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Dismal Failure of Internet Filters In Australia
An anonymous reader writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), the department responsible for implementing the insane Internet regulatory framework put in place by the current government, is about to drop a number of Internet Filtering packages due to their ineffectiveness. The full article is available here. There is also news that the Minister for Communications, Senator Richard Alston (whom The Register has labeled the Worlds Biggest Luddite :) ) is awaiting a review of the law with possible changes to follow. Be afraid Australia, be very afraid!"
The head of the Internet Industry Association, Peter Coroneos, said mandatory filtering had been ruled out because "...We feel the decision is best left in the hands of parents."
Seems too obvious. Parents responsible for their kids. Anyone in the US government listening?
No doubt the review of the "Internet Decency" laws will include a clause that you may not be naked whilst your computer is connected to the Internet. It'd be on par with their past efforts.
Press release from the EFA (Australia's version of the EFF):
--------
Media Release: 3 March 2003
Censorship laws contribute to youth access to violent pornography
Australian censorship laws contribute to the problem of youth access to
pornographic material of the violent and extreme kind, Electronic Frontiers
Australia (EFA) said today.
The Australia Institute recently surveyed 200 youths 16-17 years old and
found that "teenagers view X-rated videos more than Internet sex sites",
although the sale of X-rated videos is illegal in all States.
"Apparently, Australian laws prohibiting sale of X-rated videos have failed
to prevent youth access to this type of video. It's even less likely that
government attempts to prevent access to content on the world-wide Internet
can be successful," said Irene Graham, EFA's Executive Director.
"Australian laws already empower the Australian Broadcasting Authority to
enforce deletion of any X-rated material found on Australian hosted
Internet sites and The Australia Institute's report does not suggest that
the laws have failed in this regard."
The Australia Institute said a "distinction needs to be drawn between
'mainstream' pornography (in commercially available X-rated videos) and the
proliferation of violent and extreme material on the Internet".
"Australian Internet censorship laws go far beyond the realms of community
standards and practicality," said Graham. "Mainstream pornography
containing sexually explicit X-rated material without the slightest
indication of violence, coercion or demeaning depictions, and also R rated
material that is not sexually explicit, is banned in the same way as
depictions of rape, bestiality and so on. Mere nudity, like a Playboy
magazine centre-fold, is banned. As a result, adults and teenagers seeking
mainstream pornography online, visit overseas sites where they are very
likely to be exposed to violent and extreme pornography."
EFA said relaxation of Australian Internet censorship laws would be more
successful in minimising access to violent and extreme kinds of pornography
than would more restrictive legislation.
"The laws should be changed to permit on-line provision of Australian
X-rated material, a category that has long prohibited violent and extreme
pornography," said Graham. "This would allow the small proportion of
Internet users who seek pornographic material online, whether adult or
teenage, to access strictly regulated Australian sites. At present, they
have no option other than to visit overseas sites that also contain
horrific material and that are not, and never will be, subject to
Australia's censorship laws."
EFA considers that minors' access to pornography online is a matter of
serious concern. However, given the global nature of the Internet, more
restrictive Australian laws would be no more effective than current laws.
... and then there were none
At the ISP I used to work for in Perth, Australia we decided the best solution was to provide a page or two on our website explaining how software filtering works, then provide all the alternatives and let the clients decide, so I wrote:
. ht ml
http://www.iinet.net.au/support/softwarefilters
it fulfilled the requirements of the legislation and explained the limitations of each type of flitering quite clearly - without affecting our customers or business.
"We feel the decision is best left in the hands of parents." He said the opt-out clause "could work" but feared routine filtering could seriously slow down the internet.
They should go with an opt-in policy instead. Those willing to stick their heads in the sand and let others make decisions about what they can and can not read should stand up and ask for it by name instead of forcing the everyone else to bail out of such a scheme.
--
Freeper Logic
Were I you, I'd be more worried about the fact that the Australian education system seems to have failed you miserably. The only website you need to worry about reaching is this one.
It's kinda weird. In the US a naked tit causes so much trouble it has to be pixelated out of TV shows. Here nobody is bothered by tits.
But we have this peculiar web censorship law to (try to) stop us seeing tits online. As far as I can (dimly) remember it was an offering to an ultra-conservative state senator to get him to vote for the privitisation of our telephone monopoly. We got the dud law, and he voted against privitisation. Oh how we laughed. Not!
