I made a conscious decision after the last federal election to stop following Australian politics. It took me a little longer than most Aussie children to realise that, like Australian history and Australian film, Australian politics is largely dumb, boring and irrelevant to daily life. So it was a little surprising to read today that our benevolent rulers plan to force ISPs to filter ‘illegal’ material from all internet traffic, and to block pornography and other ‘inappropriate content’ from users who do not specifically request an opt-out. This is idiotic for so many reasons I don’t even know where to start.
Firstly, let’s look at the practical aspects. As anyone who has come into contact with content filtering software at school or in a home knows, there is no way to filter internet traffic with any reasonable accuracy. Rivers of ‘objectionable’ data are going to get through, and lakes of perfectly unobjectionable content will be dammed behind insensate walls. If this ridiculous plan is actually implemented, this will result in incredible pressure on the government to ‘do something!’ about all the nasty stuff still getting through, and to ‘do something!’ about all the good, important stuff still getting blocked, which will drive the government to ‘do something!’ to make the filter more complicated, more expensive and a bigger speed hump for Australia’s already sluggish internet access. To top it off, for anybody who actually wants access to ‘objectionable’ material, there is no shortage of workarounds ranging from simple browser extensions to the old-fashioned methods of bringing smut across national borders. According to the government’s own report, none of the candidate filters work on non-web protocols such as P2P or instant messaging networks. In the worst case scenario, the government will thus begin cracking down on circumvention technologies themselves – and we all know how well that’s worked in the past. In short, any ‘great firewall’ will be both ineffective for its intended purpose, and a hassle to everyone regardless.
Second come the reasons for having such a filter at all. According to the current plan, there will be two blacklists: one covering illegal material, which will be universally applied, and one covering ‘not child-friendly’ material, which will be opt-out. What possible justification can be given for this second filter other than the most blatant, cynical populism? Anybody who wants to filter their children’s internet access can go out and buy an inaccurate, easily circumvented filter to install in their own homes. Why do we need an inaccurate, easily circumvented filter for every ISP? What if parents want more fine-grained control over their filtering? Who takes the blame when parents rely on centralized filters, and something slips though the net? What poor souls at the ISP will be forced to field tens of thousands of tech support calls from confused, angry parents? How is will the opt-out be administrated anyway? Will the government subsidise ISPs for the administration costs involved?
When it comes to the illegal blacklist, the ramifications do not need to be spelled out. I’ll simply say that anybody who thinks the chance of a ’slippery slope’ into Orwellian state censorship of thought is overblown should note that this is exactly what is being explicitly proposed. No slippery slope is required. Sedition is illegal under Australian law; the filter, as described, would universally block access to material critical of the government. Information about other illegal activities, such as drug use or euthanasia, could also be blocked. It would be naive to think the filter will meticulously remove all content of dubious legality; given that it is a purely populist proposition, it would be a counterproductive to introduce any drastically unpopular restrictions. On the fringes, however – and to many people sedition, drug use and euthanasia are decidedly fringe topics - there is plenty of room for incredible restrictions on free speech which would go largely unchallenged by a majority of the population.
For what it’s worth, should the great firewall ever come to fruition, I pledge to post any and all circumvention methods I hear about to this blog. Let’s hope that it never has to come to that.
ADDED: Check out this blog, this activism site and this amusing parody site.
I’m putting in the poll below purely to try out the new WordPress polls thing. Have fun with it.
The poll is a bit odd. It gives no option to say ’speak out against it’ for example. I for example will do all three of your first examples. The issue however is not your poll but the problem itself. The recent exposure of undercover folk in activist groups written about in the age recently is a case in point. Most of the comments posted to the age online revolved around the idea that if you haven’t done any wrong then you have nothing to worry about. Now, for me, I thought those argument had been negated decades ago. The issues you raise are odd ones, both on a societal level in terms of what does this mean insofar as we as citizens engaged in a political process and therefore certain protections regarding privacy are inherent in any idea of belonging to a society, and also in terms of the practical limitations of such technology.