A couple of days out from the election and neither party has announced a comprehensive ICT policy…because neither party has one. Kevin Rudd today talked about taking Australia up a gear and the need to fulfil our great potential, but apparently IT isn’t part of that future. The real banger: the reiteration of a policy originally announced by Kim Beazley in 2006 which I’m now officially calling “The Great Firewall of Australia” policy. Yep: no policies to encourage Internet startups in Australia or promote what Keating once referred to as the clever country, but they’re going to censor our Internet instead and I’m more than pissed. So pissed in fact that I may not preference the ALP in front of the Libs when I vote on Saturday, despite the fact that I cant stand the local Liberal candidate.
Here’s some highlights from Mao ZeRudd’s cyber-safety policy:
a mandatory ?clean feed? internet service for all homes, schools and public computers that are used by Australian children. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will filter out content that is identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The ACMA ?blacklist? will be made more comprehensive to ensure that children are protected from harmful and inappropriate online material.
Note the word mandatory. But wait, there’s more
A Rudd Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a ?clean feed? internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as public libraries.
What’s the alternative, a dirty feed, if indeed there is an alternative? And lets not forget the cost of providing this filtering, a cost that will no doubt be passed along by ISP’s who already (mostly thanks to Telstra) charge us at rates 2-3x higher (even more, given we don’t have uncapped plans) than rates the United States.
How do they determine if a computer is used by a child? My son uses 1 computer, but not my laptop + desktop, so is there going to be multiple feeds? Unlikely, because any of these computers are accessible by a child I’m going to get a mandatory censored internet…presuming that they’ll know that I have a child…which they’ll check up on via Medicare, so big brother will be imposing his will on me and I wont have a say on it as well.
This is a typical response from a traditionally socialist party that believes that the Government can interfere in everything.
Like all censorship the question is: once it starts when will it stop? Remember that Australia doesn’t have an electronic R rating (at least for computer games)…so there goes violent sites. Dissent on global warming is probably hate speech to the ALP, so that should get censored….once it starts it will never end. Do-gooder groups will petition the Government to block more and more sites, and the Government, always wanting to find support will block these sites.
The stupidest thing of all: Mao ZeRudd justifies the policy on the basis that computer level filtering is too easy to bypass. He’s obviously never heard of proxy sites, TOR or even OpenDNS to bypass server level firewalls…unless of course he’s planning on banning them as well!
If Rudd is elected on Saturday (and that’s a 95% chance) we need to start speaking up against this policy immediately. It is our duty as supporters of free speech in a democratic country to stand opposed to Government attempts to stifle free speech online. They may claim now it’s all about porn, but remember (with apologies to the original author),
first they blocked the porn sites, and no one said a thing,
next it was the dissenters, and still no one said a thing.
Next it was bloggers, and although I was one of them I said nothing.
Then they blocked me.
Oh, I can remember this poem (al be it withought the blogging references) – please tell me what it is.
I doubt they will go through with this. Probably just a promise to target the right-wing christian fanatics.
Hey, us right-wing Christians think it’s a stupid idea too!
Duncan you get any response at all from the Coalition about their IT policy?
Glenn
no response from either party in terms of ICT policy, and none on their websites. Coalition policy on filtering is basically to subsidise programs like net-nanny, so ultimately the user takes responsibility but the Government makes it cheap (could even be free now…not sure).
Living behind the Great Chinese Firewall at the moment is not fun. Filtering is not the answer I can assure you. Maybe Rudd was getting some ideas from Jintao Hu when they met.
You can go through proxies but it is frustrating and TOR is very slow. I think families and schools need to develop their own internet policies and it shouldn’t be something for governments to try and decide.
If this happens we will be forever playing a game of something bad happening on Myspace or YouTube and then you will get all of these people (including their competitors) calling for bans.
After your tweet yesterday I wrote my local member:
“””Dear Anna (Burke [Chisholm]),
I’m *really* hoping for a change of government this weekend. I’ve
regretted giving “Bonsai” and his ilk my vote for more than 10 years
now.
Had I remained blissfully unaware of Labor’s draconian cyber safety
policy until after the election I would have voted Green and directed
my preferences to you. However, Labor’s ignorant (not to mention
idiotic) policy of mandatory ISP filtering has been quite a hot topic
on the interwebs today, and I, like others, am now fully informed.
I have absolutely no desire to live in China, and last time I checked
my Google calendar it was 2007 not 1984. I’d also like to see the
speed of broadband in this country increase, not diminish from a
trickle to a drip.
I wish you (and Labor) all the luck in the world this coming Saturday,
but on my ballot you’ll be preferenced somewhere between the legalise
weed guy and the gun nut.
Kind Regards,
Cam”””
*****
To her credit she replied within 30 minutes I believe suggesting that ISPs would merely be required to offer the feed, but that it wouldn’t be mandatory. I didn’t ask permission to copy her email here, but as I requested further clarification that:
The clean feed is optional for consumers.
Labor undertakes not to backdoor the clean feed to mandatory for all consumers.
Labor has worked with ISPs to ensure providing the clean feed will not (further) degrade service.
I’ll ask when she replies.
c.
As someone who falls strongly in the Left camp, but also lives and breathes online for their business, this whole filtering notion just defeats me. If any of the parties were getting halfway decent advice in this space, they’d realise it was futile.
Like Cam, I’ve emailed my local member and Senator and put the wind up them.
@Stephen Collins:
At a guess, the lack of a coherent policy from either side of the room suggests that they both HAVE received ‘halfway decent advice’. Neither party can afford to come out and say “Net filtering is just never going to work properly, parents will just have to (ZOMG!) parent,” because parents swallowed the idea that it can be filtered years back. Therefore, rather than tellling the truth and losing the parents votes, or lying and suggest it is possible, they both remain fairly silent.
This ‘policy’ from KRudd is rather cleverly worded: they will require that ISPs provide a clean feed. This means that if it doesn’t work (as per Johnny’s current nanny service) they can wash their hands and point at the ISPs