Australian Senator Wants to Censor the Net

Paul writes "An Australian Senator wants Australians' internet connections to be automatically filtered by ISPs. Anyone who wants to view pornography or 'other adult material' (details not specified) must apply to their ISP to be given access to it. Another step towards becoming a nanny state."

Redneck Senator

[syousef]

This is a Tasmanian senator. Tasmania is an Island long associated with jokes about incest and redneck stupidity. For you Americans think West Virginia style jokes (except that Tasmania is a very cold place and it's population quite tiny).

From the horse's mouth.

[Anonymous Coward]

This article appears on his own website [guybarnett.com]:

Senator Guy Barnett today called for a national ban on access to pornographic, extremely violent, and other inappropriate material via the internet, subject to "opt-in" rights for adults.

Adults wishing to view pornographic material and other material banned as such would have the right to "opt in", to receive such material.

Senator Barnett said research showed that most Australians would support such constraints applying both at public institutions such as schools and libraries, and in the home.

"I was staggered to learn recently that most libraries in Australia provide unfiltered access to the internet, and there is no legal obligation on public libraries to use internet filtering to prevent children's access to pornography," Senator Barnett said.

"General access to pornography at Commonwealth, State and local government public facilities is particularly worrying."

Senator Barnett said high risk places for children such as public libraries, child care centres and on-line access centres should have filtering to ban access to pornography and other inappropriate material.

"As Members of Parliament we have a duty of care to ensure that pornographic and violent sites are not available to children," Senator Barnett said.

"In Tasmania in August it was discovered that children could access pornography at the State Library in Hobart. I wrote to the State Minister for Education Paula Wriedt on August 16 and five weeks later she says she is having a review done. This is not good enough," he said.

"It defies belief that students, especially minors, can be vulnerable to on-line porn sites at public libraries of all places. Public libraries are education institutions in the same way as schools are and should be protected as such from pornography and other inappropriate information," Senator Barnett said.

One option is for a filter to be applied at the Tier 1 (e.g. Optus, Telstra, and Primus) internet service provider level. It could operate on the basis that those customers who wish to access pornographic material could apply to do so.

This reform would be supported by parents, (see statistics below) and would have the effect of filtering out pornography at home and on public sites, with the onus being on adult users to 'opt in' if they wish.

A Federally funded site called www.netalert.net.au has extensive advice on the use of filters and other safety advice for institutions and individual users. Some filter software is available free on the web and the Netalert site provides information on various filter sites.

A survey by the Australia Institute called Regulating Youth Access to Pornography dated 2003 found that 84% of boys and 60% of girls had been accidentally exposed to pornographic material on the internet, while two in every five boys had deliberately used the internet at some stage to see sexually explicit material.

"The survey found that 93% of parents were in favour of filtering out pornography available on the home computer, let alone those in public buildings. The survey also drew a link between prolonged exposure to this material and tolerance of sexual aggression," Senator Barnett said.

He said he would be canvassing the issue with his Federal colleagues over the next few weeks.

The Australia Institute survey found that a much more effective method of restricting access of children to Internet sex sites would be to require all Australian ISPs to apply filters to all content, with some managed exemptions for adult users.

It appears that he's another person who believes in something with which most people would not disagree (filtering in public institutions, like public libraries) but takes it too far by extending it to make adult content 'opt-in' for homes.

If parents want to protect their children at home, they can get opt-in filters. No usable

Pity my elected officials

[fatboyslack]

As a term of reference for you delightful residents of the US of A, Tasmania is like the US 'south' (rednecks, interbreeding et al) and the 'Liberal' party isn't actually a liberal party, but a conservative party (similar to your Republican party).

However, this motion/proposal is unlikely to gain legs as Howard (current Australian Prime Minister) would almost certainly leave it as a 'conscience vote' and I sincerely doubt that it will have the popularity to get through the lower house, let alone the upper house.

And, as I understand it, this sort of 'filtering' would be quite difficult to do and the current upper echelons of politicians *and* public servants switched on enough to listen to those who would advise them on the viability of 'filtering'... so false alarm and ignore the political posturing. The guy is (most likely) in a marginal seat and is trying to buy some credit with the local religious conservatives.

