Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today attacked a government plan, championed by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, that would mandate “clean feed” filtered Internet connections to all homes and schools. This scheme, which will supposedly censor the Internet of pornography and other “inappropriate material”, goes further than the Coalition’s previous policies, by requiring individuals to opt-out of the scheme rather than request filtering from their service provider.

“Waving the ’save the children’ flag may be good politics, but it ignores serious technological problems which will likely cause the proposed scheme to fail,” said EFA Chair Dale Clapperton. “Furthermore, Australia is supposed to be a liberal democracy where adults have the freedom to say and read what they want, not just what the Government decides is ‘appropriate’ for them.” “These announcements smack of the condescending paternalism which contributed to the downfall of the Howard government,” Clapperton continued. “The proposals threaten the free speech rights of every Australian, and our concerns will not be silenced by Government sound bites equating free speech with access to child pornography.”

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Filed in: Censorship, Media Releases

The ALP government’s pre-election policy requiring all Internet Service Providers (”ISPs”) to implement a mandatory Internet filtering/blocking system has been reaffirmed by the Minister for Communications, Senator Conroy. This policy was first announced in March 2006 by Kim Beazley (then Leader of the Federal Opposition). EFA today attacked the government plan as onerous, ineffective, technically inept, and an affront to civil liberties. While EFA supports measures to provide filtering software to homes where it is requested, and to educate parents on monitoring their children’s online activities, we firmly believe that ISP based filtering will not make the Internet safe for children, and may even cause harm. If parents are deceived into believing that a ‘filtered’ Internet service is safe for children, they will be less likely to take sensible precautions such as supervising their children while they use the Internet.

For further information, see:

EFA analysis of the ALP proposal

Filed in: Censorship