Australia Day online protest against mandatory filtering

Stephen Withers
Monday, 25 January 2010 12:01

Your IT - Home IT

Hundreds of Australian web sites will be "blacked out" tomorrow as a protest against the Federal Government's proposals for mandatory filtering.  More than 500 sites are set to join The Great Australian Internet Blackout.

According to Electronic Frontiers Australia, more than 500 web sites - including those of two political parties, one ISP and "hundreds of other Australian businesses and organisations" will take part in a week-long online protest starting tomorrow (Australia Day).

Despite being elected on a platform that included mandatory, ISP-level filtering of all connections used by children, the Government is proposing mandatory filtering based on a blacklist of material that has been 'Refused Classification' (RC).

The existing National Classification Code states that films or publications are to be Refused Classification if they:

"(a) describe, depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified; or

"(b) describe or depict in a way that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult, a person who is, or appears to be, a child under 18 (whether the person is engaged in sexual activity or not); or

"(c) promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence".

Whereas film and publication classification decisions are on the public record, it appears that the Government intends to keep the contents of the blacklist secret, and this is a significant cause of outrage over the proposals.

What does the EFA (and others) think about that? Find out on page 2.