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[livejournal.com profile] active_apathy has her two bob to say about the government's ISP filtering plan. Which is GREAT, since she has a really wide readership. Plus, there's an Avenue Q joke.

Eggs Maledict had his rant on Friday, and noted that, at that stage, there was only one Australian news report on the non-opt-out plan, but we do rate a mention in The New York Times, one in the Inquirer and a mention by the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, the latter in reference to the Swedish government's wiretapping plans. There may be more articles by now, but a cursory glance at the SMH will show you that the mainstream media still haven't decided it's worth remark.

Active Apathy had a link to Electronic Frontiers Australia, whose rules of incorporation state:
OBJECTS AND PURPOSES
1. To protect and promote the civil liberties of users of computer based communications systems and of those affected by their use.
2. To advocate the amendment of laws and regulations in Australia and elsewhere which restrict free speech and unfettered access to information.
3. To educate the community at large about the social, political, and civil liberties issues involved in the use of computer based communications systems.
4. To support, encourage and advise on the development and use of computer based communication systems, and related innovations.
5. To research and advise on the application of the law (both current and proposed) to computer based communication systems and related technologies.
Y'know what? I like these guys. I'm seriously considering joining, which is saying something given that I've stubbornly avoided all forms of political activism right throughout her uni career.

Now, let's consider some of the articulate information concerning and arguments against the filter which the EFA and nocleanfeed.com have to offer:

From nocleanfeed.com (citations available on their website):
The Government is refusing to release concrete details on the plan. However, we know that ISP-level filtering has been ALP policy for some time and is being zealously pursued by the Minister. What we do know is this:
  • The feed will be mandatory in all homes and schools across the country.
  • The filter will censor material that is "harmful and inappropriate" for children.
  • The filter will require a massive expansion of the ACMA's blacklist of prohibited content.
  • The filter will target legal as well as illegal material.
What we don't know is just as important.
  • Will there be any way to opt out from the scheme?
  • What age level is the country's Internet to be made appropriate for? 15? 10? 5 years old?
  • Who decides what material is "appropriate" for Australians to see?
  • Who will maintain the blacklist of prohibited sites?
  • How can sites mistakenly added to the list be removed?
Although all of us want to see children protected from content that could be disturbing or harmful, the clean-feed filter is not a good way to go about this, and could actually reduce the safety of children online.
Well, we now know that there will be no opt out, although you can choose the level of your filter.

As far as the level of your filter goes, the EFA discussion of the plan (which predates the announcement of the two-level filter) that filtering is to be based on the ACMA's list of prohibited sites- currently a little over 3000 sites, which, if implemented as a simple blacklist of domain names or IP addresses, would be less than useless at protecting anyone from the vast amounts of undesirable content on the intertubes.
The ‘prohibited content’ category consists of content that would be ‘Refused Classification’ (child sexual abuse, acts of extreme violence or cruelty, etc) or would be classified X18+ (non violent sexually explicit). It does not include content that would be classified R18+ that is hosted on overseas site, nor does it include any content that would be classified MA15+, M or PG. Hence blocking of only ‘prohibited content’ would not be effective in protecting children from material that may be unsuitable for them...
There are clear indications, including from the Senator’s vague but frequent reference to “inappropriate” material, that the clean feed might mandate the filtering of R18+ rated material. For instance, the Labor Herald carried a Q&A stating that “Labor will require ISPs to filter out R, RC and X rated material as part of a clean feed for home internet connections.”[9b]
In response to an earlier enquiry by EFA, a relevant Labor Party policy adviser stated that Labor’s system would block R18+ content hosted on overseas sites that had been the subject of a complaint and had been classified by ACMA and that the existing legislation, which does not apply to R18+ content hosted overseas, would be changed accordingly.
EFA considers that Labor’s intention to extend the regulatory scheme to R18+ content on local or overseas sites makes Labor’s one-size-fits-all system even more impractical than it would otherwise be.
Significantly more adults are likely to wish to opt out of a filtering system that blocks R18+ content (in addition to X18+ and RC) because content that would be classified R18+ includes a wide range of material that does not involve sexually explicit or violent material. A high proportion of material classified R18+ under Australian law is so classified for other reasons, that is, because it contains detailed information and/or discussion about “adult themes” that is, aspects of adult life that are potentially harmful or disturbing to minors. According to the Office of Film and Literature Classification (”OFLC”) “adult themes” include references to and depictions associated with “issues such as suicide, crime, corruption, marital problems, emotional trauma, drug and alcohol dependency, death and serious illness, racism, religious issues” (OFLC Guidelines for the Classification of Films and Videotapes and Internet Content, issued September 2000).
I hope that references to the blocking of R18+ and X18+ material have resolved themselves into the child-friendly filter. Because I would really, really be pee'd off if material judged appropriate for adults were blocked by the nation-wide filter.

