INTERNET CENSORSHIP BY AUSSIES?

4 January 2008

New Labour government makes a controversial move


Australia's recently seated new Labour federal government has wasted no time in introducing sensitive Internet legislation, proposing censorship laws aimed at stopping computer-savvy children from looking at banned sites, including online casinos and pornography.

Due to come into affect January 20, the new rules are designed to restrict access to age restricted content either hosted in or provided from Australia and apply to most service providers supplying content via a carriage service. Labour government spokesmen justified the new policy after claiming that the previous government’s proposal of supplying free NetNanny software to all households who wanted it wouldn’t adequately protect children.

The new rules require that Internet service providers supply ‘clean feeds’ excluding any age restricted content with users then able to ‘opt-out’ and not receive the censored feed.

Critics say that the legislation has serious implications for freedom of expression and would discourage parents from monitoring their children's Internet activities. There have also been accusations that the move is mere "political grandstanding."

"Anybody who's computer-savvy can work their way around these filters in about two minutes maximum," one pressure group claimed.

The Australian federal government is no stranger to frustrated ambitions to control the Internet. Back in August 2007 the press ridiculed a A$84 million Internet filtering software project called Net Alert that the government offered free to schools, libraries and families across the country.

ZD Net subsequently reported that a 16 year old managed to find a work around on the expensive software within 30 minutes.

The ease with which the filter was broken surprised even the sixteen year old, who commented: "For that money, I thought it must have been unbreakable," before going on to break a second version of the porn-blocking software, this time within 40 minutes.

The insoucient teenager offered to work with the government in improving the product, and Communications Minister Helen Coonan said the government had anticipated children would find ways to get around the NetAlert filters. Suppliers were contracted to provide updates, Senator Coonan said. "The vendor is investigating the matter as a priority.

"Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm and ... traditional parenting skills have never been more important," she said.

There have been three other attempts to introduce Australian government Web filtering technology. ZD Net reports that following one trial, in 2005, Coonan acknowledged problems with the concept saying: "Each report has found significant problems with content filter products operating at the ISP-level ... The Australian trials have also found the effect on performance of the Internet by ISP filtering to be substantial and a lack of scalability of the filters to larger ISPs."

ZD Net revealed back in August 2007 that the NetAlert - Protecting Australian Families Online program will also see publicity campaigns stepped up, including a A$22 million awareness scheme to "inform parents and carers of children about online safety issues and provide information about where they can go to receive support and assistance", and 10 new ACMA Internet safety officers who will visit schools to talk about online dangers.

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