Tech & Biz

Australia to filter Internet content

by Jason Sanders | October 16, 2008 at 09:37 am

416 views | 2 Recommendations | 4 comments

Opinion

Australia will join the ranks of China and Syria when they implement a nationwide blacklist that will filter content inappropriate for children and illegal material. The filter is made up of two lists, one of which you can opt out of, and another you cannot.

Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether.

The government will iron-out policy and implementation of the Internet content filtering software following an upcoming trial of the technology, according to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Department spokesman Tim Marshall said the filters will be mandatory for all Australians.

"Labor's plan for cyber-safety will require ISPs to offer a clean feed Internet service to all homes, schools and public Internet points accessible by children," Marshall said.

While many people will hail this as a victory for a family values and protection of intellectual property, most won't realize that this will affect much more of the country than they assume.

For example, barriers to physical and monetary trade are regularly the forefront of international debate concerning free trade. It’s generally considered to be important to the continuing growth of international markets; though, in this age of Internet and intangible digital distribution, information is playing a larger and more important role in how the world functions. Because of this, censorship is transitioning from a political suppressant/safety feature to an economic poison pill.

Information has become vital to businesses, allowing industries and entrepreneurs to compete on a global playing field. Expecting Australian industries and citizens to compete on a world scale with such a handicap places the their economy in a precarious position. Already Australian Internet is constrained by expense and bandwidth caps; additional barriers to information trade will only slow their technological and economic growth in comparison with the rest of the world.

In China, where censorship is being used to "promote a harmonious society ," blacklists like The Golden Shield are upsetting Chinese culture, business, and finance. Citizens are not able to research different points of view; businesses, which currently have an advantage due to a large workforce, are losing to India and other Asian countries due to these regulations and restrictions; the financial sector cannot compete when their information about the world is filtered and unobjective.

A free country like Australia must consider their decisions when it comes to the Internet. The effects could very well be unimaginable.

2 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend Sign In or Join to post comments

Jarrett Martineau

at 10:12 on October 16th, 2008

Jason Sanders, excellent post. Although "cyber-safety" is an important issue, and one that does need to be addressed, Australia fails to recognize one simple fact: "information wants to be free". And one has to wonder what legitimate, legal content will be filtered and excluded from public access once this plan is put in place. Highly problematic.

Jordan Yerman

at 10:40 on October 16th, 2008

Too many dolphins will get caught in the ol' tuna net. Also, the assumption that those managing this Great Firewall will be one step ahead of those who would circumvent it is not really a safe one.

Erik Larson

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 18:47 on October 18th, 2008

Jason Sanders, I like this story. It's good stuff. Good points about the economic impact; imho, rights to free speech and press are more important, but money talks.

This report says 1% of sites are incorrectly blocked; how will the People know?

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1399635276

Jordan Yerman

at 09:14 on November 12th, 2008

The head of iiNet, one of Oz's biggest ISPs, is agreeing to take part in a trial of the "great Australian firewall"... just to show how terrible an idea it really is:

Michael Malone, boss of iiNet, an Australian ISP with 700,000 customers, said his firm would take part in the trial, but only in order to show the government how stupid it was. Malone described communications minister Stephen Conroy as the worst minister in the internet's 15-year history.

The scheme would force ISPs to offer two types of internet access - one filtered for children and one filtered for adult Australians.

Conroy did not help his cause with a muddled performance in the Australian Senate. Conroy said the pilot would filter a blacklist from the Australian Communications and Media Authority as well as "other unwanted content". ACMA's blacklist includes 1,300 web addresses and another 10,000 would be added to this list. But he failed to answer Senator Scott Ludlam's question as to what "unwanted" meant.