ISP filtering: who's exploiting the kids? Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:
The drive to impose unprecedented internet censorship by the Federal Government is being backed by an otherwise-disparate group of family, left-wing and Christian groups and campaigners.
The serious push for ISP-level filtering began in the last months of the Howard Government when it backflipped on a long-standing opposition to it, having hitherto preferred to support PC-based filtering. In response to Labor’s "clean-feed" policy announced by Kim Beazley, Howard announced in August 2007 that the Coalition was committing to optional ISP-level filtering in a webcast to religious groups organised by the Australian Christian Lobby, a s-x-obsessed Christian lobbying group. In response, the Rudd Opposition strengthened its own plans for mandatory filtering. The ACL remains a strong supporter of mandatory filtering and applauded the Government’s renewed blocking of ACT plans for same-s-x civil unions.
You know about the political pressures for filtering. The Howard Government and its Communications Minister Helen Coonan had come under repeated, and frequently hysterical, attack from Christian fundamentalist Senator Steve Fielding, who boasted of using his Parliament House PM to find p-rnography "two clicks away". Fielding continues to demand mandatory filtering and a ban on internet alcohol advertising, but he is by no means alone. Tasmanian Liberal and anti-abortion Christian Guy Barnett is equally vociferous in his calls for censorship, having told Parliament, improbably, in 2005 "even in our own homes, you go home, turn on your home computer and bingo-out come the p-rnographic sites." Nick Xenophon wants a ban on overseas gambling websites.
Family and child abuse groups are also strong supporters. The Courier Mail reported last week that the Australian Childhood Foundation backed ISP-level filtering, because "a link existed between children viewing s-xual images on the net and engaging in inappropriate s-xualised behaviour." The ACF is receiving over a million dollars in support from the Federal Government between 2004-09, with CEO Dr Joe Tucci a favourite of ministers eager to get some family protection credibility.
The CourierMail also aired the views of child psychologist and media tart Michael Carr-Gregg, self-described as "one of Australia's highest profile psychologists" and perhaps even "Australia’s own Dr Phil". Carr-Gregg, a fellow Sunrise alumnus of Kevin Rudd, is a long-term moral panic merchant on youth issues such as binge drinking and internet use. Carr-Gregg told the Courier Mail that internet p-rn had made "oral and an-l s-x" "almost normalised among 13-year-olds".
Bernadette McMenamin, CEO of Childwise, also supported ISP-level filtering in January but has since suggested she does not support the Federal Government’s proposal.
The Australia Institute has also supported mandatory filtering for several years. In 2006, Clive Hamilton accused the Howard Government of putting “the interests of the internet industry ahead of those of parents who are deeply concerned about this problem".
And as Stilgherrian pointed out yesterday in Crikey, Australian Women Online "is not opposed to the concept of mandatory ISP filtering" and complained of being "hounded", "harassed" and "bullied" by mandatory filtering opponents. The concerned mother cited in the Courier Mail, Bernice Watson, who supports mandatory filtering, has been an officer for the Queensland Office for Women.
The campaign for internet censorship seems to have reunited some of the element of the campaign against p-rnography, which brought normally hostile feminist, left-wing and Christian groups together to attack free speech. However, the elevation of children as the justification for censorship will make this campaign harder to stop.
Who’s exploiting the kids here?
Core arguments of the internet blockers explained Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:
When it comes to pinning down censorship advocates on exactly why they want to regulate the internet, it can be a little difficult. The words "child p-rnography" appear fairly quickly, along with "exploitation" and "disgusting". But we’ve had a go at trying to delineate the core arguments made by people who want to block you from accessing certain, unspecified but obviously "disgusting" internet content.
1. Child p-rnography is available on the internet.
Indeed. And it is illegal and law enforcement in many countries work hard to track down the perpetrators, making it more difficult to access. ACMA maintains a blacklist of sites which are currently blocked by ISPs, although that is a tiny fraction of the illegal material available. No one who accesses online child p-rnography, or any other illegal material, does so accidentally, and no one who wants to access it will be stopped by a filter.
2. P-rnography is easily accessible to kids, even by accident
The biggest and oldest myth on the internet, up there with the Neiman-Marcus cookies recipe and the exploding whale story. The way censorship advocates tell it, the mere act of turning on a PC causes it to spew p-rnography into the room in an unstoppable fountain of filth. "You have only got to press P on the Internet and all this stuff appears free of charge in front of you," said Senator Paul Calvert in 1999 (what did he mean free of charge? Gimme that URL!). "Even though I monitor [my son’s] internet use, sometimes when I am cooking anything could flash up," concerned parent Bernice Watson told the Courier Mail last week. One wonders what sort of weird ISPs these people have. The only children who have ever "stumbled across" p-rnography are those who have looked for it. As with other types of material unsuitable for children, whether it’s the nightly news, medicines or movies for mature audiences, it is a parent’s job to regulate access, not society’s.
3. The internet s-xualises children.
Where’s the evidence, and specifically in relation to the internet? Aren’t other media -- not to mention major retailers -- responsible for s-xualisation as well? And how does one define “s-xualisation” in a society in which the average age of the onset of puberty is falling? And why aren’t parents regulating access to s-xualising content?
4. The internet encourages suicide amongst teenagers.
Michael Carr-Gregg used the suicides of two Victorian girls last year to claim the internet acted "as a virtual petri dish for the suicide virus". ABS statistics show suicides in 15-19 year olds have almost halved since peaking in 1997, and in 2005 stood at 6.6 deaths per 100,000. It was 12.0 in 1997, before most people had an internet connection.
5. The internet should be regulated like other media.
There are two fundamentals in the way we regulate the media: we regulate different media differently, and in no circumstance do we let governments vet content. Mandatory ISP-level filtering would hand both politicians and the media regulator the power to determine which online content was blocked, with no opportunity for the public to even determine if content has been blocked, as the regulator does not reveal what sites it prevents access to. The only comparable regime is for films, and in the rare cases when films are outright refused classification, there is a transparent process of consideration by an independent body.
6. Are you some kind of sicko?
Much debate, Conroy style, defaults to this: if you oppose internet censorship you must like child p-rnography, or at least be the sort of libertarian nutjob who puts some nebulous right to free speech above the rights of kids to be free of exploitation and s-xualisation.
Internet censorship isn’t just about p-rnography. Australia bans gambling sites, bans discussion of euthanasia and suicide, supports multinational companies prosecuting per-to-peer file sharing under a plain silly copyright law, in addition to its draconian defamation laws and absurd sedition laws that remain unreformed under the Rudd Government. The Federal Government’s proposal would hand the media regulator the power to implement those restrictions as it saw fit, with no one the wiser about how it was being done, and politicians able to extend the restrictions when the next Big Brother-style moral panic happens along. Anyone, even diehard protectors of children, comfortable with that?
