Fence sitting IIA refuses to speak out against Internet filtering

Stan Beer
Sunday, 01 March 2009 03:30

Opinion and Analysis

So far, the Government's so-called consultative response to criticism has been for Senator Conroy, in a McCarthy-esque manner, to label opponents to his filtering scheme as supporters of child pornography. Yet all have made the point that the proposed filtering scheme would be largely ineffective against such illegal content and much more likely to pose a dangerous threat to the free flow of legal information.

It is against this background that the voice of the IIA, the peak body that is supposed to represent the interests of members of the industry that makes the Internet run in Australia. Yet what do we hear from this organisation? It does not want to rock the boat!

According to a report in Computerworld, CEO Peter Coroneos said the association is a conduit for information on the content filtering scheme between industry and Conroy's office, and did not want to be involved in the debate.

“We think it is necessary to have the evidence before us because without the details, it is difficult to comment on the implications of the [scheme's] policy and what the implementation issues will be,” Coroneos said.

“We are advising ISP members [of IIA] of the existence of the trial as part of the government consultation process. It is up to individual members whether they involve themselves in the trial. Cost and performance needs to be tested, and to its credit, the government is reserving its policy until the details come through.”

Pardon me, but I believe Mr Coroneos may need to do a little better than that! Most of his association's major members have already made their comments and feelings felt. The Government has attempted to bully his organisation over one of its member's public comments. Whether Mr Coroneos likes it or not, the IIA is involved in the debate.

For Mr Coroneos to claim that it is difficult to comment on the implications of the filtering scheme when there is universal opposition from the IIA's largest members would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.

If Mr Coroneos is serious about the IIA being a "conduit of information" between industry and the Government on the content filtering, then it needs to grow a pair and let the Government know what industry thinks about bringing Chinese style censorship to Australia's Internet.