Are we about to be Bound & Gagged?

I think Australia has come to a bit of a crossroad. While I’m personally not too concerned about the reasons why the government wants to filter our Internet, the whole concept of them wanting to do it, is what really annoys me.

The Internet has always been made up of free speech. It’s while sites like godhatesfags.com exist. I totally disagree with that site, but it’s still up there; has been for years. It’s because the Internet is about expressing your own opinion. Yes, you may get a lot of support (or hate) from it, but you’re entitled to your own opinion. The Internet has always been free of judgement from any deciding factor or party. It’s almost like a last frontier – where you can still say what you want (to a degree) without being shut down or arrested.

However, it seems that our government is likening the Internet to a video game or television show – where it is a controlled experience. But it is not. Because ‘the internet’ is made up of ‘stuff’ from anyone and everyone (about anything and everything), it’s often seen as free reign. The Internet is not like a TV show where, once it’s made, it goes through a process of review, approval and then distribution. There is no process whereby a web site has to be approved and rated before it goes live to the general public. and there should never be.

A television show, movie, magazine or CD, if deemed inappropriate by the body of reviews, has two choices. Either change it, or don’t sell it in that market because it’s not allowed. If it is re-submitted and it conforms, then it is released to the public based on certain restrictive guidelines such as age (M15+, MA, R, etc), topic (contains horror themes, contains drug use, etc), etc. It doesn’t change between its approval and release.

The Internet isn’t like that. It can change every second. So it can’t go through a review process. Even if it did, or (heaven forbid) had to, there’s potential for the content to be out of date the moment it’s been submitted for review. The Internet cannot be treated like a normal medium. It is not a book, video, music or computer game. It is all of those, but wrapped around someones opinion.

…which is why I think filtering should be left up to the person who is using it. Or, if in the case of children, left up to the guardian or person caring for said kids until they are 18, in which case filtering should be left up to the young adult (ie: the child, once they reach 18). I mean, think about it. We already do this today with TV shows, music CDs and movies. All content has a rating – but it’s up to the end user to decide whether or not to ignore it.

Case in point – I’ve seen 10 year old’s at the cinemas watching “MA”-rated movies. The acne-ridden teen at the cinema box office doesn’t give a shit about who’s buying the ticket, so long as they get their $5 or whatever an hour for selling said tickets, they’re [more of less, in their emo kind-of way ], happy. There’s no enforcement of the rules – it’s as if they’ve become a “guideline” rather than a rule or a law.

The same thing would absolutely happen at home. I’m sure many 14 and 15 year old boys (with TVs in their rooms, as is the case in many homes these days) were up late watching the “MA”-rated “Big Brother Uncut” episodes back in the day. Anything to see a bit of titty action – particularly when alcohol was involved, as it often was on Big Brother. The rule-book has gone out the window. But that’s exactly my point. For so many other forms of media, publication and distribution, it’s left up to the end user. What the Australian government is proposing doing to the Internet in this country is the exact opposite. Filtering of content is NOT being left to the end user. The so-called “secret blacklist” (which, by the way, they are not releasing to the public) will be filtered by THEM. Not US.

Okay, so now I hear you saying “but the government is just blocking child pr0n”. Good, it should be blocked – it’s disgusting, and anyone downloading it should be left to rot in a cell somewhere. But that’s not the point – because some of the sites that have been blocked in trials so far are pro-euthanasia sites. That’s not child pr0n. That’s just content that some people may find interesting and factual. I’m sure there are a few Australians out there that may be suffering immensely from a disease or trauma of some kind and may, of full sane mind and body, want to end their lives. By blocking this kind of stuff, they can’t even read about it. That’s not right. The Internet should be about free-speech and, to coin a new phrase, free-read!

The other issue is that because the blacklist of banned sites is secret, who knows what’s going to be blocked, or filtered. It’s important to remember that, once implemented, it’s easy to just add other sites to the list. Let’s say some minister doesn’t like someones anti Liberal Party website. Fine, well just block it. So much for free-speech. See what I mean? Once the technology is there, it becomes so easy to just continue adding stuff to it.

And what if a domain name (or website) that was blocked gets bought by someone else and becomes legit again. Will it ever be removed from the blacklist? How long will it take? Will someone in government actually get paid to sit there and look at these child pr0n websites every few weeks to see if the site(s) are still block-worthy? I doubt it. So where’s the transparency?

So you can see why this annoys me… it just doesn’t make sense! In fact, it’s downright stupid. Keep the Internet open and let the end user filter it using existing filtering technology at the local level. Educate users on technology and how to keep local filters up to date (oh, and while you’re at it, build a darn filter that can’t be cracked by a 15 year old in 30 minutes – what a waste of $84,000,000 in taxpayer dollars that was!). But for god’s sake, don’t filter our Internet!

What do YOU think?

I’m keen to hear your opinion on the government’s 2010 mandatory Internet filtering scheme. Please leave your comments, thoughts, ideas and $0.02 (inc GST ) worth below!