Aussie Opposition Party: ‘Mandatory Net Filtering Offensive to Parents’

Liberal Party says the underlying message is “that parents cannot be trusted to mind their children online,” and furthers by saying that “there is no technological substitute for adult supervision and it’s irresponsible and misleading to infer otherwise.”

Australian Senator Nick Minchin, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, member of the Liberal Party, and leader of the opposition in the Senate, has posted an excellent op-ed piece on the Sydney Morning Herald online criticizing the govt’s plan for mandatory Internet filtering.

Internet filtering began as a voluntary effort to “protect children,” but quickly spiraled into an all out attempt by the Australian govt, spearheaded by Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy, to make it mandatory for ISPs to filter the Internet of all “inappropriate content” and “offensive and illegal material.” The heavily criticized plan threatens to reduce Internet connection speeds by up to 87% and institute a system of censorship with no oversight.

Senator Minchin takes the argument even further, observing that the underlying message of a compulsory filtering system sends the patently offensive message “that parents cannot be trusted to mind their children online.”

“Adult supervision should be front and centre of the effort to improve online safety, a responsibility accepted by most parents, grandparents, teachers and careers,” he writes. “But the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, seems to think differently: filtering content at internet service provider level is ‘central to the Government’s plan to make the internet a safer place for children.’”

Adult supervision should never be the govts role, especially for those that don’t even have children! It’s inexcusable to filter the feeds for adults trying to view legal content.

“There is no technological substitute for adult supervision and it’s irresponsible and misleading to infer otherwise,” he continues. “Mandating a so-called ‘clean feed’ has the potential to create a dangerous false sense of security, leading parents to believe ongoing supervision and vigilance is no longer needed.”

More importantly, Senator Minchin makes the important observation that the most dangerous places for children to visit online are unaffected by the filtering plans. MySpace anyone?

“The minister must start listening to the experts, who have repeatedly made the point that most predatory risks to children lurk in those areas of the online world this kind of filtering will do little to combat,” he writes. “Technical advice suggests chat rooms, email and peer-to-peer networks are the most dangerous. Law enforcement agencies around the world have revealed that pedophiles use P2P networks to exchange explicit videos and images outside the world wide web.”

Unfortunately for file-sharers, but perhaps to Senator Minchin’s liking, Senator Conroy has already stated that he plans to filter P2P as well.

“No decent Australian would argue against the broad aim of making the online world as safe as possible. But Labor’s fixation with compulsory, centralised filtering – which tells parents they are incapable of protecting their children – is not the answer.”

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