Aussies face prospect of blanket web filtering

FEDERAL AUSTRALIAN Communications Minster, Helen Coonan has today called for ISP-level filtering for all Australians, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The Senator has admitted that feasibility studies have yet to be conducted, and said, “The government will only introduce filtering measures that are shown to be workable.” What a “workable” measure might entail is anyone's guess.

The Federal Government has been promising for a couple of years now to provide net filtering for families concerned by the content their children can access on the Net. Originally they had promised $116 million (Aus) to provide filtering software for individual computers. While not abandoning the plan to provide filters for individual families, the plan to implement filtering at the ISP level is far more ambitious.

The Labor opposition communications spokesman, Stephen Conroy, accused the government of trying to look tough on Internet safety in the lead-up to the federal election. This is about right, as the “Net alert” plan and accompanying web site have been on the table for around two years now. The Labor opposition plan is no less workable, calling for ISP to filter all connections, rather than all content. Both plans will slow down Internet speeds in Australia, which are already relatively slow compared to other OECD countries.

A spokesman for ISP Internode said that the plan may well lead to higher prices for consumers and an iiNet spokeman called the plan “unworkable”.

One wonders how feasible it is for the government to implement the plan. While some governments - China springs to mind - do filter content before it reaches citizens, it is a problematic process to say the least.

Innumerable websites exist to get around this sort of filtering. In the case of China, it is often human rights organisations that are allowing Chinese citizens access to blocked sites. The same rules will pertain for Australia.

Blocking access to Internet sites simply does not work. While it is commendable to want to keep young eyes away from material they could do without seeing, the plan to filter content is unworkable in its present form. Issues of censorship are also in play here. All Australians will suffer, both in terms of a speed hit, and also in terms of being able to freely choose what they point their browsers at, under either party's plan. µ