Australian Internet Censorship – Part II
By Sam PascuaIn a striking turn of events, the Australian government is finally backing down from its efforts to censor internet access for Australian citizens. After months of trying to pass legislation that would have imposed mandatory internet filtering, Stephen Conroy, the Australian Minister of Communications recently announced that the proposed legislation may instead become a “voluntary industry code,” implemented at the discretion of internet service providers.
Why the sudden change of heart? It appears that Prime Minister Rudd and his colleagues finally realised that they don’t have enough support to pass the legislation in the Upper House. By instead pursuing a voluntary code, they may be hoping that they’ll have the framework for making it mandatory in the future. The new, optional policy doesn’t seem to be very well thought-out yet, but it is a welcome alternative from the Orwellian-style censorship the government has been pushing for the past several months.
For those who haven’t been following the controversial proposal, it all began during the general election, when the Labour party pledged to protect Australians from websites featuring child pornography or instructions for committing crimes. However those somewhat-modest ambitions soon grew to encompass websites related to gambling and certain religious sects, as well as many less-extreme sex sites and even Wikipedia pages. Shockingly, the actual list of taboo websites is confidential and sharing it is considered to be a crime, apparently in violation of all the basic principles and values inherent in Australia’s democracy.
The verdict is still out regarding what level of internet filtering will be legally required or presented as an optional code for ISPs. As we write, the Rudd administration is working with nine ISPs to research and experiment with internet filtering technology, and is expected to produce a report sometime in the future.
As we wrote in our earlier blog post on this topic, Design Industries believes that freedom from censorship is fundamental to 21st-century communications and the basic nature of websites and online communication. We’ll do our best to continue to keep you posted regarding the status of this mandatory or voluntary internet filtering as it evolves.
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