news Pirate Party Australia has welcomed some of the recommendations made by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) about reforming the current classification system, in a wide-ranging report published this week into the way Australia restricts content consumption.
Several recommendations in the ALRC’s final report (available online here) conform to the Pirate Party’s policies, the party said in a statement, confirming that the Party’s policies are less extreme than they are perceived to be by some sections of the community. Telstra had agreed with the Pirate Party in one recommendation on the issue of voluntary industry classifications. The report was submitted on Tuesday to Attorney General Nicola Roxon and made public on March 1. It recommends that the Federal Government replace the present classification system.
The Pirate Party has also welcomed the recommendations that all commercial computer games that could be MA15+ or higher must be classified. The report suggests replacing the ‘Refused Classification’ category with the more appropriate ‘Prohibited’ category. Another recommendation is to classify all media according to a platform-neutral system to remove discrepancies between various media, while not extending to various non-commercial and user generated content media.
David W. Campbell, Party President said that the recommendation to use the term ‘Prohibited’ in place of the “spineless and vague ‘Refused Classification’” label was a move in the right direction. “Too much content is left in limbo. Hopefully this is a victory for common sense, and we will see less content lumped in with materials that truly deserve to be illegal, such as child pornography.” The report recommends that the ‘Prohibited’ classification deal with content that “promotes, instructs or incites in matters of crime” to “serious crime.”
Speaking about freedom of expression, the Party statement approved the possible redefinition of the ‘Prohibited’ category to narrow its scope and review the prohibitions on depictions of sexual fetishes. The Party believes that it is indicative of a progressive society and feels it is necessary to bring the category in line with what are socially acceptable practices to certain communities legally engaging in the practices depicted.
The Party however, raised an objection to the inclusion of a recommendation which has appeared to some to compel Internet Service Providers (ISP) and other intermediaries to filter the Internet. The Party has been continuously campaigning against the compulsory Internet filter proposed by Stephen Conroy, the present Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare has stated that federal, state and territory governments should consider the recommendations before responding in detail. Conroy has indicated that the future of the mandatory Internet filter report will not be fully considered until the similar media convergence review set to finish next month, is finalised.
“The inclusion of the toxic notion of Internet Service Provider obligations is once again flogging the dead horse of privacy encroachment and destructive breakdown of Australian citizens’ rights,” Campbell elaborated. Saying that the recommendation tries to convert ISPs into enforcement agencies, Campbell referred to the technical impracticalities of restricting any content on the Internet without destroying it. “This expansion of ‘intermediary liability’ constantly rears its head in all facets of Internet governance — it is both unwarranted and unnecessary,” he said.
The Party has said it would give a more detailed response after further analysing the lengthy and detailed report.
Image credit: Henning Buchholz, royalty free
The government of a democratic nation such as Australia requires both the authority and the powers to enforce laws and regulations, as well as deny illegal or prohibited materials (incl digital goods / content) to the population.
Nothing sinister or undemocratic in that.
Most Australian internet users have been filtered for over half a year now and I would guess that not a single person can measure any delay, and that 99% have noticed nothing…??
LOL… Any other business in Australia also has to enforce laws and regulations, such as pubs with underage purchases, health and safety regulations, licensing and material access regulations etc.
Nothing different here. There will be a law about content that is prohibited to access and the end-user access provider / content delivery provider is instructed by law to enable or provide the means and systems to inhibit the delivery.
Is a shopkeeper denying a kid access to cigarettes then a toxic practice? Businesses that do not sell guns unless a license is presented also a toxic practice? How about the pub owner denying a 17yo a beer? Also an instrument of insidious govt control? LOL of course not….
Perfect systems? Nope. Acceptable? Yep.
Your analogies are completely false. None of the things you mention have any resemblance to an internet filter whatsoever.
@Emmisfor You say “Most Australian internet users have been filtered for over half a year now and I would guess that not a single person can measure any delay, and that 99% have noticed nothing…??”
I assume that you are referring to the voluntary filtering by three ISPs using the Interpol list of “worst of the worst” child abuse web sites.
Interpol admit themselves that the vast majority of the material that this filter supposedly is blocking is transferred by peer to peer and email and never appears on the world wide web. Latest available figures are approximately 400 sites on the Interpol list out of over a trillion web sites. It is not really surprising that 99% of people have not noticed the existence of the filter.
The simple fact is that anyone who wants to access sites on the Interpol filter list can very easily circumvent this filter. The question therefor must be asked if it is really achieving anything and whether or not the cost of this filter wouldn’t be better used in other areas. Before anyone quotes the 84,00 Telstra hits on filtered sites I should point out that there is no evidence that even one of these hits was a genuine attempt to access child abuse material.
