What do you think about Australia's proposed Internet filtering?

Internet filtering is a fast-growing global phenomenon; yet, in the United States, it’s often viewed as a problem of “the other,” the kind of issue associated with theocracies and dictatorships, not Western countries. And while it’s true that few Western countries filter the Internet much at all (Canada, Finland, Denmark and a few others filter nominally, mostly child pornography), Australia is on the road to wide-scale censorship. Read more

Under Australia’s proposed filtering scheme, citizens will be unable to opt out of inclusion. Instead, they will have to choose between two options: the mandatory filter which blocks illegal material (as defined by the Australian Communications and Media Authority), and one which goes a step further to block content inappropriate for children.

The plan has a number of flaws; shortly after it was unveiled in 2007, an Australian teen cracked the AUS$84 million filter. Of the incident, the OpenNet Initiative’s Rob Faris blogged:

In placing the controls in the hands of ISPs—who so far seem to be understandably reluctant to take over this role—the calculus of filtering and circumvention change somewhat, but the vulnerability to circumvention remains.

Additionally, the filter is said to significantly slow Internet speeds for users, particularly those who opt for the heavier filter (or rather, those who do not opt-out).

Of course, another major issue deals with the fact that, as most accounts go, Australia’s filtering scheme is based on URL filtering. In other words, the filters will input sites based on their address, or URL, for example http://knightpulse.org. No problem if the offending content is hosted on the home page or across the entire site…but what if the offending content is contained within a blog post on a blog hosted at Blogger (blogspot.com)? The potential for overblocking is palpable; rather than block one blog, the filters could easily block the entire .blogspot domain, as Syria and a number of other countries have done. Another issue lies within the fact that it’s unbelievably simple for content managers to change URLs quickly and easily within most content management systems, rendering the blacklist outdated within minutes.

Beyond the technical issues lies the larger issue: what gets filtered? The mandatory filter, which has become the main concern of activists, is set to filter “illegal content,” however the government will not release its list of over 10,000 blacklisted sites, nor will it define “illegal.” While best intentions would dictate that the filter is geared toward blocking child pornography (and extreme pornography, which is illegal in much of Australia), advocates are concerned that content pertaining to “illegal” subjects such as euthanasia, drugs, and gambling could be included.

Australian activists and Internet experts are up in arms over the filtering plan. Antony Loewenstein, author of The Blogging Revolution, has criticized the plan publicly in Australia’s The Age. When I spoke to him, he expressed concern for Australia’s influence on the rest of the world:

The Australian government's plans to filter the Internet is doomed to failure for key reasons. Technically, previous tests have shown the inability of the proposed system to adequately determine "illegal" material and sites that look and feel "illegal." A growing number of politicians, human rights groups and leading ISPs are lining up against the plan, citing practical and ethical questions. Perhaps most importantly, however, is the precedent that is being set. Child pornography and violent websites today, but sites that "promote" terrorism tomorrow? We should always be suspicious of governments that want to tell its citizens what it can and cannot view and hear. The Australian government seemingly wants to lead the Western world in its Internet censorship plans.

Australian journalist Antoun Issa agrees. Like many others, he agrees that filtering should be the responsibility of parents, not the government:

It's just a completely flawed proposal. Not only does it leave our freedom and civil liberties open to manipulation by interest groups, but the impacts, including cost, that it will have on our internet speed and functionality is just astronomical. What's worse is that there's no demand for it. No one knows where on earth this policy has come from! If parents want to protect their children, they can buy their own personal filtering systems which can be far more aggressive than what the government is proposing.

Australia’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) has recently published a paper outlining the pilot program, in which it details how incidents of users using circumvention software, such as Tor, will be handled:

It is acknowledged that filtering can be circumvented by motivated people with a sufficient level of technical knowledge.
The Pilot will seek to test the ease with which different filtering solutions can be circumvented and the capacity of filters to detect and provide warnings on circumvention attempts.

What about filtering in the U.S.?
Australia’s policies differ significantly than those of the United States; in the U.S., illegal material is often removed by a take-down order, but as of yet, is not filtered. That could change: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a free broadband network for the entire United States, but with one caveat: it will be appropriate for all ages. Although the plan is not expected to pass, its mere mention shows that the United States could also be moving down a slippery slope as well.

Australians Take Action
As the government moves forward with testing the filter, Australian activists are working to protest the scheme. And according to a recent article by Joel Hruska for ars technical, Australian ISPs are refusing to take part in filtering trials. According to Hruska, while Telstra and InterNode, the country’s two largest ISPs flat-out refuse to join in, others are “either refusing to join the test, joining it only to prove it won't work (iiNet), or only testing a scaled-down version of what's intended to be the final model (Optus).”

The ISPs actions (or inactions, as the case may be) are already having major repercussions, particularly in the financial arena. Macquarie Group Ltd. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut their share ratings following the refusal announcement, causing Telstra to fall 12% in the Australian Stock Exchange, resulting in a $7.3 billion loss in the company’s market value.

Despite the recent pitfalls, it appears that the Australian government may be slowly backing down on the plan; what were originally to be live trials with actual customers are now “behind closed doors” trials, and while the Australian government’s list of sites to be blocked stands at around 10,000, one ISP (Optus) is stating that it will only filter 1,300 sites when it begins live trials next year.