Internet 'Clean Feed' met with stern opposition PM - Wednesday,...

Internet 'Clean Feed' met with stern opposition

PM - Wednesday, 29 October , 2008 18:38:00
Reporter: Nicola Fell


ASHLEY HALL: The Federal Government's plan to clean up the internet is drawing criticism from activists who say it's on par with the censorship regimes of countries like China and North Korea.

The so called "Clean Feed" Internet plan is aimed at protecting children from offensive material.

But there are fears the software may curtail the online activities of adults too, with filters on websites deemed controversial or inappropriate, like euthanasia.

Nicola Fell reports

NICOLA FELL: The Government is determined to deliver on its election promise to clean up the internet and make the cyber world safe for children.

Antony Pillion works at Webshield Internet Services, Australia's first content filtered ISP - Internet Service Provider and is helping the Government develop this technology.

ANTONY PILLION: Our customers connect to our network using either a dial up or broadband connection. Then we can set profiles for each of our users as to the type of level of filtering they would like from anything from your pornography type sites, through gambling, hate and malicious type sites. It could be drugs.

It can essentially be anything the customer wants it to be. So then, essentially what happens from a customer's perspective, and what the customer sees is that they just surf the net and if they come across a site which falls into one of the categories which they decided that they didn't want to see, then they receive a block page which indicates to them that the site has been blocked and the reason it has been blocked and allows them to make choices as to whether they would like to have their profile changed to allow that site or to continue to leave it blocked.

NICOLA FELL: The Government is considering a two tier system of filtering. The first tier would block all of us from accessing material deemed illegal. The second tier would use internet service providers to create a generic filter, which could be customised by the user.

But Dale Clapperton from Electronic Frontiers Australia, says this will undermine another of the Government election promise, to speed up Australia's internet access.

DALE CLAPPERTON: This is going to be a tremendous technological imposition, technically very difficult and expensive to achieve. It's also going to be nearly impossible in term of the accuracy of the system. The Government's own tests have shown that these types of products aren't terribly accurate, they will typically let through several per cent of the material that they ought to block and they typically wrongly block several per cent of the material that they should have allowed through. There is a speed issue. Of the six filters tested by Government in an independent laboratory trial, only one of the filters had a speed impact that was anywhere near acceptable. The others had speed impacts higher than 30 per cent.

NICOLA FELL: But Pillion disputes this saying we won't notice any speed difference between a filtered connection and an unfiltered connection. Jim Wallace from the Australian Christian Lobby welcomes the Government's proposals, saying any current technical issues will only improve over time.

JIM WALLACE: If we can scan the internet for information on terrorists and react to it then we can certainly scan the internet to block out offensive pornography.

NICOLA FELL: And why is it necessary?

JIM WALLACE: I think we've got to as a society decide what is right for us and what's note, what's good for us and what's not. And when children at 6 years old are demanding sexual favours, raping other children, clearly this has gone too far and we have to respond to it.

Almost every parent in Australia is most concerned about their child and would be prepared to give up some of their rights, and remember we're still going to be able to opt out or in to this system, but give up some of the ease of exercising their rights in order to protect their children.

NICOLA FELL: In response to the argument that this type of censorship is incompatible with a Western Democracy, the Government is quick to point out that filters are already being used in countries like Sweden and in the UK where some companies use it to stop employees checking their hotmail or Facebook page while at work.

ANTHONY PILLION: The technology is there. I think as a society, surely people have as much choice as to what they don't want as well as what they do want to see.

NICOLA FELL: The Government will soon begin trails of the system.

ASHLEY HALL: Nicola Fell reporting.



http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2404848.htm