This is a foolish plan and has been proven to have flaws yet they want to keep trying to get going.......

So we need to make as much noise about it so people hear what they're trying to do, I made this video to take the micky out of the governments plan, please subscribe if you like:

Like a Censor (Australian Internet Censorship parody to Like a Boss)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNm9C_At-k0

The best way is to not censor it at all. Treat citizens like adults and let them decide what is and isn't appropriate for them to look at. If they choose to look at something that will get them put in jail, then that's their choice.

Government should never play a role in censoring anything.

Thanks for the reply, Kim!

I can accept that definition of censorship, and that to some degree it has a place in society - perhaps not in a sufficiently enlightened one, but I don't think one of those actually exists anyway. If we were to use Film as an example I think it may serve us well here, as both of our countries (and in most, I suspect) have a ratings system already in place for such things which to one degree or another restricts access to certain types of material, and as you point out it is a widely accepted form of censorship. In my country however, the reason it is accepted may be more closely related to its origin.

In the USA anyways, it is not the government which assigns ratings to films, but a trade association of the film industry itself. There is absolutely no legal requirement for directors, producers or film studios to submit their material for rating - in essence they are censoring themselves for the sake of marketability, and really, what company in the business of making money doesn't do that?

I think that most people perform this type of self-censorship already in the course of their daily lives, and I'm sure many can relate to the desire that others would practice self-censorship a bit more often (I am smiling right now as I picture my own upcoming Christmas dinner with family).

Furthermore, a ratings system such as the one we have in the USA imparts the power of choice to those who would consume or distribute thusly rated materials. It is up to the individual citizen whether or not they choose to watch a film with a certain rating, to allow their children to watch one or even to have them shown in their movie theater. Wal-Mart famously exercises this choice when considering which video games and music they will sell both online or in their brick and mortar stores. Things may be different in Australia, but I think probably not so different as to make the concept an alien one.

Of course you know all that, I suppose I've been speaking to the crowd. My apologies for that.

To address your point about making a system that works in an acceptable way, I guess I just feel like the cart is being put before the horse right now. So far there is no way for foreign based-content to appeal their inclusion on the list. Australian based content which is found objectionable is handled with a takedown notice to the ISP, whereas internationally based content providers are not informed in the same way. Review of URLs proposed to be added to the list is already infrequent despite there being less than 1,000 currently blocked, once every 2-6 months as cited by the ACMA. Even strictly speaking about the effort required for this endeavor, this is not feasible.

The internet is an almost unimaginably large place, but to put this into some sort of perspective, it has been estimated that there are around 30,000,000,000 pages of content on the World Wide Web. If there were 1,000 people checking pages 24 hours a day at the rate of one per second, it would take about a year to get through them all. The reality of it is, if they really do want to broaden the scope to encompass the entirety of network traffic into and out of Australia, they will need to automate most of this effort and I am sure you can see the problem with that.

Also, since the list itself is intended to be secret and never released to the public, oversight is limited at best, even setting aside the magnitude of the effort it would require on that scale (which would essentially need to duplicate the original effort of blocking in the first place). I understand the reasoning behind this is that some of the blocked URLs will contain material created by causing harm to minors, and I can certainly see their justification in that. At present however, the ACMA acknowledges that the majority of content it seeks to block is not in any way related to child protection, that it does at least internally classify those which are not, and still refuses to release that portion of the list to review as well.

I think for the bare acceptable minimum of transparency here, those portions of the list which are not actually related to child protection should be available for review by a third party, non-governmental organization. Unfortunately this does not even appear to be up for discussion. Remember, this is not a question of "if" the power to censor is going to be abused, the plain fact is that it is already being abused in its infancy.

As for oversight by the electorate, I think you are forgetting that the list will be secret - assuming "all goes well", the electorate is not going to know whether or not the government is going to far. They will be left to assume that Big Brother is taking care of them, and even being in a position to question that, having a copy of the list, will probably be a crime.

Terribly exciting and somewhat frightening times we live in, no?

You raise some excellent points Jack.

Here's hoping that there's no cleanfeed and, if there is, that those designing it listen to people like you who are able to rationally explain the problems with the proposed model.

Keep fighting the good fight :)

K

@ Jack Hynds -

As I mentioned in the article, everyone should be concerned about this issue so you're more than welcome to join the debate even if you are just an American :)

Now, let's be clear, censorship in Australia is nothing new.

Check this website for a list of films that have been censored where the definition of censorship is "Put simply, a work of art or media product has been censored if a compromise was made to suit a classification system or governing body." - http://www.cosmos.net.au/~hologram/chopping/lis...

Or this site which covers censorship more generally - http://www.refused-classification.com/

My feeling is that people are less offended about this level of censorship because there are clear rules for classification and an independent decision review process. (Check the Office of Film and Literature Classification website - http://www.oflc.gov.au)

So, accepting that some level of censorship will always exist, even if it's as basic as censorship of illegal materials, I'd rather make sure the system that governs it works than keep fighting what is probably already a lost fight.

As for whether or not the Government will go too far, that's why we have a) the electorate and b) the judiciary as forms of oversight.

Just to reiterate - I'd rather no cleanfeed, but if it needs to happen, lets at least come up with a system we're happy with.

It seems to me there is no reason to believe that Cleanfeed will indeed be well managed, but putting that aside I wonder what it is you mean when you refer to "constant interference", Kim. I ask because it conjures to my limited imagination things like forcing you to polls, or to obey traffic laws, or not allowing you to kill that really annoying dog next door because the neighbor just won't tell him to shut it late at night.

