Net filtering won’t work, so what is Conroy up to?
|
It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen as breathtakingly mendacious a policy announcement as yesterday’s declaration by Stephen Conroy that the government would introduce internet censorship. It’s one thing to hold off on an announcement (which Conroy admitted he’d been sitting on since October) until the week before Christmas, when half the serious journalists in the country are on the other side of the world. That had its reward, with minimal, and decidedly thin, coverage of the announcement in the mainstream media today. It’s quite another, even in these days of spin and media management, for a government minister to stand up and blatantly declare that black is white, and the government will be proceeding on the basis of that fact. The internet “filtering” trial — perhaps we should drop the “filter” term, and call it what it is, censorship — was carefully structured by the government so that the filtering technology tested would meet low benchmarks and limited performance requirements. But it looks an awful lot like one of the reasons the government sat on the trial outcome for so long was because most of the trial results failed to meet even the minimal hurdles set up by the government. On the basis of the trial report, even advocates of censorship could not support what Conroy has proposed, on the basis that it just doesn’t work. That’s why Conroy, in charging ahead yesterday, had to tell a series of patent untruths. That filtering could be done with “100% accuracy”, when the trial saw up to 3.4% of web content (which means tens of million of web pages worldwide) wrongly blocked. That the “wild claims” that censorship affects internet speed have been “put to bed” when the trial, despite trying to define the problem away by declaring “negligible” effect on usage speed as less than 10%, saw speed reductions of 30-40%. Or the big lie, that filtering works, when several filters were bypassed more often than not (in one case, more than 90%), and the only filter that defeated nearly all efforts to circumvent it was the one with the 40%+ performance degradation. And as the report dryly notes: “Telstra found its filtering solution was not effective in the case of non-web based protocols such as instant messaging, peer-to-peer or chat rooms.” Which are exactly the platforms that pedophiles use. Bizarrely, Conroy hasn’t merely tried to claim black is white, he has constructed a whole new arm of censorship policy on the basis of it. Under his proposed legislation, we would have two different forms of internet censorship. There would be the first, existing censorship regime, which not merely prohibits RC-material, but prohibits sites with any adult content, including the sort of stuff you can see in your corner newsagent, without an age verification mechanism, and extends to restricting free speech, including advocacy of euthanasia and gambling. ACMA enforces this regime on a complaints basis, to fulfil its statutory obligations under the Broadcasting Services Act and other legislation. But in an attempt to deflect claims that the censorship mechanism would be the thin end of the wedge, Conroy yesterday was insisting that the only material blocked under mandatory filtering would be RC-material. So there’d be a second blacklist, you see, Conroy’s RC-only blacklist, in addition to ACMA’s current blacklist. So while www.childpr0n.com would be blocked under both, trying to inform the terminally ill about options for euthanasia online would be blocked under one, but not the other. How would that work? Well, that’s not clear. How would you know whether you were blocked under “mandatory filtering”, or under the current legislative framework? And what difference would it make? Conroy has also promised that he’d be looking at the basic problem that ACMA can’t be trusted to administer a blacklist. Not doing anything about it — just looking at it. It was only courtesy of Wiki leaks that we learnt in March this year of the debacle of ACMA’s blacklist, in which ordinary businesses and school tuckshops were banned along with extreme s-x sites. If replicated in a mandatory censorship environment, this would see businesses, NGOs and citizens disappeared off the internet, with potentially significant costs and no compensation. Conroy’s solution is yet another discussion paper. Quite what he and his bureaucrats have been doing since March on this issue is a mystery. So what is the government up to, when it’s clear that its proposal won’t stop pedophiles creating and distributing their material, or stop terrorists communicating online, only punish legitimate internet users? The government’s real objective here is to shore up its family-friendly credentials. While the technologically literate may laugh at the trial outcome, and free speech advocates rail at censorship, Kevin Rudd and Stephen Conroy know they’re a tiny minority of voters. This is all about giving ill-informed and often lazy parents, most of whom think that you can “stumble upon” p-rnography on the internet, the illusion that their children are safe, even as their kids circumvent the mechanism and go looking for s-xual material, which is what kids have always done. That parents should be active monitors of what their kids consume in the media is apparently old-fashioned thinking. It isn’t about changing votes, so much as solidifying the government’s branding in the minds of mainstream voters as morally middle-of-the-road and supportive of families. The