Internet users don't want to be filtered

Stuart Corner
Monday, 23 February 2009 01:16

IT Industry - Market

A survey of 1500 Internet users has found a majority opposed to government-mandated ISP-side filtering of the Internet, and widespread belief that such filtering will not be possible.

The online survey of 1500 Internet users was carried out by Auspoll as part of its ongoing quarterly tracking survey of Australian digital lifestyles. Auspoll says its survey was segmented to be representative of the national population by age, gender and residential location. However it was slightly skewed towards broadband rather than dial up Internet users and, being an online survey, Auspoll has not indicated what, if any, attempt was made to avoid a bias towards 'power users'.

Of those surveyed 47 percent strongly disagreed (28 percent) or disagreed (19 percent) with the statement "Government should censor the Internet". Thirty percent agreed (12 percent strongly) and 23 percent had no opinion on the matter. The no vote was particularly widespread among 18-24 year olds (53 percent) and males (51 percent), while 55-64 year olds were most likely to agree there should be censorship (40 percent).

Only 19 percent of respondents believe Government censorship of the Internet is possible, while 59 percent believe it's impossible.

Darryl Nelson, Auspoll senior consultant for ICT and digital media, said: "This underlying rejection of the ISP filtering plan, together with the evidence that digital lifestyles are now common and wide-ranging, suggests there will be considerable dissatisfaction if the censorship filtering goes ahead. The growing appetite for online content and services among digital life-stylers requires more broadband efficiency, not less, and the impact of censorship not only on possible legitimate content but definitely on network performance can only be a major backwards step."

Censorship support low, and falling
He added: " This is a very important finding, because it underlines that the greatest support for the Government's proposed censorship comes from the age group least active online, although as the research shows their usage is not negligible. Also, support for censorship is only likely to diminish further over time."

Nelson said the most surprising finding of the survey was how few (25 percent) of respondents felt restricted by their broadband caps. Not surprisingly this percentage was highest among18-24 year olds (38 percent) and lowest among 55-64 year olds (20 percent). Nelson said: "Auspoll generally expected more users to typically find their broadband cap was restrictive. However, as these digital lifestyles continue to evolve, and more and more content and services become available online, this is definitely an issue we expect to grow, unless capacity, capping and pricing structures change."