea-Shannon unravels the web of intrigue surrounding the Communications Minister's internet censorship plan
The Labor Party's "Plan for Cyber Safety" is much like the itsy bitsy spider trying to climb the water spout. It popped out on a sunny day five days prior to the Federal election, got washed away with the first drops of public criticism, and crawled back into its hole to regroup. Once the rain had cleared, it attempted the climb again.Right now, public outrage is raining pretty hard on the proposed policy.
The original "Plan for Cyber Safety", released during last year's election campaign, said that a Labor Government would:
"Provide a mandatory clean feed internet service for all homes, schools and public computers that are used by Australian children. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will filter out content that is identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The ACMA 'blacklist' will be made more comprehensive to ensure that children are protected from harmful and inappropriate online material."
When the Rudd Government came to power, Senator Stephen Conroy was appointed the super-human task of delivering this policy. Now, one year later, a thorough search of Conroy's website reveals no mention of the plan.
The closest indication it is possible to get of the Government's current thinking on "cyber safety" is in the transcript of the Estimates hearing of the Senate Standing Committee on the Environment Communication and the Arts from Monday 20 October, when Greens Senator Scott Ludlam questioned Conroy on the types of content that would be blocked by the system. This was what the Minister said:
"We are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material ... we are enforcing current law and ACMA determine this based on existing law ... so you can have a chat with them about how they go determining it. But the general sort of stuff that we are talking about is child porn and they are the sorts of sites we are targeting. We do not believe that you should be able to opt in to child porn. I am sure you do not either."
Child pornography has been the Minister's default response whenever he has been challenged on the need for a mandatory filter. Of course, laws already exist against the production and use of child pornography. Expressing the frustration of many of the plan's critics, Ludlam asked Conroy during the same hearing: "I am just wondering if I can put these questions to you without being accused of being pro-child pornography?"
Conroy's response: "I was wondering if I could get the questions without being accused of being the Great Wall of China."
During question time on 11 September, Ludlam also managed to get this piece of information out of the Minister:
"The pilot will test filtering specifically against the ACMA blacklist of internet prohibited content, which is mostly child pornography, as well as filtering of other unwanted content" (my italics).
What then is "illegal" or "unwanted" content? What is currently on the ACMA blacklist and what may be put on the blacklist in the future?
The definition of what is illegal is dealt with under the Broadcasting Services Act by use of the terms "prohibited content" and "potential prohibited content".
On the internet, prohibited content is that which has been classified RC or X 18+ by the Classification Board; or content that has been classified R 18+ by the Classification Board but where access to the content is not subject to a "restricted access system" (that is, a site that you can access without being advised of its content and confirming by a click-through that you are over 18 years of age).
Potential prohibited content is content that has not been classified by the Classification Board but that if it were, there is a substantial likelihood that it would be prohibited content.
The next part of the puzzle that Senator Conroy seems reluctant to explain is that some significant changes were made to the Broadcasting Services Act (contained in the Communications Legislation Amendment (Content Services) Act 2007) that came into effect on 20 January 2008, which affect how prohibited content and potential prohibited content is dealt with for Australian-hosted sites versus those that are hosted overseas. The dark secret wrapped up in the Senator's finely spun web is that the scope of illegal overseas-hosted content has significantly broadened.
Prior to 20 January, potential prohibited content hosted overseas was only content that was potentially RC and X18+ — it did not include content that was potentially R18+. So this means that in Senator Conroy's terms "illegal", "unwanted" and most significantly "other unwanted content" to which mandatory ISP filtering may apply includes potentially R18+ content that is not subject to a restricted access system. We are talking here about R18+ content from overseas that is legal for adults in Australia offline but is termed prohibited content when on the internet.
Does the lack of any reference to these recent amendments on the Department's or Senator Conroy's websites indicate that they are oblivious to them — or are they just hoping no one will notice?
What is of equal concern is the lack of safeguards against how the ACMA will determine what in its reasonable opinion is likely to be RC, X18+ or R18+.
For content that is hosted in Australia, the mechanism for regulation by ACMA is through complaint and a take-down notice. If the person hosting the content disputes the notice they are entitled to apply to the Classification Board with rights of appeal to the Classification Review Board. The administration of this system by ACMA is conducted in strictest confidence and it is impossible to know precisely what has been taken down — but at least the person hosting that content gets a chance to argue their case.