Now, let's consider how this will be enforced. Obviously, the ACMA classification system is time-consuming and cannot provide complete coverage of the internet. The EFA break down the three types of 'index' filtering on their site. As far as I can tell, all of these rely on someone compiling a masterlist of bad sites and providing it to ISP servers for them to ban. Which, if it's going to be effective, would take so much government time and money, it's just not funny. And you can get around them by using anonymiser services. It's possible that ISP providers might use blacklists from existing filtering software, but, as anyone who ever used a school computer knows, filtering software is hit-and-miss: it blocks useful things and doesn't block some things it really, really should. Furthermore, if the blacklists are to be based on Australian ratings policies, most filtering software lists will be rendered null and void, as they're based on foreign classification systems.

The other option is Content analysis filtering (still from the same part of the EFA site):
Content analysis filtering techniques use artificial intelligence to analyse and assess the content of a web page prior to providing access to, or blocking access to, the page. They are sometimes referred to “guessing engines”.Ovum’s report stated that “[i]t is no more practical to use complex filtering analysis techniques such as textual and image analysis to automatically filter web content” than it was at the introduction of the regulatory scheme (2000) and that there had been “no major developments in technology“.Further, as the Government report stated “Textual, image and profile type analyses can have a significant impact on network performance, as greater accuracy typically requires increased system resources resulting in slower response times” and “analysis-filtering techniques are more practical in PC-based products, where the filter is required to deal with the requests of only one computer“.


Given the inherent inaccuracies of content analysis filtering, and the drain it will place on service speed, the EFA deem it likely that some form of index filtering will be used. Which means that, as nocleanfeed.com put it:
  • No software yet exists that can accomplish what the Minister is trying to do.
  • Millions of web sites, with the list changing on a daily basis, would need to be monitored by Australian bureaucrats - an impossible task.
  • Illegal material is already hidden and so would be difficult to find to even add to the blacklist in the first place.
  • Any determined user - including children - could bypass the filter quickly using an anonymizer service.
  • The clean feed would be less customisable and effective than a PC-based filter.


Now, as the EFA state, all this effort will in fact do NOTHING to protect children and other internet users from the threats which the government has identified as most prevalent on the 'net:
Labor’s own policy document, Labor’s Plan for Cyber-safety, identifies several risks children face online, including:

* online identity theft
* cyber-bullying
* having photos published online without their permission
* computer addiction
* picking up a virus or trojan
* online activities of child predators

None of these risks would be in any way mitigated by the clean feed internet filter. This all suggests that resources to protect and educate children about online risks and appropriate online behaviour could be spent better than on the clean feed, especially as free filters are already available to all parents concerned with content risks for their children.
This 10.5 million dollar package is 10.5 million dollars which is not being spent on tracking and charging child predators. It's 10.5 million dollars which is not being spent on policies and avenues by which to prevent cyber-bullying and/or prosecute those who are guilty of cyber-bullying. It's not even stopping anyone from publishing photos of them online without their permission, even explicit photos: any halfway-savvy predator or bully will have access to an anonymising service which will connect him/her to an overseas ISP and allow them to upload to overseas sites. All this plan will do in that regard is prevent australians from viewing that content. I don't know about you, but the idea that someone could upload a photo of my child (had I a child) to a site which is blocked in Australia, which means I might never find out about it, is really quite disturbing.

And does that mean that if it's not visible in Australia, Australian law enforcement isn't going to help you? Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak?

ETA: Aaaand this is why activist groups come in handy sometimes. The EFA have a list of ways to complain to the government, including a form letter you can edit according to your needs and send on to Senator Stephen Conroy.
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