With the proposed plan for stricter censorship of internet sites with ‘inappropriate content’, there may be implications for GLBT websites.
Under the Rudd government’s proposed plan to restrict adult pornography and ‘inappropriate content’ on the internet, individuals would have to opt out of such a clean feed rather than requesting such a filter from their internet service providers (ISPs).
Government plans to introduce a clean feed filtering system of the internet – which is aimed primarily at censoring child pornography and ultra-violent websites – may affect broadband speeds and costs and has raised concern about related privacy issues.
Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, told OUTinPerth that ‘the Government clean feed policy reflects those adopted in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland and France.
‘The Government policy applies to computers in homes, schools and libraries and targets child pornography and ultra-violent sites. These will be identified by Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA) and blocked by ISPs.’
Dale Clapperton, chairperson of Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), suggested that the filtering software used to create such a clean feed of the internet was not only flawed, but could also be used to intentionally block material, including content from non-pornographic GLBT websites.
‘Filtering software is very imprecise,’ Mr Clapperton told OUTinPerth. ‘You are inevitably going to get problems with false negatives and the like. It will block material that ought not to be blocked and it will let through material it shouldn’t let through.
‘So if the filtering software is such that it will block access to images and terms such as ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, ‘homosexual’ and so forth, then that could obviously have a potentially significant impact on websites for organisations, which advocate gay rights or the legalisation of gay marriages and so forth.’
Issues in regards to clean feeds were recently highlighted when Vodafone UK began mobile internet access, which resulted in many non-sexual sites with the word ‘gay’ in their web address being blocked, including UK Gay News.
ISP filters have also been found to hamper network speeds by 18-78%, according to a 2006 study carried out by former Communications Minister Helen Coonan. The study also suggested that such a filter would cost approximately $79 million to set up and a further $34 million a year to maintain.
Clean feeds, like the one provided by British Telecom, were also not foolproof – the beginning of this year saw researchers at Cambridge managing to hack the country’s national filter.
Mr Clapperton went further to suggest that such a policy may be proposed to not only placate Family First Senator Steve Fielding – who continues to hold the balance of power in the Senate – but that it may be used to promote whatever was deemed inappropriate by ‘their particular right wing Christian morality’.
‘It could almost be the case that if you’re applying for an unfiltered internet that you could well be placing yourself on some kind of register of suspected perverts,’ Mr Clapperton suggested.
Family First Senator Fielding did not respond to OUTinPerth’s request for comment.