Contrast the mechanism for dealing with overseas-hosted content, whereby ACMA refers it to the police if "sufficiently serious" and notifies the (currently voluntary) ISP filterers to update their filters to include this content. The person hosting the content will have no notice of it being filtered, however, and will not know it is being censored in Australia. In the case of child pornography this is fine, but we are dealing here with X18+, which is legal in the ACT in videos and magazines, and R18+ content that simply has no access system but which is otherwise legal for adults anywhere in Australia.
The question then of what Conroy means when he says he is considering mandatory filtering of "mostly child pornography as well as filtering of other unwanted content" needs to be urgently addressed.
Until we know more, it is safe to assume that Senator Conroy's mandatory ISP filtering proposal will place the decision of what we see and hear into the hands of the employees of ACMA. We will not know who made the decision, what the content was that was deemed to be potentially prohibited, and no one other than ACMA and the ISP will have any right to know or right of review.
And yet he wonders why comparisons are made to the great (fire)wall of China.
My hope is that Conroy will wait until the report on ISP filtering tests comes out, bow his head in pragmatic resignation to the regrettable limits of technology, drop mandatory filtering entirely and begin again to ascend the political water spout.
My fear is that he will persist and attempt to apply substantial indiscriminate blocking of overseas content on the internet. The problem is that the course of action he takes is more likely to be driven by his reckoning of the numbers on the floor of the Senate than his reading of the report.
Nature has shown us it takes eight legs and as many eyes to build and manage a common garden web. Only Tim Berners Lee could know what it would take to manage the world wide web.
I have a feeling Senator Conroy is less concerned about the world wide web than about doing whatever he can to avoid getting caught in the web that he is spinning.
The author would like to thank Irene Graham for the substantial information on her website libertus.net and her assistance with this article.
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but the payoff! The Labor party spent too much time in opposition to be so deeply deeply stupid. It has to be that Fielding has agreed to pass everything put before him if they get this up.
my < conspiracy > tags were stripped. :(
Yes, there is the Fielding factor, however, however one would argue that there are other parties/players, who would stand to gain from this proposed draconian censorship regime.
The Record Industry for example, would be one.
I’m not concerned about the debate over pornography, but the filtering of content that undermines the stability of the government or nation. The focus on terrorism, sedition and activities contrary to the national interest means that filters will be applied to any inconvenient truth that counters the pap fed to us by corporate media and the government acts as their lapdog.
And in the US they are preparing the Net Neutrality Bill:
“This legislation, known as the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, would ensure that broadband service providers do not discriminate against Internet content, applications or services by offering preferential treatment. This issue is also often referred to as net neutrality.”
President-elect barrack Obama has already said that he strongly supports the issue of net neutrality"
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/89043,congress-moves-on-net-neutrality.asp…
This Rudd government is pathetic, what a waste of time and resources.
Yes but the thought of possibly living in a government-constructed bubble frightens the living daylights out of me.
this is why I don’t want to live in China.
Something that hasn’t been mentioned here, but that might just be an addition, is the censorship at the internet provider level of all things relating to voluntary euthanasia.
The Federal Government has already made it illegal for anybody in Australia to transmit any information that would encourage suicide, via internet, email, fax or phone. ie. to discuss the practical aspects of VE and any end of life choices.
This is because of the Suicide Related Materials Offences Act.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/num_act/ccarmoa2005452/sch1.html
So such sites can’t be hosted in Australia anymore. And forget emailing anybody in Australia. Or phoning even. However you can still source that information from overseas domains . But with this legislation this too will become illegal.
So the government is using child pornography et al as a reason to START monitoring what it wants Aussies to read.
"Be afraid, be very afraid".
"For content that is hosted in Australia, the mechanism for regulation by ACMA is through complaint and a take-down notice. If the person hosting the content disputes the notice they are entitled to apply to the Classification Board with rights of appeal to the Classification Review Board. The administration of this system by ACMA is conducted in strictest confidence and it is impossible to know precisely what has been taken down — but at least the person hosting that content gets a chance to argue their case. "
Great article Raena but I have to ask does the application to the Review Board cost $8000.00 as is does for films?
what I hope is going on here is that Conroy, far from being stupid enough to think something like this might be either technically feasible or constitutional, is simply playing a clever political game with Fielding, namely to be seen to be trying to implement this, in order to secure his vote but in reality to string it out until as close to the next election as possible before declaring it dead due to "insurmountable technical issues".
