Speech to the Sydney protest rally
May 28th 1999
There are so many problems with the Online Services Bill that it is hard to know where to start. I will look at just three issues: freedom of speech, children and filtering systems, and the damage to industry.
Under this Bill, enormous amounts of content legally available in
other media will be "prohibited" online. Whatever their feelings about
non-violent erotica, a clear majority of Australians believe it should
be available to adults in private, and in fact such material is legally
available by mail order from the ACT.
Moreoever, Internet content is to be classified using the Film and Video guidelines, previously only applied - would you believe it? - to films and videos. Many books which can be sold without any restrictions at all in bookshops will, if placed online and shoehorned into the Film classification scheme, become prohibited content. [The books I waved as examples were Alice Hoffman's White Horses and Penny Jordon's Marriage Make Up]
Another threat to free speech lies in the possibility that entire sites will be classified as a single item. Dejanews.com and geocities.com, for example, certainly contain some "prohibited content", and could well be deemed "prohibited" in their entirety. Given that the Australian Broadcasting Authority only has a budget of one and a half million dollars a year for classifications - enough for perhaps a few thousand - it is hard to see how else they can cope with such sites.
Australian adults want to be able to make up their own minds about what they want to read and view. We don't want politicians making that decision for us. (I'm told at least one US porn site is threatening to release the details of those politicians who are customers...)
Children and the Internet. This is a subject on which a lot of emotive rhetoric has been thrown around, so I'll begin by saying that if you find evidence on the Internet of genuine crimes such as child abuse or drug-smuggling, then you should report it to the police, to the NSW child protection unit or the drug squad. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with this Bill.
This Bill will not succeed in protecting children from unsuitable content. The sheer volume of material, and the rate at which new material is generated, makes it impossible for the classification regime the Bill creates to touch more than a tiny fraction - not even as much as 1% - of the "naughty" content online. The government could spend the entire Budget surplus on content classification without appreciable effect.
The only obvious way around this is to use automated filtering systems - and indeed parts of the Bill suggest that its goal is to compel ISPs to use such systems (as part of compliance with ABA-administered codes of practice).
But this would take censorship out of the hands of the Office of Film and Literature Classification and hand it over to dumb computer programs and unaccountable companies selling secret blacklists. As has been documented over and over again, in a variety of studies, all such systems have major problems. They fail to block much "unsuitable" content, but at the same time block masses of innocent content (what we call "collateral damage"). [But I believe our next speaker is going to discuss this, so I won't go into detail here.]
Alston and Harradine argue that technological progress will solve all these problems. For people who are obviously frightened by new technology, they have a surprising faith in it! But it is not so easy.
Content classification is a problem that requires strong AI - human level artificial intelligence. There are no signs that this is going to be available anytime soon, if at all, so passing legislation dependent on it is foolish. (I should also comment here that if we ever do build sentient artificial intelligences, it might not be a good idea to turn over to them control of what we, or our children, can read and view!)
So what is the solution to protecting children? It's not sexy and it won't generate media attention, but the only effective solution is education and training of parents and, where appropriate, the use of end-user filtering systems that are open, accountable, non-discriminatory, and configurable. Empowering parents - not something the moral minority likes, because they want to make decisions for your children.
This is not something that can be done easily or quickly. But the two million dollars a year the government is wasting on the ABA would have gone a long way if directed towards this end.
This Bill is going to cause both immediate and long-term damage to the Australian Internet industry and the Australian economy.
It will place a serious burden on content-providers, many of whom will move off-shore - I know of several cases already. We aren't just talking about adult sites here: many online communities and some businesses have content that could be R-rated, and the vagueness of the legislation creates uncertainties about their future. (As yet the OFLC won't classify online content, so even if one could afford to pay for it there is no way to check the legality of a site.)
The Bill will obviously create problems for Internet service providers. They will be saddled with vague and unclear legislation whose interpretation by courts will take some time to evolve. Creating infrastructure for complying with ABA directives will cost money - and these costs will be passed on to their users. (It is critical here that they are required to not only block access to content that is classified and prohibited, but to block "substantially similar" content as well, so they are required to evaluate content.)
And there will be long-term damage to the economy. This legislation will discourage overseas investment, speed up the brain drain, and hurt out balance of trade. I have seen signs that this is happening already. The Internet is still growing exponentially and the information economy is becoming a larger part of the economy. Even a small change in growth rates can make a huge difference in the long-term.
It is often claimed that the Internet is unregulated and needs regulation. This is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. ISPs are regulated under the Telecommunications Act and are subject to Trade Practices legislation like any other business. Internet content is subject to state and territory laws against child pornography, defamation and libel laws, and racial vilification law, among others.
This Bill is therefore totally unnecessary as well as dangerous and ineffective.
So here we are outside the Australian Broadcasting Authority. These are the people who will have to administer the swamp created by the Online Services Bill.
I don't think the ABA really has much of an idea what is going to hit them. From regulating a handful of television stations with control over both content selection and broadcasting, they are going to regulate more than six hundred ISPs providing communications channels for content created by several million ordinary Australians.
A fundamental assumption of the Bill is that the Internet is like pay television and can and should be regulated accordingly. All we are offered in justification for this is a hand-waving appeal to "convergence". But for anyone who has actually used the Internet seriously, the differences are obvious and massive.
The futility and impracticality and waste of this legislation will become clear very rapidly after the regime it creates comes into force on January 1st 2000, which is when the ABA will start accepting complaints about content.
Before we disperse, I'd just like to ask you not to become overly despondent when the Bill is passed by the House and then signed into law. A protest like this is unlikely to sway our politicians by itself - but if it is part of a groundswell of sustained opposition, backbenchers may start to get cold feet.
This legislation is only half of a two part package. This is administrative law regulating ISPs. The other half will be criminal legislation by the states and territories specifying direct sanctions and controls on end-users. The battle over this will be fought at a state level as well as nationally.
So I urge you not to forget what this government has done, to stay informed about what is happening with censorship, and to be prepared to keep up the pressure. It is vital that we educate both our politicians and non-Internet users, and get the word out to people online who don't know what is happening.
I'm now going to wander into Darling Harbour, outside the Chinese gardens, and if any of you want to come along and chat informally, feel free to join me there.
But the event is now formally over, so please disperse safely.
I hope you have enjoyed yourselves - thank you very much for coming along.