"while two in five boys had deliberately used the net to see sexually explicit material" ... and the other three were lying about it.

Deja vu

[Woldry]

Libraries worldwide have been contending (with varying degrees of failure) with this sort of proposal for years now. In the U.S., many states now require library Internet computers to be filtered; the federal government has also made it a requirement for most of the federal funding available to libraries.

Because of these restrictions, the library where I work is filtered. We staff have to immediately disable the filter for any adult patron who requests unfiltered access (and we're supposed to, but often, er, forget to) restore the filter as soon as that particular patron's session is over.

You wouldn't believe the idiotic stuff that gets blocked -- innocuous, harmless, completely innocent stuff, right alongside the more questionable. One fellow from out of town couldn't log into his own business's web page with the filter on -- presumably because his first name, which appeared in the URL, began with a "D" and rhymed with "ick".

Meanwhile, the patrons blithely find all the porn and violence and four-letter-word-headphone-breaking rap music they like. They learn very quickly which sites the filter isn't catching, and openly share them with one another.

The staff terminals have the filtering turned off full-time (technically illegally, if I understand correctly). Although library policy says we are only to turn off the filter "as needed", it's dadblasted impossible to do our jobs with it on, so it stays off.

So now these Australian senators want to impose this state of affairs on an entire country ... yeesh.

A lesson for Guy Barnett

[itadaku]

"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it". Marginal uber-conservative Guy Barnett should have taken a lesson from his prodige Senator Alston who too, tried to turn Australia's internet into the envy of China's. In 1999 an ultra conservative luddite independant Alston who had lucked his way into a crutial seat in the senate found both majority parties eagar to please the key swing vote. Riding the high wave of a power trip he tried to introduce similar internet censorship legislations which would see ISP's responsible for what is a parents job. Thankfully Alston lost his powerseat during following elections and this all failed dismally. Alston was exposed as the luddite nutjob he trully was and the sun once again shone.

Australian's need to write to Guy Barnett and tell him stop the moral grandstanding.

not a big threat (yet)

[danny]

This guy has been mouthing off about this for some time. But unless he comes up with something new, he seems unlikely to sway his party. The anti-sedition laws have been rammed through, but they caused enough of a backbench backlash that I can't see Howard and co wanting to stir things up again. But please join Electronic Frontiers Australia [efa.org.au] and help us keep an eye on this kind of thing! Danny.

This is the least of our worries...

[GrahamCox]

I wholeheartedly agree that the only sensible course ofg action is to vote them out of office ASAP. If only!

Just yesterday, the Australian govt. passed two contentious laws - one that basically undoes hundreds of years of hard-won freedoms at a stroke in the name of "anti-terrorism" - you're not even allowed to makes jokes at the govt's expense now - in fact this posting breaks this new law. Free speech has gone. The other contentious law effectively removes hundreds of workers' rights in the name of 'streamlining the economy' and 'remaining competitive'. Basically it gives employers carte blanche to demand what the fuck they like of an employee, and if they don't like it, they can always leave. This is modern 'liberalism' though quite frankly it's a total abuse of that term that the current regime use it to describe themselves.

This situation has come about because the Australian people were duped into voting for a totally unevenly balanced parliament, railroaded into this vote by a series of lies and distortions and scare tactics at the last election. (Don't vote for the other lot, they'll take away your right to SHOP!) The resulting majority means that they can currently pass whatever they like and no-one can really fight it. This is NOT what the Australian people thought they were voting for, as neither of these new laws were part of the election manifesto. Just like the USA, who our Prime Minister appears to be in thrall to, we are sleepwalking into a nightmare of Orwellian proportions.

If they so choose, this porn bill (if it becomes one) could well pass, then they'll worry about implementation later, no matter howe impractical it might actually be. However, in the scheme of things, this is nothing compared to what they've ALREADY done.

Re:WTF!

[abdulwahid]

Anyone who's desparate to surf pr0n will find a way around it.

I think you are missing the point. They are not trying to stop people in general from seeing porn. In fact, it says in the article that it is people's right to register for open access but the default will be restricted access. The point is about children unknowingly wondering into pornographic areas. For many parents, with myself included, this is a concern.