Ellinoz - Yes $8000 is the Fee for a Review and all appeals from decisions of the Classification Board are $8,000 even of it is regarding a Classification decision for a one page publication. This fee is prohibitive in my opinion and you are quite right to highlight it. The Classification fees are set out in the Regulations to the Classification (Publications Films and Computer Games) Act. You can find a link to the Regs from the OFLC web site here www.oflc.gov.au The Link is on the right hand site up the top. By way of comparison if a company files an Appeal in the High Court the filing fee is a about $2,500 and a day in the High Court will set you back about another $4,000. That is to be heard by the Full Bench of the Hight Court. http://www.hcourt.gov.au/filing_03.html
Surely the whole point is this. This sort of legislation is designed, not to protect children but to impose censorship on the community at large. Why should the whole community be punished by reducing the internet’s ability and imposing censorship, because of the, admittedly, large amounts of parents who can’t be bothered parenting in the first place? And to those people who are always terrified about children being exposed to society, for good or ill, I venture to suggest the early years of the twenty-first century will go down in history as an age of barbarism. A barbarism so great that all forms of artistic expression were condemned as being inappropriate. A society where children were so wrapped in cotton-wool and tissue paper they proved to be unable to face complex issues which might have affected their future lives. How will they know rape is morally wrong; when they haven’t heard the word rape to begin with? How will they know that life is competitive; when they have been continually rewarded for being second-rate, whist the winners’ achievements were ignored? How will they know what makes for good-manners and kindness; when no one in authority has chosen to explain these things?
Unbeknown to the children the adults have removed all lessons from life. But a completely stupid population is to be desired by both the ‘appropriate people’ and politicians. It would never do to have normal children who learn by experience. the way people used to learn prior to the 1970’s.
Not even rotten Howard would have dared try this kind of stuff. Just shows Australians how far Labor has moved to the right on these issues and that they cant be trusted any more than Howard and the Liberals.
Well said Venise, barbarism indeed. How sad that we are planning as much as possible to develop a generation of weak minds and weaker ethics, all in the name of safety. It is an unnamed violence to the future of our species.
Everywhere I see evidence of our leaders trying to make our lives as much like an architect’s drawing of life as possible. We willingly subject ourselves to this bland, colourless view of human existence.
We allow self appointed moralists to run the debate. We accept these idiots taking from us the responsibility of raising our children so that we can continue our extended adolescence. We need squares like Rudd and Co. to be our de facto parents.
How embarrassing. How vile. How very very lame we are. Wake up Australia please.
The most important issue in this debate is to protect young children from potentially harmful internet material and to also protect the rights of those who want to consume internet erotica and violence freely.
The easist and most proficient way of doing this is not to blacklist individual websites, but to develop ISP servers that will cater more closely to consumer demands by filtering for the individual consumer.
ISP servers could be categorised according to the filtering system they apply ie. R -reasonably safe from potentially harmful material (levels of violence etc. indicated); V -very safe from potentially harmful material; right up to T - totally safe from potentially harmful material (possibly a government run or supervised ISP server); probably the most suitable type of server for schools and the concerned parents of young children.
"The most important issue in this debate is to protect young children from potentially harmful internet material and to also protect the rights of those who want to consume internet erotica and violence freely."
Denise, I think thats the point. Child protection is the window dressing - the real objective is broad control over political dissent.
Hi there Dr Dog; long time no read! I’m delighted you agree with me. I don’t wish to be rude to the Denises’ of this world but they just can’t get it. Can they? They think the issue is to do with protecting ‘innocent little lives’. But we know what it really means.
Adolph Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and all the dictators in Africa would be proud to see their arguments being carried on via the Australian government. Wait till she finds out that all thought will end up being censored. Wait till she is ordered to wear modest clothes. Wait till she can’t access books. She wont like it one little bit. As usual the old axiom of people deserving the governments they get, is spot on. As I said long ago…I think I’ll go and live in Argentina.
Cheers V.
Banville 84: We are few but we are vocal. No wonder censorship is so easily imposed when people are unable to see the truth of a government’s actions and intentions.
Cheers V.