THE one time that blindly following US demands might have saved us from folly, rather than lead us into it, we snubbed them. We were suckers for Vietnam, Gulf Wars, Middle East policies which make us targets and a ludicrously one-sided trade deal. Yet, when the US suggests that compulsory filtering of the internet is a dumb idea because it is impracticable, by-passable and gives succour to the totalitarian Chinese regime, we press on regardless.
How is it that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his office who micro-manage every last vestige of government policy allow Senator Stephen Conroy to pursue this folly against all sensible advice?
And this is in tandem with what looks increasingly like another great internet folly – the $43 billion broadband roll-out. Its fate looks suspiciously like that of the Collins Class submarine – a lot of expensive noise.
But the internet filter is so obviously dumb that it should hardly be worth wasting a column on it.
Conroy has been given two chances to credibly dump his plan, but he is like a man possessed, unpersuadable by facts or argument. Next month, he may get a third chance if the Coalition and Greens oppose the plan in Senate.
The first chance came when he asked Enex TestLab to test some filters. It found they were trivially easy to get around. But Conroy is more interested in perceptions and appearances than reality.
He and Rudd know that lots of parents in “working families”, formerly “Howard battler families”, are ignorant of the internet. They want to be relaxed and comfortable that the government will prevent their children from getting porn. If Nanny State says it has a filter that will be enough for them.
They are too ignorant or apathetic to know that the filter can be easily got around. Moreover, it can only block websites at the point of the internet service provider. It cannot block peer-to-peer communication between individual computers — where most of the appalling abuse of children begins.
Conroy should have used the Enex report to quietly drop his idea.
The second chance came this month when the US expressed its displeasure. Why put in an ineffective filter that will give succor to the Chinese? The Chinese will be able to say, “If it is good enough for respectable US ally Australia to filter the internet, how can democracies have any objection to the Chinese censoring of the internet?”
Of course, the difference is crucial. Most of the political and social material the Chinese want to censor appears on mass-access websites, easily blocked at the point of internet service provider. Peer-to-peer stuff is of less concern to them.
In short, the Conroy filter is more suited to blocking mass communication – free discussion – than it is at blocking secret child-exploitative communication via peer-to-peer.
The Conroy filter is the architecture for political censorship. He may put his hand on his heart and say he would never use it that way. Well if he says he will not use it that way and it is ineffective against peer-to-peer communication, why have it at all – especially as it is costly and will slow the internet down.
The best place to have the filter is on the computer on the home desk. There it can be set to block a wide range of material unsuitable for children and will not slow the net. Moreover, the home-desk filter can be ratcheted up at the discretion of parents to exclude a huge range of material which would be unsuitable for even small children, but fine for adults. Or it could be tweaked at some mid-point for adolescents.
This is the really damning point about the Conroy universal filter. It hands out the perception that it is protecting children, but surely it can only do that if it also censors a lot of material that is not suitable for children but is suitable for adults – any amount of material with drug themes, coarse language, sex themes, violence and the like.
Conroy cannot have it both ways. He cannot say, “Look, everyone, I am protecting Australia’s children,” and at the same time say, “But I am not censoring adults.”
Worse, his filter will lull many parents into a false sense of security. For that reason it is dangerous.
The costs that his one-size-fits-all filter will impose upon internet service providers will be passed on to consumers in money and time.
He could have used the US objection as an excuse to drop the idea and do something effective and useful – like spend the money on improving desk-based filters which can be calibrated by parents.
The right-wing of the Coalition should seize on the parental supervision and choice argument. The small-l liberals and Greens should seize on the Big Brother architecture argument. And all three should seize on the succour to the Chinese argument. The legislation would go down. Conroy could tell the fearful ignorant that he did his best. And we could all spend our communications efforts on something useful like killing spam or putting the $43 billion National Broadband Network to some rigorous cost analysis.
Hitherto, I thought the NBN had some merit. But as wireless improves to cover the bush and ADSL gets better in the cities, it looks more wobbly. As they improve, fewer people will be prepared to pay to subscribe to the NBN, thereby forcing its prices still higher. It may not get the critical mass it needs without further government subsidy.
Most of the useful high-speed applications, like medical diagnostics and scientific communications, are sent between centres which can cope now, or will certainly be able to cope as ADSL improves.
Is it wise to spend so much on high speeds for video and other entertainment?
At five percent interest plus two percent depreciation, the NBN will cost at least $3 billion a year before it is even staffed. If an optimistic half of present internet subscribers join the NBN, they will have to pay more than $600 a year each just to cover the capital outlay, leave alone staffing, billing, servicing and the like.
It might work, but it is risky stuff. If private enterprise does it and the company goes broke, too bad. But the Government can’t put its hand up for bankruptcy and the taxpayer will foot the bill if there is a fiasco.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 24 April 2010.