other target is the coalition. Hitherto, particularly under Nick Minchin, the coalition has been hostile to the filtering scheme. But in the end, the coalition — which in the face of Green opposition will be necessary for Conroy’s Bill to pass the Senate — may struggle to oppose it. Blocking the Bill will enable the government to portray the coalition as out-of-touch with families and “mainstream values”. The value of censorship as a wedge far exceeds any losses that will accrue from a few IT nerds. And if the technically competent, as the report says, can bypass these filters easily, what’s the issue? Geeks can have an uncensored internet, while your average suburban mum and dad are happy their kids won’t be clicking onto child abuse while doing their homework. This is where this political stunt has serious consequences, and where the issue stops being about the ineffectiveness of filtering technology and about freedom of speech. Conroy insists that the censorship will only be about RC-material. “So for people wanting to campaign on the basis that we’re going to maybe slip political content in — we will never support that. And if someone proposes that I will be on the floor of Parliament arguing against it.” Good to hear, minister, and I actually believe you. But you’re in effect asking us to trust not just you but every politician in the future. We’ve all seen the confected moral panics that the tabloid media, and politicians, are happy to use. Maybe it’s an unsavoury incident on a reality TV show. Maybe it’s a particularly foul-mouthed chef. The results are the same — the demand for politicians to censor, to block, to ban and restrict. And that’s before we get to the moralisers and the demonisers. Maybe it’s euthanasia, accepted and legal in other countries but banned from discussion in Australia. Maybe it’s junk-food advertising, or alcohol advertising, another alleged source of vexation to parents. The government’s censorship proposal locks in a universal mechanism that can be extended at will by politicians. Those who want to circumvent it will be able to, yes, but the bulk of the population will be subject to it, barely aware that it’s there — like they are barely aware that politicians have already banned the online expression of certain ideas such as euthanasia. Do you trust politicians with such a mechanism? |
|
|
|
30 Comments
They’re shoring up their god botherer vote. First Guy Sebastian, and now this. Do these religious types have no mercy? http://bit.ly/6KyYBy
In answer to your final question I wouldn’t even trust a politician with a chook raffle. This proposal is the thin end of the wedge for censorship of any media content that “Big Brother” decides is not for our general consumption. If you want an example of how this censorship power is misused look at China. Imagine what would happen if Tony Abbott became the “Chief Information Minister” as the head of the “Ministry of Truth” (Apologies to George Orwell)
Some 50 years ago narrow bigoted religious minded individuals were trying to stop us from reading Lady Chatterley’s Llover, and it took a tremendous amount of public backlash and protest for this censorship problem to be resolved. The situation we have now is even more pernicious. Secret lists of topics and subjects will be prescribed at the push of a bureaucratic button without any recourse as you will not know what you are not allowed to see. Topics such as euthanasia in relation to which politicians pander to right-wing lunatics could easily be suppressed without our knowledge. Whilst ostensibly these controls are designed to control internet pornography, it is more likely that this is a more pernicious project to control the political landscape in terms of discussion. Nothing short of a complete and open disclosure of the banned information will ensure that these proposed controls are being used for the appropriate purposes. It should be necessary to get a Supreme Court judge to issue a formal order in relation to the banning of the information, and this information published in the daily law lists, with the opportunity for objectors to be heard.
However as it is reasonably well-known that porn freaks and geeks are unable to get around these controls one is forced to the inescapable conclusion that these people are not the prime target, but that this is an excuse to allow corrupt politicians to control the information landscape.
Do you trust politicians with such a mechanism?
No, and well said, Bernard.
Family-friendly? This country is too bloody family-friendly!
Rudd’s policy style is making me pretty grumpy. He seems to see the whole world through wedge coloured glasses.
Is Conroy a catholic?
Conroy is catholic and a member of the conservative right of the Labor Party
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Conroy
Anyone want to see what an incompetent (and dangerous) loon Stephen Conroy is… just watch him on Q&A last March
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2521164.htm
everything he says just reinforces the idea that he has no idea and the system (for want of a better word) of prescribing sites is arbitrary and unaccountable.
Greg Angelo - thoroughly agree that the thought of Abbott and co. in control of such a mechanism is frightening (as opposed to merely highly disturbing, with the present government).
It’s a classic Catch-22 that we can’t find out what is on the banned list. In the absence of said information, we have to take governments at their word not to abuse the power or stuff up. And why should we?
