Freedom and censorship are two opposing goals which cannot coexist; freedom is the absence of restrictions, while censorship is such a restriction. In such a light, the continued perseverance of the Australian Government in their attempts to censor the internet is disturbing at least, and an assault on our freedom at worst. First came the Howard government’s multi-million-dollar client-side filter, an ineffective piece of trash and a laughable waste of money. More recently, the passing of the Communications Legislation Amendment (Content Services) Act 2007 and the ensuing development and release of the Restricted Access Systems Declaration 2007 by the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority). Finally, the latest announcement by Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy concerning the introduction of mandatory ISP-side filtering.
The client-side filter posed little problem outside of being a ridiculously wasteful expenditure of of government resources. It was, by its very nature, entirely opt-in and voluntary, and therefore of no threat to the freedom of our society. However, the other two developments are significantly more worrisome. The government’s Act and the ACMA’s Declaration essentially require all content on the internet and ‘mobile phone networks’ which has an ‘Australian connection’ and is ‘classified as R18+ or MA15+’ or ‘has not been classified, but if it were to be classified, there is a substantial likelihood that the content would be classified as MA15+ or R18+’ to be subjected to regulation. In the case of MA15+ content, non-commercial content is exempt and commercial content will basically require the user to register and declare they are over 15 before being able to access the content, which is little more than an annoyance. Slightly more troubling is ‘R18+ content’; it applies to all content regardless of whether it is commercial in nature, and will require a proof of identity and age. That may not seem particularly problematic at first, but when one considers that that this applies to content which has not been rated, and that the cost of verifying an ID is significant, the potential for abuse rises. If the content provider is unable to provide an adequate ‘access-control system’, e.g. due to cost, there is a possibility that some content, regardless of whether it is artistic, scientific, political or otherwise, may not be published out of fear that it
might be considered R18+. Similarly, existing content may be taken down because it is threatened that it could
perhaps be seen as R18+ content. Evidently, such scenarios could potentially be exploited to impose censorship on the internet, and although it provides a compelling argument against the new regulations, it does not inherently make them censorship. The announcement by Senator Stephen Conroy, however, is a clear statement of intent to censor the internet.
Senator Conroy announced that the government will require ISPs to provide ISP-side filtering of ‘pornography and inappropriate material’, which will be opt-out, not opt-in. He justifies this because he wants to ‘protect children’ from ‘pornography and violent websites’. He then makes an amazingly convoluted leap of logic, stating: “If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree.” Keeping people from viewing child pornography is rather different from his justification that the filtering is necessary to restrict the access of children to pornography and violence, and could very well be the first sign that this filtering system, already starting as ‘opt-out’, could very well completely stop being ‘optional’ at some point. This censorship, this assault to our freedom, simply because the government supposedly wants to impose Elizabethan morals on children, despite the fact that there has been no conclusive scientific study showing that exposure to nudity and violence harms a child’s physical or mental development in any way? We, as a society, must not accept this.
