Contentious issues, just add nuts

David Heath
Friday, 18 September 2009 10:55

Opinion and Analysis

The Australian Government is currently evaluating Internet filtering technologies in order to block access to sites containing material deemed 'inappropriate' by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Contrary to the advice of pretty-much every technical expert, the Government is pressing ahead with the current trial and seems to have already flagged their intention to proceed to a mandatory filtering technology.

The ACMA maintains a blacklist of sites (the contents of which have generally been sourced from public complaint) that notionally contain material that would be considered illegal were it published within Australia.  This general definition of illegal material obviously includes a variety of child-abuse material, violent sexual material and the like. 

Unfortunately, according to people who have seen the contents of the blacklist (leaked to the WikiLeaks site earlier this year), the list seems to largely contain material which, although offensive to some, wouldn't reasonably be regarded as illegal; the equivalent of which could easily be purchased from your local newsagent or 'adult' store.

Also, there are (again, according to those who have seen the list) sites which contain material which might be best described as being "offensive to the Government.”  Sites supporting euthanasia and similar material fall into this category.  Then there are the outright mistakes; sites which contain essentially G-rated material.

The whole concept of mandatory blocking of sites according to some secretive blacklist is so strongly reminiscent of the nut-ban tale earlier, that I feel forced to re-state it:

Blocking access to something which may or may-not be good for us takes away personal choice and personal responsibility.

I am adult-enough to decide what I should view.  I am also adult enough to judge what is suitable for my family to see; I would rather teach my children what is right and wrong by having them see the difference rather than by never seeing what is wrong.