Leading Australian Journalist Glenn Milne [pictured] is also concerned about the Australian Governments plans to filter the internet.
The stated aim; to black out illegal content such as child po***graphy. But this mandatory filter would also apply to “other material” or “unwanted content”.
Who would decide what came under the latter two legal categories is unclear.
If Australia adopts such a system it will be the only Western democratic country in the world to have done so.
On a less sinister note Milne quotes two examples of how filtering blocks unintended sites: The first was from a trial done in Britian:
When researchers in the UK examined filters and tapped in the word “socialist” they were blocked.
Why? Because “socialist” also contains the product name
“Cialis” – an anti-impotence drug, fakes of which are often sold on-line.
The second example comes from Australia’s own former communications minister Helen Coonan:
The Department has its own filter system for obvious reasons. But when the then minister tried to order some strawberry muffins online she also was blocked.
The filter didn’t like the word “muff”.
Communications minister Stephen Conroy [pictured] won’t clarify what ‘other material’ or ‘unwanted content’ he plans to block, but has indicated that over 10,000 web sites would be blocked.
This is extremely concerning when you consider:
.. the Australian Communications and Media Authority site blacklist which currently stands at 1200 and includes predominantly child p**n and ultra viol**t sites.
The existing blacklist has been developed as a result of public complaints and ACMA receives only about 70 complaints per month.
Now that list has been developed over a number of years, but the minister plans to add another 8,800 plus sites to that list but won’t say which ones or why?
It is interesting to see that uptake of the existing net-nanny filter in homes is about 3%. People I have spoken to say that it is a nuisance as it makes searching the net for legitimate web sites very difficult as it also blocks a lot of harmless sites, as the 2 illustrations above show.
In fact independent research has already shown that internet filtering will have no impact of child po***graphy as it only blocks web sites and the scum suckers who are involved in that kind of stuff use file sharing peer-to-peer networks that are not affected by filtering.
The group Electronic Frontiers Australia – an independent industry watchdog – recently found in relation to child po**graphy: “Mandatory filtering is unlikely to have an impact on the trafficking of this sort of illegal material.
In any case the consumers of illegal material are likely to be using filter-evading tools such as proxies and VPN services.”
The report titled Internet Filtering Fact Sheet went on: “The filter applies only to web sites.
But research shows that most illegal material is now distributed on peer-to-peer file sharing networks.
This traffic is not subject to filtering at all.
The very fact that web sites can be filtered, shut down or tracked, makes them unattractive to consumers of illegal material.”
I think Greens Senator Scott Lundlum summed the proposed legislation up pretty well:
(He) likened Conroy’s policy to Australia Post opening every letter sent in Australia.
This legislation strikes directly at the heart of Australia’s democracy. Every citizen must let the government know in loud and clear terms that our democratic right to freedom of speech is not negotiable. Not now, not ever.
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