I always thought it would just fade into obscurity over time, but now with Howard crawling up the bum of Dubbya, I expect every crackpot US idea to be imported, and none of our own crackpot ideas to be discarded. Sigh.
In fact, dont expect them to work more than about 1/2 the time, in that way you might be pleasantly suprised.
I base this claim on the observation that no one has been able to block spam to a severe degree. It would seem that most of the filtering for both spam and the netnanny type filtering would work on the same princibles.( except for that skin tone filtering, but thats just pure evil, though cool).
When I can block 90% of the spam in my mailbox then I will become concerened for the ausies.
On a serious note: I will become concerned for everyone the day that a governing entity becomes satisfied with its censorship practices.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
Unfortunately, what was being implied by the parent post is absolutely wrong. The internet censoring down here is NOTHING like the "great firewall of China" since this censoring effort is merely an attempt to black-list sites of questionable and illegal nature eg: online casinos, REALLY offensive pr0n etc...
Proxies have never been required to bypass such a system because, only some 11 or so sites (as of a year or two's count, and I seriously doubt this number has increased all that much) have been censored by this 'law', and may I add, at quite a considerable expense for each site (at least AUD$10k+ each IIRC)
As for the impact this filtering system has had on AUS net users? None whatsoever. The sooner it is out of operation, the better. The money would be better spent elsewhere
Anyone care to explain how an ISP makes money because their users download a lot ??
When they charge 15 cents per megabyte for people who download more than their (300MB/1GB/3GB - choose your poison) cap.\
And then have the gall to define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes , a-la hard disk manufacturers.
Ka-Ching!!
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I jumped ship on a temporary basis and it's articles like this that make me glad I'm in Switzerland and not oz.
.... she still can't get ASDL. No cable either. Not even cable TV. Cable duopoly that has limited reach in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, which has stalled to a crawl?
... News LTD won't get all the $$$, so forget it. You are a disgrace Alston, Howard the Coward and the whole damn Liberal party. Wankers.
Pros:
- Great wads of legal cash at obscenely low tax rates
- No Alston, Howard the Coward and team.
- 1.5 hours flight to Amsterdam
- Good quality, high potency nearly-legal mull
- No Eddie McGuire
- Unlimited-download (but speed capped) ASDL
Cons:
- Howard the Coward doing his best to ruin Australia's reputation
- No MCG, PoW, Espy, ABC cricket broadcasts
- 7 Franks (~$Au 7.5) for a can of VB.
It's pornography and gaming (gambling and games) that have driven the use of the Web and the uptake of broadband. Email, USENET, ftp and even various chat protocols have been side attractions.
Alston is single-handedly driving away any hope of Australia being a content provider (and earning $$$) instead of being a content consumer (and watching the $$$ flow overseas).
Get a clue Alston, being a consumer of technology does not earn you any real $$$, not does it drive innovation. Anyone can be a consumer. Time has not only stood still under your stewardship, but gone backwards.
My fiance couldn't get any broadband in a middle sized city (for Australia), Ballarat. This was 3 years ago. She recently moved back there for our son's schooling and guess what
Here's a policy you can use for free: Local cable cooperatives with content providers paying for access. Oh
OK, I wandered off-topic for a while. But this guy wouldn't have a clue about the internet if it walked up to him, whacked him on the head with a clue-by-four, presented a business card and said: "Hi, I'm a clue". (Clue number 2: Free (as in speach) internet, increased parental supervision to stop nasty porn sites for youngsters) Of course, making people do hard work, actually raising their own kids, will never win votes.
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
My favourite bit is the "opt out" of filtering for over-18s - as much an admission of the intent to masturbate as calling down to the front desk of the Hilton and saying "Yeah, hi, how do I get porn on this TV?"
We monitor what our child does, in fact the computer is in our living room so we know what she is doing. At the same time, all it takes is a trivial error to expose her to pornographic material. For example, type whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov. This bit me the other day. She wanted to buy something for her "American Girl" doll. So we sat down at the computer. Unfortunately, I typed americangirls.com instead of americangirl.com.
Frankly I don't care if people have access to pornography. More power to them. BUT I do wish there was some simple way to separate pornography from everything else. E.g., a XXX domain. That way anyone who wants it can get it. At the same time, I just install a simple filter and I don't have to worry about trivial errors like I had with americangirl.
Frankly, I don't believe this is too much to ask. For example, I go to the book store and they put the porno mags on the top shelf, where my child is unlikely to make a trivial error and pick one up. In essence, that is all I'm asking of the internet.