If a kid is intelligent enough to work away around the controls and bypassing them, which of course probably isn't difficult, then perhaps he is older enough to deal with what he finds. My 9 year old daughter though uses the Internet and I am happy for anything that will prevent her from walking into pornographic content by accident.

This would be inline with other content providers like television where there has to be some control over access to pornoghapic content.

Re:Freedom of Speech, not just for anyone

[lorelorn]

I'm going to go ahead and assume you are an American, and make the further assumption that you have never actually left your country.

Freedom of Speech is very much an American concept, one that the rest of the world simply does not have.

In Australia, for example, the current is in the position to mandate what does and does not constitute "acceptable" speech, and is doing so with abandon.

Their main opponent is not HM Opposition as you might expect, but News Ltd. When the Government's main opponent on freedom of speech issues is Rupert Murdoch, you know things are bad.

In Australia, unfortunately, we do not have anything like your First Amendment speech protections. I wish it were otherwise, but here the government is able to restrict speech as it sees fit. Most Australian governments have left this wisely alone, but the current government seems to view the electorate as an anthill and they are poking us with stick after stick, just to see what happens.

The tactic of having a member of the government express his "private" views publicly in this way is their established method of testing the water on things they would like to introduce. The Health Minister made similar noises a while back about banning abortion. He was raised by monks.

Re:This is the least of our worries...

[aug24]

Yesterday, in London, England, a woman was convicted of a crime. She had read out the names of each British soldier who has dies in Iraq since the invasion, at the Cenotaph in London.

This was deemed to be a 'protest' and protests now have to be licensed within half a mile of our lawmakers, who complained that they didn't like them.

I think the various 'western' governments around the world are having a 'who can get their head furthest up their arse' competition. I'm really not sure who's winning.

Justin.

Already Happened

[Salvo]

This issue cropped up several years ago, just before our GST was introduced.
Senator Brian Haradine wanted the Internet Censored. There was a Budding Local Porn industry in Australia, producing lots of tasteful Erotica and lots more non-quite-so-tasteful porn.
The legistlation would prevent people publishing Erotica and Porn in Australia, and Australians from accessing Erotica or Porn.
When the legislation was introduced, it was left up to the ISP to either filter content, or provide Censorship programs to it's customers. If the ISP chose not to filter at their end, customers were not allowed to run any OS without Censorship Software; Linux, *BSD, BeOS and Mac's were theoretically not permitted on the Internet!
IIRC, The Legislation went through and the Independent Haradine voted in favour of the GST. The Local Porn/Erotica industry collapsed (since they couldn't host content locally), ISPs illegally left it to their customers to purchase Censorship Software (no-one did) and Australians had to get their fix of Erotica from Foreign Sites. It was all a big joke.
Ironically, the same existing ineffective legislation can be used in conjunction with the new Anti-Sedition laws (think of a cross between the PATRIOT Act and 1984) to fulfil what this Knob-Jockey is proposing.

Re:wish in one hand...

[PakProtector]

Oddly, a goatse link would be informative in response to this parent.

Ask, and ye shall recieve: hello.jpg [cevk.com]

Re:Pity my elected officials

[The OPTiCIAN]

Tut tut - I'm frequently surprised by what qualifies as 'informative' on slashdot.

> As a term of reference for you delightful residents of the US of A, Tasmania
> is like the US 'south' (rednecks, interbreeding et al)

  ^- for instance - how does abuse like this qualify as being informative? How do people from the US South feel about this? Or Tasmanians. Why would anyone rate this up?

Tasmania is nothing like the US South, in terms of people or electoral representation. More than half of the available federal seats in Tasmania are held by notional left-leaning representatives, including people who would identify themselves as very left such as Tas. Senator Bob Brown who is national leader of the Australian Greens. The incumband state government is Labor.

> and the 'Liberal'
> party isn't actually a liberal party, but a conservative party (similar to
> your Republican party).

The Liberal Party is from the tradition of Australian non-Labor parties, as is its support base. While it's similar to the republican party in terms of the fact that it's notionally the rightermost of the parties, its support base demonstrates a lack of consistency on traditional values. See http://www.ozpolitics.info/blog/?p=212 [ozpolitics.info]. Contrast that to the Republicans which is widely held to have a very firm right-wing base in the area of 'traditional values' (I have no data available). The Liberal Party is more conservative than the ALP and minor parties. But if you asked all the federal Liberal MPs which US political party with which they most closely identified many would say the Democrats.

