Aussie Govt Reveals Plans to Filter the Internet

Calls for mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused Classification (RC)-rated content and a grants program for encouraging ISPs to voluntarily “block additional content as requested by households” in order to “improve safety on the internet for Australian families.”

Scary things are afoot in the “land down under.” Senator Stephen Conroy, Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, has finally revealed “cyber-safety measures” to “improve safety on the internet for Australian families.”

It all started as a voluntary effort to “protect children,” but quickly spiraled into an all out attempt by the Australian govt to make it mandatory for ISPs to filter the Internet of all “inappropriate content” and “offensive and illegal material.” It quickly deteriorated from an attempt to somehow safeguard children from things like child pornography to things like legal pornography, gambling, and even P2P traffic, making Australian citizens rightly upset.

The scheme would require mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused Classification (RC)-rated content and would introduce a grants program for encouraging ISPs to voluntarily “block additional content as requested by households.”

He says that there would be a new transparency process to ensure “absolute confidence” how and what content and sites are placed on the RC Content list, but it is still unsettling to say the least.

“Through a combination of additional resources for education and awareness, mandatory internet filtering of RC-rated content, and optional ISP-level filtering, we have a package that balances safety for families and the benefits of the digital revolution,” he says.

The plan will require the govt to introduce legislative amendments to the country’s Broadcasting Services Act in order to force all ISPs to block content.

RC-rated material includes child porn, bestiality, sexual violence including rape, and the detailed instruction of crime or drug use. Under the country’s National Classification Scheme it is already illegal to distribute, sell or make available RC-rated films, computer games and publications.

However, Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) insists that RC involves more than just child porn.

“It’s anything that doesn’t fit into the Classification Board’s other ratings and that include video games aimed at adults, criminality and euthanasia and all sorts of controversial things,” says EFA spokesman Colin Jacobs.

Jacobs as right and Senator Conroy said as much this past June when he confirmed that the filtering plan will include video games by targeting sites that host or sell ones that don’t meet the MA15+ standard (suitable for 15yos) being that Australia lacks an R18+ or X18+ classification.

The powerful Australian Christian Lobby is adamantly opposed to the introduction of an R18+ classification for fear these games “would inevitably lead to some children playing and being influenced by these games – to the detriment of both their development and the wider society,” meaning law abiding adults would find themselves unfairly targeted by the filtering proposal.

And it’s hard to imagine this and future governments would be able to resist the temptation to add content to the list when lobbied by powerful business, religious, or social group lobbies.

The Australian Democrats have expressed their “dismay” with the govt’s intent to continue its plans to censor the Internet, noting that the it has failed to release the results of six-week trial conducted to examine the plan’s technical feasibility.

“Senator Conroy has, after twelve months, finished a six week trial of something that has been implemented in another country for three years,” said Australian Democrats’ National Technology Policy Coordinator Geordie Guy. “It was expected that this report would show the technology to be able to work. However, what we are still waiting for after two years is some sort of sensible explanation from the Senator about why this is a better idea than empowering law enforcement and supporting the choices of individual Australians.”

The party says mandatory filtering is a waste of tax payers money, a violation of individual freedoms, and establishes a bad precedent for allowing the Government to control the flow of information before it reaches households.

“While the trial report has some interesting anecdotes, what the Australian Democrats and all Australians are waiting on is a transparent and effective process to determine what problem the government is actually trying to solve, its extent, and what other options have been investigated and dismissed,” adds Guy. “Perhaps then we can understand why this expensive and futile trampling of civil rights has been investigated in earnest for so long.”

The EFA also reiterates that the “cyber-safety” plan does little to help Australian kids or families, that it has shifted away from providing tools to shield minors on the web to a black list of “almost exclusively RC (Refused Classification)” content aimed at adults.

Either way, the matter is far from over as Australians begin to realize what the plan really means – the beginning of an era of govt filtering the Internet.

Stay tuned.

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