Human rights. It’s a pretty big deal. It’s one of the reasons journalists are always harping on about The Great Firewall of China, which censors internet content and (in)famously marked the moment when Google went against its corporate values and became evil.
And if the Federal Government has its way, Australia will soon have a great firewall of its own.
At the moment ACMA is trialling an ISP-level filtering system which, ostensibly, is aimed at helping parents protect kids from the more unsavoury aspects of the web. I can understand the challenges parents face in this regard - it’s a bit of a minefield if you’re not technically savvy, and kids generally have it all over mum and dad/gran and pop when it comes to Net nous. The worry, however, is the ‘ISP-level filtering’ aspect.
The problem with the plan currently on trial is what starts out as a mild-mannered idea to save the children ends up as internet policing. It’s not so big a jump to go from this level of filtering to filtering for copyright breaches, for example. It’s known in industry parlance as scope creep. Innocuous enough under normal standards. Far from it when we’re talking about our right to access the internet as an essential service. Call me cynical, but I don’t believe it will stop at saving da kiddies.
Filtering would be mandatory in homes and schools and would be based on a blacklist of prohibited content. The arguments can get quite technical but it boils down to expense, slowing everything down and the potential for sites to be incorrectly filtered.
Electronic Frontiers Australia has set up a campaign webpage at http://nocleanfeed.com. I must admit, I’ve signed the petition. And you can follow all the commentary on Twitter if you’re registered - just search for #nocleanfeed.