Filter Ahoy!
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has revisited the idea of the Australian Internet Filter after putting it on hold in July before the election. She states her general position as a moral one; on the grounds that society censors things and the internet medium has no special reason to be an exception. So it’s action stations and full steam ahead.
I have little argument with the moral position. It is sound and reasonable to censor in principle and of benefit to families nation wide. However, there are already problems with execution.
First is the timing question. Why was debate on the issue shut down before the election? Is an election a place where morality cannot be raised because it is too divisive? Did the morality of the issue change between then and now? It is not credible for government to take a moral high ground, but shut down debate when questions get hard or threatening.
Second is the use of the moral position. Being somewhat suspicious of governments, due to their track record in general, I question any use of the moral position. Politicians are notorious for scandal of every kind and not overly qualified to wear moral clothes of any kind. John Howard, a Prime Minister, claimed children were thrown overboard. A senate enquiry found this to be a lie. Amnesty International became so concerned with Philip Ruddock, a Cabinet Minister, they asked him to remove his Amnesty membership Lapel when acting as a government minister. Belinda Neal, an MP, told another MP her unborn child would be ‘born a demon’ as a result of ‘her evil thoughts’. A Sports Minister, Ros Kelly, was unable to explain the distribution of $30 million of grants, resulting in a complaints by the Auditor General.
Third, transparency of process was very poor in testing, with some insistence the lists would be secret. When the list of test sites was leaked it seemed full of political sites as much as anything illegal. History suggests governments are a poor custodian of censorship. It is worth remembering governments have strong motivation to censor. As John Milton so aptly said, when truth and falsehood are allowed to freely grapple, truth will win out. So truth acts as a check on government abuse of it’s power. We would be wise to examine closely any effort by government to censor lest truth be covered over.
There is a real risk what will eventuate will be costly to tax payers, technically unsound in it’s operation and the tool of political censorship by governments and their lobbyist friends. What we don’t need is a bunch of technically illiterate politicians spending other peoples money waging their petty infighting wars by using an internet filter as a whipping boy. Or worse, driven by lobby groups who gain under-the-table exceptions for themselves whilst black-listing their competitors.
With these things in mind I propose any filter must be run by an independent body, the list must be published and a transparent mechanism for appeal must exist.
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