That’s one of the best pieces about the filter I’ve read. Really fantastic work!
The question on my mind is would a web site with information about how to bypass the internet filter/censor be in itself blocked by said filter/censor?
Anyone?
Now, now let’s not be too hard on Stephen (“and I’m here to help”), after all if not for him and his style of “coodinated machinations” in another “field”, “Steve Fielding” would hardly be a household name today?
David Hardie - this question crossed my mind and the cynical brain came up with an affirmative answer.
As for Conroy - he may have stood up to Telstra, but he didn’t have the cojones to stand up to PM Dudd and the god botherers. Remember, MPs of all parties have worked hard at being party apparatchiks to get their reward of a seat, regardless of their competence.
Maybe a media person - Bernard??? - could ask Conroy exactly why he spread those untruths yesterday. I look forward to seeing/hearing both the question and answer. But I won’t be holding my breath.
Meantime, my anger at this outrage continues, and I will be making effort to circumvent it.
Only geeks are going to be able to get around it? Wrong. I’m a geek, and I propose to help anyone who wants to circumvent this filter. And publicise that I’m willing to do this, just to throw it into the teeth of conroy and his ilk.
What’s a bet that Conroy will make circumvention illegal? The boys in the AFP will have a whole new department created for them just to police it all.
The thought police from the Vatican will be very busy telling Conroy and the AFP what websites to block. And just imagine the lather that Fred Nile will work himself up in when he sees the opportunities.
If the bill looks like passing, the Greens should insist the blacklist is published, along with the names of those who initiated the blocking and the names of those in the government who made the decision. There are too many faceless, unaccountable people making bad decisions for us now. We don’t want more of them.
Conroy is a socially conservative, right to life, catholic, with a faily low IQ. Be very afraid if this censorship goes ahead
What’s being a catholic got to do with it? Being a Catholic doesn’t make you an idiot.
Bad policy for political gain makes you an idiot. And contemptible.
On the slippery slope and we can’t do a thing about. The other crowd would surely have its own agenda to block freedom of expression too. Our only hope is taking to the streets but there again the authorities have covered that angle to.
Poor Fellow My Country!!
One suspects Darren the fact Conroy is a devout Catholic has a lot to do with his thinking, particularly on censorship of the net. Unless he publishes the blacklist so we the voting public can see what the sites are he intends to block, he will be regarded as the fool who fires the bullets for his masters, whoever they are, and to hell with general public.
One would hope the Greens get stuck in over this one.
I note the GetUp organisation have put their machine into action, flooding Conroy with thousands of emails and a 120,000 sig petition already. It appears the Govt are determined to give the Coalition all the assistance they need. Christmas Is bursting at the seams, being pounded on border protection, the non stop bashing about their carbon tax, hospitals in a shambles,interest rates rising,high grocery, meat and power prices and on it goes. These are all areas that middle Australia will be easily convinced are in deep trouble and that is exactly what Abbott is determined to target. Rudd needs to be very careful.
No one said catholics are idiots. They kept the Labour Party out of office in Australia for years through the National Civic Council and the DLP. They have also had undue influence over policy through such devious personalities as Brian Harradine and Tony Abbot who knew what was right for everyone with the usual arrogance of the catholic zealot.
I can’t see a lot of difference between people like these and the mad and bad Islamasists who arrogantly believe that their’s is the only way. I suppose the difference is that catholics don’t blow people up, but their more subtle methods have far greater social and physical impact. One only has to look at the Aids epedemic in Africa to realise that.
A religion that tells people what they can and can’t do and removes the possibilty of people developing their own relationship with God, subverts the spiritual process and makes a mockery of conscience. A church that imposes it’s own conscience on its “flock” is inserting itself into the spitual relationship between the person and God such that they belittle both.
The arrogance of a religion that proposes that a Church leader can represent God’s word in absolutium and is proposed to be infallible under certain arbitrary conditions is breathtaking.
What’s being a Catholic got to do with it? Simple. Anything to do with sex outside of marriage and the procreation of children is bad. So anything that has a contrary view to the Pope is bad an must be erased (filtered by Conroy). In spite of what the rest of us, may think.
This discussion is getting sidetracked into irrelevancies such as whether Conroy is a Catholic or not. The real is the one Greg Angelo posed. Would you trust politicians to decide what you can or cannot read? Of course not. But that is not because of sexually explicit material being seen by underage eyes. We live in an age where governments are the main purveyors of terrorism in the world. They engage in war crimes. The notion of accountability has become a pipedream. The mainstream media is either hopelessly compromised through infiltration (Project Mockingbird) or is in bed with the same companies that profit from endless war.