What real benefit to Australians is the filtering of the internet using a secret list prepared under Government direction and how do we know that what is on that list is not perfectly legal material? The ACMA blacklist that was leaked contained more than one site that was perfectly legal and should not have been on the list.
Why do we need an ISP based filter when a PC based filter will be even more effective and appropriate in assisting carers to protect children (and childish adults) from “nasties” on the internet.
Different filters. DNS filtering doesn’t impact performance, and is easily circumvented (google DNS, 8.8.8.8 free for everyone unfiltered).
URL filters and deep packet inspection based filters are the ones that get close to working. But still circumvented with your 2dollar per month VPN. (which can also come with free access to the UK’s BBC iView if you get the right VPN! – or give you the ability to watch NetFlix from the US too…)
None of these filtering options are difficult to circumvent when you look at ease of VPN access.
And how many children do we save from child abuse? zero.
How many sexual predators are caught? zero.
How many times have I ever seen child pornography? zero, what about you?
How much money do you want to spend on this system? (40 million spent on a trial so far)
What is the actual outcome you are trying to achieve?
Pedophiles are already paying for the 2 dollar VPN to avoid getting caught, so they still get their child porn.
Seriously, why don’t people think what they are arguing for, they whine about government waste, listen to rabbott talk about pink batts schemes,, they talk about Building school halls as waste.
But those policies gave us houses with insulation, and school halls. The waste came up with *something* lasting. Internet filtering, costs money and results in not one single tangible benefit for a single Australian. Not even a really expensive tangible benefit.
+100
Hi Emmisfor, I can help you to understand what we are fighting for, if you have any other questions feel free to contact me david.campbell@pirateparty.org.au
The government of a democratic nation such as Australia requires both the authority and the powers to enforce laws and regulations, as well as deny illegal or prohibited materials (incl digital goods / content) to the population.
–> The Government is given authority by the people, they are our employee’s to carry out our best wishes and govern the nation. They the right to nothing above us. They have been given the ability to block what is deemed illegal or “refused classification” and that vague definition allows for other content to creep in like anything they want to hide “great firewall of china” style, particularly in the way that they currently lump child porn into RC instead of Prohibited, with other perfectly legal but non-classified works, which should in our opinion receive an R18+ classification, the lack of R18+ also means that games like grand theft auto 3 which was originally refused classification, gets sandwiched into M15+, which represents a failure of the classification system to protect young children and correctly inform parents.
Nothing sinister or undemocratic in that.
–> There is plenty sinister with what can be blocked once the ability to easily block something is in place, especially with the vague “refused classification” title.
Most Australian internet users have been filtered for over half a year now and I would guess that not a single person can measure any delay, and that 99% have noticed nothing…??
–>These users are filtered with null/placeholder misdirected DNS filtration, which is extremely easy to get around and does not have a heavy load on the network, a simple manual adjustment of DNS preferences on your computer and your computer happily ignores this filtration method.
LOL… Any other business in Australia also has to enforce laws and regulations, such as pubs with underage purchases, health and safety regulations, licensing and material access regulations etc.
–> No business in Australia has to “Enforce” laws and regulations, they have to “Comply” with laws and regulations, a very big difference, licensing and age restriction on liquor and cigarettes are open slather once you hit 18, but with classification of media, just because its legal and your over 18, it can still be “refused classification” generally on “moral” grounds and therefor you are effectively banned from obtaining it.
Nothing different here. There will be a law about content that is prohibited to access and the end-user access provider / content delivery provider is instructed by law to enable or provide the means and systems to inhibit the delivery.
–> There is a large difference, replacement of “refused classification” with “Prohibited” takes the wishy washy politic-speak out of the classification and also allows for the scope to be focused on what is actually illegal, not just morally dubious in the opinion of the ACMA
Is a shopkeeper denying a kid access to cigarettes then a toxic practice? Businesses that do not sell guns unless a license is presented also a toxic practice? How about the pub owner denying a 17yo a beer? Also an instrument of insidious govt control? LOL of course not….
–> Once again you cover the same issue, cigarettes are toxic whoever has them, but the practice of keeping them from children is not. You cannot buy a license that allows you to buy or sell “refused classification” material in Australia, once again this is LEGAL items that are for all intents and purposes “banned” due to the refusal of classification.
Perfect systems? Nope. Acceptable? Yep.
–> I agree that it is not a perfect system, however I disagree with you that it is acceptable for the government to impose a moral compass on its citizens, make what is illegal “Prohibited” and make what is “morally dubious” R18+, there is no way to filter the internet, you could spend billions of dollars and anyone with a $2 VPN can walk straight past your filter, and if they block VPN’s and encryption then eCommerce is dead and international organizations are now open slather, so that effectively kills the internet. We say that the money that would be spend on a useless snake oil internet filter needs to be spent on education, for children AND parents, and even Grandparents.
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