Being just an American I realize I may have no place in this debate in the eyes of some, but I feel this issue to be of great importance to the future of the free and -unhindered- exchange of information around the world. Is there no part of you that sees the great potential for abuse and misuse here? Does it not bother you in the slightest that at the whim of unspecified parties, this very website could be permanently blocked from your own viewing with the click of a mouse? What is your recourse then? By all appearances, you don't actually have one at this point, yet the system is apparently ready to go online soon.

This is tantamount to the government seizing control of the newspapers, or the television networks. An entire channel of dialog is about to be severed here.

-Once this happens, you may never know what it is that you are not allowed to see-. Only 32% of the content currently under block in the test program relates in any way to child pornography - not even one third. With fully two thirds of the list being completely out-of-scope in the beginning while the list is still small and ostensibly far simpler to manage, how are you as a thinking man not utterly terrified at the prospect of the expansion of this program?

OK - I feel like I should respond Duncan - so here we go:

1. I didn't say Ars highlighted the story. I said it came to prominence when Ars reported on it. I went back to my original post on TechNation Australia (http://www.technation.com.au/2008/10/17/big-bro...) to get that. Also, The AT story got heaps more coverage than the original CW story did.

2. Once again, I said the EFA has led the charge, which I believe is factual. The info from their site was put there as context for the Government's reply.

3. I'm confused. I did point to the EFA first. Also, Silicon Beach is not my group. I'm an infrequent contributor at best. But a lot of action was driven out of there. My bad for not adding other sites.

4. I'm smart enough to know not to argue about Aussie politics with you so I'l leave this mostly alone ;) What I will say though is that in my mind Conroy is right-wing in that he doesn't like the change the openness of the web brings. I don't know if I'd call the Labour Party left wing, either. Perhaps in design, but centre-left in practice at best. In any case, I'll take your advice on this one and cop the fact that I may be wrong. The point remains though - Conroy and the Civil Libertarians are clearly looking at the Clean Feed through different lenses, however those lenses are described.

5. As I mentioned in another comment, I think the argument needs to be focused more on the implementation and management of a filtering/censorship program than on whether or not one ought to exist. I'd prefer there to be no cleanfeed, but I don't object to the constant interference the Government exercises in my day-to-day life, so I query why I should be upset about a well managed cleanfeed.


That all aside, I appreciate the comments, Duncan. They keep me on my toes and it's proof that someone's reading my posts :)

K

Kim,
we do I start. While I welcome the attention the story gets on the likes of The Next Web, there's are several issues in the post:

Ars did not highlight the story, Ars reported on local reports. As an Australian, why the link to Ars and not a local source (or even yourself, for memory you reported on this in the early days.)

The EFA item you link to isn't dated, but it appears to be very out of date. Nearly your entire section titled "What we don’t know is just as important" is wrong; those details were released yesterday.

I'd add at this point that I don't agree with how they are doing it, but it's still there in black and white.

The link to the " Silicon Beach Google Group" is a bit rough; you know I'm a member as well, but to point to them over anything from the nocleenfeed sites, the Pirate or S%x Party, the EFA or others.... well, I don't begrudge you linking to your own group, but it's not the lead group in the argument against, and should be with the others at the very least (and certainly not first.)

The comment on Conroy is borderline WTF
"Unfortunately Senator Conroy and his politics display a strong right wing focus, so the lens through which the he views this legislation and has constructed the detail is in contrast to the lens through which civil libertarians view it."

Conroy is a LABOR senator (the left wing SOCIALIST party in Australia.) There's no right wing focus, there's some popularism mixed with some nanny statism. Libertarian views are usually considered to be right wing. Don't believe me; check Wikipedia or Google.

As for the idea that there is no alternative? WTF?
The alternative is NO CENSORSHIP. That's not a hard concept.

If you want specific policies that protect kiddies (which you don't say but I can only guess is where you might be headed), the previous Government paid for homes to have computer level filtering for kiddies. There's your alternative.

Cmon Kim, you can do better than this.

I hear you both but Net Alert was a joke that was circumvented almost as fast as it was released.

The problem i keep seeing is that people have become too emotionally tied to this. There are many things the Government prevents you from doing/accessing. Unfortunately in the real world they can't be as proactive as they can in the digital world.

I'm not saying The Clean Feed is right, but I think the argument should be with the detail around how the list of censored stuff will be managed as opposed to the idea of censorship itself

hear hear!

Ben: I believe both Italy and Germany have mandatory filtering.

Kim: The best alternative is what we previously had - free content filtering for those who wanted it (http://www.netalert.gov.au/).

I don't understand the push for having it mandatory. The only other country in the world with mandatory filtering is China...

Why not make both optional - so rather than have a solution that inconveniences 100% of the population for the aim of stopping 1%... Let parents opt-in to both filters. Simple.

Obviously this only solves the problem of younger children being filtered and does nothing to stop the child porn problems, but as proved last year - child porn rings don't operate on the internet anyway - but rather have their own internal distribution system.

*rolls eyes* I'm really starting to hate our government. If this does go ahead, I feel there will be a much needed public backlash and we can kiss the 34M~ spent on the scheme so far. Such is the price of idiocy. Bring on a government who knows what they are doing - not one trying to coax the Australian public into Rudd's well oiled political BS spin machine.