In recent years virtually the sole source of alternative news and insights into what the bastards are really up to has been the internet. It is no coincidence that the better informed the public has become through the internet the more anxious governments have become to control the flow of information.
Be warned. Conroy’s proposals are only the beginning of a sustained onslaught on our right to be informed.
But the techniques used for circumvention are already used and needed by business. For example VPN. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, are using this to telecommute.
The Catholic issue is not a side track. It is a key example of the dangers of the filtering system. It demostrates the exact problem we are all concerned about. Vested interests telling us what we can and can’t read and manipulating information to suit their self interests.
I don’t trust Politicians to do anything other than to look after the interests of the people who provide them their campaign funds to get them elected.
Conroy is acting true to form. He’s a total loss as a minister. Even his spin is poor hen trying to sell duds like this nanny state stuff. TThe NBN is a more serious problem because of the $ involved. Perhaps Rudd should give that well known salesperson penny Wong the job when he moves her from Climate C and water
Steve Conroy is yet another Catholic and Kevin Rudd was born a Catholic but pretends he is now something else.
The Liberal Party is inundated with Catholics, Joe Hockey, Kevin Andrews, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Abbott, Julie Bishop, Malcolm Turnbull, ex-minister Dr Nelson. The new member for Higgins. The National Party has Barnaby Joyce, and Peter Ryan. Together they work towards undermining our political systems, and to tell us to behave like the good little Catholics which they demonstrably are not.
The fundamental ploy of those who want censorship of the internet, or the freedom of the average Oz to enjoy our art, or to read the books we want to read, and to see the movies we want to watch. Is to declare they’re trying to protect our ‘kiddy-widdies’. In truth they want something far more sinister. They want the power to brain-wash us into submission.
If they really wanted to protect the kids they would pass the problem onto those people who are too lazy to install their own (family) censorship.
Thanks to shooting themselves in both feet we no longer have an Opposition and Kevin Rudd can pretty much do as he wishes.
JAMES O’NEILL: The Catholic issue has EVERYTHING to do with what’s wrong with the system. I suggest you read Bernard’s article Re Kevin Rudd and sister Mary MacKillop ‘sainthood???’ The cynicism, the manoeuvrerings, the exploitation of children, THE LOT. Trying to sidetrack Catholicism as a side-show, could be mis- constructed as being a person who is also a Catholic.
The god botherers have never been good at questioning things or thinking for themselves.
If you don’t like the intertubes, then don’t click!
ROBERT GARNETT: Well said. You are absolutely correct in both your comments. IMHO the difference between Islam and Catholicism essentially is this. With the exception of the outright terrorists who bomb and torture people, Islam basically has no wish to impose their way of thinking onto Australian beliefs and our Constitution (yeah, I know the Prophet ordered believers to convert everyone else)
Whereas Catholics and especially Catholic Parliamentarians actively work against our traditions and attempt to force the rest of us to behave as Catholics. Look at Barnaby Joyce’s behaviour! Ditto Tony Abbott (no abortion) Ditto Kevin Andrews (no euthanasia) Steve Conroy (thou shall not be able to read and/or watch anything we Catholics don’t approve of).
Next it will be burning the books, burning interesting movies, tearing down out art.
I’ve lived in a dictatorship for a short while. And it ain’t a good system.
PPS: And Kevin Rudd was born a Catholic-even though he appears to have switched to another form of fundamentalism. He would do anything to hang onto power, even if he had to turn Muslim.
GREG ANGELO: Spot on.
MESKI: I would love to avail myself of your expertise. And more than willing to put my name down on your list.
The web filter used by federal departments blocks access to one of the Amateur (ham) Radio clubs in the US for radio hobbyists who are gay and lesbian. Evidently gay + lesbian + amateur got it listed as porn… And it thinks that websites describing features of GSM handsets are for hacking / terrorism purposes. (I was trying to find a quad band model - for manufacturers things like number of colours on the screen is far more important than whether it will work in the more remote areas of the US which use GSM-850.) Oh, and some companies selling police / emergency services clothing and accessories are blocked on the generic NSW Police computers, for being terrorism related, although access can be requested through management.
Nice article Mr Keane