Avoiding Responsibility

For those that don't know, Australia suffers under one of the most repressive censorship regimes in the West. See, by and large, Australian's are an immature bunch. We enjoy toilet humour, teasing each other about one's failings, and love nothing more than watching other people's misfortunes (Australia's Funniest Home Videos was previously the most watched program in my home town of Newcastle. And yes, I am ashamed of that). So it's no wonder then that our governments, both State and Federal, feel that we should be treated like children and told what media we can and cannot consume. It's for our own good you know. They only do it because they love us.

With the coming of the digital age and the Cyberwebthingy, and the possibility that those few Australians who didn't use the mouse like a tv remote being able to consume media that the State hadn't vetted for us, our leaders reacted with horror. The children might be exposed to nasty things like independent thought and discussions of topics that extend beyond the performance of the local sporting teams, the affairs of your church, and what slice you were going to prepare for the school fete this year. So in our best interests, they took it upon themselves to censor the Interweb.

The first step was primarily designed to allow the Howard Government to sell off Telstra - they had to secure the support of a sextogenarian Tasmanian who was a firm supporter of all things paternal and condescending. So they made porn illegal on the Net. Apparently the rest of the world didn't read this in their copy of Hansard, but anyway.

Now the Rudd Government has decided that this policy of spending AUD$189 million was a really good idea, because it was incredibly effective and an efficient allocation of resources, and has decided to extend the program, from an opt-in system, to a no-option system. Because as we all know, the Australian Federal Government knows better than the Australian people what media they should be consuming.

As part of this new program, the government is using a list of 'bad' websites. This list started life in the original Howard Government regime, and has been growing in size since. The list of websites is of course secret. It would be kind of pointless having a list of 'bad' websites openly available to the public, because then they would know what you didn't want them to see, as well as giving them the address of these websites. Because in AFPS logic, there is no other way to find anything on the Tinternet (apparently they haven't found that little 'search' box in the top right hand corner of their browser). Websites are added to the blacklist when people complain to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). It can be a lot of fun if you're bored. Just find a website that you don't like/agree with, submit the URL to the ACMA, and more than likely, it will be blacklisted. What's even better is it the site is actually hosted on servers located in Australia and was posted there by a person residing in Australia. Because if the person is identified, they can be charged with criminal offences! Great way to fuck with that neighbour who keeps starting the mower at 7am on Saturday morning.

Ostensibly the list is to stop people from viewing child porn. Putting aside arguments as to the effectiveness of such a system (email me and I'll explain why such a system is designed to fail), once the system is in place it is incredibly easy to expand the scope of the material that is blocked. Witness the recent example of the blocking of an anti-abortion website. Whatever side of the abortion debate you sit on, no reasonable person can argue that adults shouldn't have access to materials discussing the issue. And yet now there is one less source of such material available to those using filtering software provided by the Australian government, and assuming Senator Conroy pushes through his Internet censorship system, no-one, let me say that again, NO ONE, in Australia will be legally allowed to view that website. So the question begs - what other websites can we get put on that list? Holocaust deniers? 9/11 conspiracy nuts? Atheists? Where do you stop?

The point is this: we don't know, and we can't know. The Howard Government passed legislation in 2002 that prevents anyone from knowing what websites are on the blacklist, what websites have been considered for inclusion on the list, and discussions that took place about the blacklist, and any internal policies about the operation of the blacklist. The only way you'll know a website has been added to the list is when you try to load it and see a friendly note from the ACMA saying that you've tried to access child porn and that you should make arrangements for the collection of your children from school because you will be having a nice wee chat with some pleasant chaps from the Australian Federal Police for the rest of the afternoon.

And let's be honest, there is a lot of shit on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter etc that is, or would likely be, classified X 18+ or refused classification (to use the legal jargon). How long before these sites are added to the list?

Oh, but won't someone think of the children!

Links:

Free speech costs $11,000 a day
Family First: Family should be first, but you shouldn't have to actually invest any time in making it so
ACMA censors anti-censorship website