sw’as

A quick search on Google News seems to indicate that this issue still doesn’t seem to be getting the main stream media coverage it deserves. In fact, it seems to be getting more coverage overseas than it is in Australia’s media - including from Chinese news outlets. As you would expect, it’s getting some good coverage by bloggers:

• Gizmodo - Australia To Build Great Firewall Down Under [Censorship]
• Amnesia Blog - Australia’s Great Firewall without an opt-out
• Boing Boing - Australia’s Great Firewall: just like China, Syria and other “free” countries
• The Technology Liberation Front - Australian ISP-Level Content Filtering Report Released
• Somebody Think of the Children^[1]
• Larvatus Prodeo - New Govt same as the old (may be worse)
• TechCrunch - Australia Joins China In Censoring The Internet
• No Internet Censorship for Australia - ACMA Trial shows filtering unworkable

It’s encouraging to see big and - crucially - widely read blogs like Boing Boing, Gizmodo and TechCrunch on that list, but what we really need for the politicians to take notice is main stream news coverage^[2][3]. The most relevant article I could find in the MSM - after searching for quite a while^[4] - was ISP filtering gains momentum in Australian IT. Which starts to highlight just some of the pertinent points:

Some industry observers believe internet users, not ISPs, could be forced to subsidise the program, with early estimates pointing to $60 million a year.

… Senator Conroy hailed the Enex trial a success, within the closed-environment test conditions. However, the results were broadly negative. It showed that most filters could not identify illegal or inappropriate content — as defined by the Australian Communications and Media Authority — using most non-web protocols.

There was also this story on Sunrise where - against their usual style - they actually talk some sense.

Finally,  a little satire to lighten the mood^[5].

1. These guys are where it’s at when it comes to discussing internet (or any other kind of) censorship in Australia. Some recent posts include: Filters mandatory for all Australians: DBCDE, No opt-out from ISP filtering: Two black lists and you can only opt-out from one, Mobile filtering: ISPs choose technology, Gov set minimum level? and New Zealand talks Aussie clean feed. [↩]
2. You can help get this issue some news coverage by writing to news outlets and telling them why this is such a bad idea - logically. [↩]
3. The other thing we need is your voice. How can you help? [↩]
4. If you know of any other MSM articles I’ve missed let me know in the comments, please. [↩]
5. Even though this is really bloody serious. Damnit! [↩]

Last Friday night in a bar^[1] after a couple of Mojitos. A friend and I got to debating the perils of allowing this new-fangled internet to continue to grow out of control and exist, largely uncensored. I can’t believe this debate still needs to be had. Our debate was prompted by news of teenagers in Hyde Park doing something which started out fun and ended up ruined by some participants who were being stupid, really stupid, and the suggestion by some in the media that this was internet’s - or more specifically - Facebook’s fault^[2]. In the end, there were two prongs to our discussion. The first was about content filtering or censorship and the second was about the internet as an enabler of bad behaviour by groups of people in the real world. The main points of difference related to:

• who (if anyone) and how (if at all) the internet should be censored/monitored for bad^[3] content
• who should be held accountable for content on the internet which is bad, and
• who should be held accountable for bad behaviour somehow enabled by or amplified by the internet.

I find the idea that Facebook (or Myspace, or web hosts^[4], or web chat, or the internet, or the telephone, or <insert new technology of the day here>) should be held in anyway responsible for the bad behavior of its users simply unbelieveable. It seem to me that a good analogy for such a situation would be holding a building’s owner responsible for the independent actions - say, selling drugs or some other bad stuff - of their tentants.  Landlords do not, as far as I’m aware, have any responsibility to monitor the activities of their tenants, and in just the same way, web hosts - the internet’s landlords - should have no responsibility to monitor the activities of their tenants, the site owners/operators.

It is, of course, possible that a landlord, of their own accord or at the request of some authority, spots something they are suspicious of, or know to be bad. If there was a compelling reason to report this suspected bad behaviour or some obligation to provide further information about the suspected perpetrators which they refused or neglected to do, then there may be some cause to hold the landlord to account for that. But not because they’ve simply rented some space to someone who turned out to be the kind of person who would fail at their run on the egg-dicator^[5] should landlords be held responsible.

Censoring the internet on a large scale at some central point(s) is increadibly hard, and is generally a really bad idea. I don’t think there’s much disagreement that Chinas continued crippling of the internet is a bad thing. Why exactly the Australian Government^[6] (or any government for that matter) persists in making attempts to censor or filter the internet, despite clear evidence that it doesn’t work technically and no evidence that it does work as a tool for desireable^[7] social change is beyond me.

And worse than that, Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister seems to be following in the steps of the previous, horribly technically ignorant Minister, Helen Coonan. As pointed out by tigtog at Hoyden About Town Senator Conroy has completely misrepresented a recent report into proposed ISP level internet filtering [PDF 2.8MB] representing it as ‘encouraging’. Get a more realistic analysis of the report courtesy of Crikey - Internet filters a success if success = failure.

It turns out this post has an unfortunate lack of focus, but I just had to get that off my chest.

1. The best time and place for a debate. [↩]
2. The implication being, of course, that any similar ’social networking’ style site could be substituted. [↩]
3. The term ‘bad’ used throughout this post is obviously ridiculously subjective. Lets assume, for the sake of argument that something bad is that which will almost certainly result in personal harm (psychological or physical) to someone somewhere. [↩]
4. As opposed to site owners/operators. [↩]
5. In the golden goose room, what is the name of the device that tells the good eggs from the bad eggs? [↩]
6. Both the previous Liberal Government and the current Labor Governement. [↩]
7. Desirable by who anyway? [↩]