The reason for the name is a source of some controversy, but one popular opinion is that the founder wanted the party to be an effective catch-all party and not be pigeon-holed in the way a 'Conservative' party would be. The most effective way to do that is to have a spread of opinions across the notional right. It's meaningless to try and pigeon hole mainstream parties as being 'this' or 'that' ideology though, because practical considerations will tend to override idealogical. They're a catch-all party.

Of note, the major policies of the LPA are quite similar to many of those of the Blair Labor government (consider cost of education, war against Iraq, etc), and the policies of the Conservatives have in recent times mirrored those of the ALP. Comparisons with the US political scene are tenous. Their cleavages are too different.

Re:So?

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

That's why we have a representative republic in the U.S. and not a democracy. In a true democracy, everybody would vote on every bill, referendum, etc. Instead we vote for representatives who (theoretically) are not ignorant and make the votes for us. If we don't like the results we pick new representatives.

I (and Harris Poll) think that you are wrong

[Secrity]

I think there is a prevalent belief that it is impossible not to be negatively affected by looking at pornography...

According to Harris Poll: "No Consensus Among American Public on the Effects of Pornography on Adults or Children or What Government Should Do About It" http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index .asp?PID=606 [harrisinteractive.com]

There was a study done at the University of Hawai`i concerning the effects of pornography: http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornograp hy/prngrphy_ovrvw.html [hawaii.edu]

There was another study done at the University of Pennsylvania concerning the effects of pornography: http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/chunter/porn_effects. html [upenn.edu]

there truly are some strange minds in this world

[dwandy]

Blame Britain [wikipedia.org] (for once it's not actually Canada! :)

Re:Huh?

[deanj]

If you've paid attention, even to Slashdot, you'd see that the liberal Democrats [slashdot.org] are the ones doing it here. Tipper Gore (yes, that Gore), as an example, was the one that was instrumental on getting those stupid "warning" stickers on albums.

Re:Nasties on the net

[Larsing]

A (near) historical reality check: Sales of porn mag's are heavily restricted in most countries (more than alcohol, in some). They certainly were when I was a teenager (which was way before games like GTA). Still I remember "reading" quite a few of them before i turned the proper age, despite the fear of being "grounded" for life, had my parents caught me reading them.

Point being: it didn't do any permanent damage - I grew up, graduated and married, just like "everybody else"...

...and I'm sure you will too.

Re:Speaking of Censorship

[n17ikh]

You seem to be right - usually my internet skills don't fail me when looking for something but this time apparently this thing has disappeared from nearly all corners of the net. However, I found it on ebay for 10 GBP + 5 GBP shipping worldwide here [ebay.com]. Apparently it's been involved in some sort of distribution conflict for a while and the only people selling it are "unofficial".

Re:This is the least of our worries...

[aug24]

She did it on October 25th 2005, and was convicted yesterday. The law is the Serious Crime and Police Act 2005, which criminalises 'demonstrating without a licence' within a half mile or so of parliament. Surf google news for the story, it's been well covered.

Are we still allowed to say 'police state'? :(

J.

Re:This is the least of our worries...

[aug24]

According to the law, there are no innocent protests - within half a mile of parliament. Personally I'm not sure how they decide what a demonstration is...!

To put it another way, if I go and sit in Parliament Square wearing a T-shirt with "Iraq was Wrong" printed on it - or better yet "Bollocks to Blair" then I can be arrested for it. Have I deliberately broken a law and should face consequences? Effectively, it depends on what 'they' think was in my head.

I think that's a police state, myself, and I don't like it.

Justin.

Re:Speaking of Censorship

[nemoest]

Before jumping on the government must be censoring us bandwagon, why don't you just email the film's distributor [deckert-distribution.com] and ask them? They list the movie as Chavez - Inside the Coup [deckert-distribution.com]. I found them easily on the film's official website [chavezthefilm.com]. Not that it is impossible that the US Government would try to censor something, but Occam's Razor leads me to believe the more likely answer is one of economics.