Australia’s ‘Clean Feed’ Internet Censorship Plan

October 23, 2008

Every now and then, there is a plan put forward by the Government that fails so epically that it makes my head spin.

The ‘Clean Feed’ internet censorship plan put forward by Stephen Conroy as part of the Rudd Government’s ‘Cyber-Safety‘ initiative is one of these. The general idea is that the internet is filtered by the ISP to all its customers removing all pornographic and illegal content. While there is the option to opt out of the filter for some adult content, there is no option to opt out of the filter altogether, which means that if you have an internet connection in Australia, you will be filtered whether you like it or not.

Let’s look at a few points in more detail and answer some questions:

Who decides what is filtered?

This is probably my main concern – who or what decides what is to be blocked out by the filters? The definitions of suitable content vary wildly from person to person and I’m sure that my views on this will be quite different from someone who would be in charge of these decisions. Some things are more or less clear-cut, such as child pornography and pirated software and there are guidelines already in place that can be used to specify these. However, with the abuse of the idea of ‘terrorism’, ‘national security’ and other loosely defined themes of the day, the line between illegal and legal can and does get very blurred. There have already been too many instances of overzealous laws and regulations put into place as knee-jerk reactions where the only result has been inconvenience and anger. Look at most new airport security measures and, more locally, the recent lock-in curfew placed on Melbourne bars for examples of where the frustration has arguably outweighed the benefits.

How does the internet get filtered?

Filtering is a really tough area. Electronic automated systems are nowhere near effective, let alone perfect. After all these years, the best spam filters are still only just adequate and spam is an area that has fairly routine patterns to look for. An automated system that is meant to filter the entire spectrum of web traffic would be woefully inadequate and would either by ineffective and pointless, or overly effective and frustrating. The typical example is legitimate sex education or advice websites, which is a resource (often much appreciated by curious and embarrassed teenagers) that is usually filtered out with adult content. Searching for something as mundane as the practical gardening applications of fertilizer is something that is bound to end up on the terror blacklist before too long as well.
The alternative to automated systems, manual filtering, is even more of a joke. According to the well-written information offered by Electronic Frontiers Australia in their response to the proposed plan, in the past five years, the Australian Communications and Media Authority have only found less than 3,500 site to be prohibited (this is a generous rounding up). Of a very roughly estimated eight billion sites on the web.

That’s not even worth working out the percentage.

What would be the impact on service?

Apart from obviously not being able to rightly or wrongly access certain sites, overall internet performance and speeds would drop due to the fact that all traffic would need to pass through the filter. At best, this would still be a bottleneck and, at worst, it would have considerable impact on performance at a time when more and more services are being hosted online and require all the access speed you can get. Australia already has atrocious internet broadband speeds, with many ‘broadband’ plans offering speeds that are far under what the rest of the world would consider broadband. Adding in another speed bump would only make things worse.

How effective would it be?

Not very, basically. Internet filters, whether they be nanny-style and aimed at children or more involved and designed for companies, are largely ineffective. This is partly due to the difficulties described above regarding their implementation, but also because they are so easy to circumvent. The average teenager quickly finds a way around the filter installed by their parents and of the five or so filters that have been used in workplaces I have been in, all were circumvented within a week. Even the Great Firewall of China is not impenetrable. Proxy servers are still an incredibly effective way of getting around most filters, with most not even requiring that level of complexity.

But shouldn’t illegal material be blocked?

There may be a case to answer if we were able to block only clearly-defined, illegal material with no other implications. However, that is far from the present case. While I do not necessarily defend the right to download clearly illegal material in the name of free speech, I do very much defend the right to browse every single thing that does not fall into this category, even if that may be tasteless, dangerous, inappropriate or otherwise not wholesome family viewing. It is a very slippery slop to start down when you start making judgment calls on what people can and can’t see, even if it is under the veil of their own good or protection.

What about the children? Won’t somebody think of the children?

Children under a certain age are required to be under adult supervision and responsibility. It is the role of this person or these people to ensure that the child is cared for and protected. Somewhere along the way, it seems that most people have forgotten this and now expect the government or someone else to do it. The same can be said for television, video games, movies, books and life in general. It is high time people started taking responsibility for themselves and their children. If your children are looking up things on the internet they shouldn’t, resolve the situation your bloody self, don’t expect someone else to do it. I can’t believe this needs to be said.

What about cost?

This won’t be cheap. Every ISP will need to implement this and that means money for servers, support and resources. If this comes from the Government, it is wasting tax dollars, and if it comes from the ISPs, then expect to see a much higher bill at the end of the month. There is no way around this. Internet access in Australia is already grossly overpriced without the added burden of funding this proposed plan.

Is this plan going ahead?

No, I seriously doubt that the planned filtering will be put into practice. The logistics and cost/benefit are enough to can it straight away and hopefully there is enough uproar and common sense to shut down the plan if talk does continue.

However, it can be seen as a first bid; that is, an initial platform from where negotiations can start. Clearly, the government is bidding too high with this offering, but if we get caught in the negotiations, we’ll only end up paying more than we bargained for and the cost will be in our online freedom and ability.

What’s a better option then?

Education. Make people aware of what is out there on the internet. Make parents aware of what their children could find online and how to properly supervise them. Help parents to have the right conversations with their kids. Help people to exercise common sense when getting online. All too often, people see a computer and turn their brains off, thinking that it is something they don’t understand, or that things work differently there. Most of the rules of the real world still apply, things like don’t talk to strangers, don’t give out personal information or financial details; this stuff is very basic.

What do I do now?

If you don’t like the sound of what’s being proposed, you should read up on the Electronic Frontiers Australia website and their No Clean Feed site. Their document about the plan is quite good and covers many different aspects. You can then visit their ‘Take Action’ page and let someone know you disapprove. Also, just tell people about it through conversations, blogs, whatever. The more people aware of the plan and the more voices that join in rejecting pointless and counter-productive schemes such as this, the more chance of having them put down early.

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