St James Ethics' filter debate on the nose: Reist

James Riley
Thursday, 22 April 2010 11:55

IT Policy - Regulation

Social commentator and author Melinda Tankard Reist has withdrawn from a prestigious St James Ethics Centre debate on internet censorship claiming the organisers had stacked the outcome.

As a vocal supporter of the Rudd Government's internet filtering proposal, Reist had been invited by the St James Ethics Centre to argue against the proposition that "Government's should not censor the internet."

But she says the organisers included on her team without consultation a Beijing-based columnist and technology commentator Kaiser Kou, who is expected voice a defence of the broader internet censorship program in China.

Reist says the public debate on the internet filter had already been so laden with misinformation and misrepresentation that going ahead with the St James event that sought to tie the Government's porn filter to a Chinese system of political censorship was counterproductive.

"There is no way that we could win this debate. Who is going to vote in favour of the Chinese firewall? We were doomed to fail before the thing had even started," Reist told iTWire.

"We've been lined up on the side of oppression and political censorship, and that's not something I have ever supported. I have been openly critical of that," she said.

"That simply wasn't a fair way to set the debate up. I can't say it's a deliberate stitch-up. But if it's not a stitch up, then it just hasn't been carefully thought through."

In addition to Mr Kuo, Reist was to have argued Against the proposition with Dr Abigail Bray, and post-doctoral research fellow in Women's Studies at the University of Western Australia. Arguing the case For was Sydney-based blogger and journalist Antony Loewenstein and Google's Asia-based head of public policy and government affairs Ross LaJeunesse.

In a letter to the organisers published on her blog yesterday, Reist said the decision to invite a defender of the Chinese Government's political censorship "on the spurious grounds of cultural relativism" was "very damaging" to any argument in favour of a filter for RC classified materials.