There has been a lot of talk in the media and on Twitter over the past week about protests, rallies and other events to stop the Government’s mandatory Internet filter from ever becoming law.  Electronic Frontiers Australia remains sceptical of the value and impact of those sorts of events.  Rather, the most effective strategy is to apply pressure on our elected representatives, so that they know Australians are opposed to the filter and this issue will cost them votes, as well as the media, so that they give this issue the mainstream media coverage it deserves.

Accordingly, the Take Action page on the Open Internet website has been updated with ten proactive things you can do stop the filter, including lobbying a Lib, writing a letter to the editor, and calling talkback radio.  Please visit the Take Action page and do as many of the activities as possible.

Also, please add yourself to our Supporter database and mark off when you have done one or all of these ten things, so that we can keep track of how our collective lobbying efforts are going. We will also post a weekly list of Open Internet Advocates, who are supporters who have marked off five or more of these things.

We need your support to apply pressure on Canberra and the media to stop the Government’s mandatory Internet filter from ever becoming law.  Do what you can do to help, and recruit as many other people as possible to our collective cause.

The recent review (EFA and AusGamers’ submission is here) on the introduction of an R18+ rating has apparently received more than 55,000 submissions from Australians interested in this issue. This sort of turnout is incredible – several orders of magnitude higher than the regular response rate to Government reviews.

I want to extend our particular thanks to Grow up Austrlaia and EBGames for leading the campaign – particularly by providing a visible petition and an online submission form.

I am greatly heartened by this news – both because this should now provide unignorable evidence that Australians demand to be treated like adults when it comes to game classification, and because it signals real potential for the future of grass-roots activism and public participation in the democratic discourse.

Expect more news and a report sometime after April.

There are jerks on the internet. Given how many jerks there are off the internet, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. (I’m willing to bet that the first cave painting was barely dry before a jerk came along and drew an oversized penis on one of the animals.)

Nevertheless, the offensive defacement last week of two Facebook pages, tributes to slain Queensland children Elliott Fletcher and Trinity Bates, became a minor flap in the media. Words like “sinister”, “disgusting” and “sick” quickly appeared in various articles.

Where an outraged media go, politicians quickly follow. Barely one news cycle after the story about tasteless Facebook pranks, Senator Nick Xenophon has proposed an “online ombudsman” to “deal with such incidents”, an idea tentatively endorsed by the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Queensland premier Anna Bligh wrote to Facebook angrily demanding an explanation.

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The Review on the introduction of an R18+ rating for computer games closes on Sunday. To all of you who have not yet made a submission, I encourage you to do so.

To make a submission, use the template provided on the Attorney-General’s website. Fill out the questionnaire and add your own comments. It is critically important that we explain to the Australian Government that Australians are capable of making responsible decisions for themselves and for their children. You should explain, in your own words, why you believe we should not censor games designed for adults. Two particular points I think it’s important to get across are:

• If you are a parent, explain how you monitor and oversee what media your children are able to watch and play;
• Explain why you would like the opportunity to play games that deal with complex adult themes

We have almost completed our submission, drafted in conjunction with AusGamers. You may want to read through it for some ideas.

We believe that it is time that Australia accepts that games are not just for children – that games are a highly expressive media capable of conveying complex adult themes that are not suitable for children but which should not be banned. We believe that Australians are capable of making responsible choices about what games we play and what games we allow our children to play. We believe, crucially, that introducing an R18+ rating will help parents and all Australians make more informed choices by providing a clear indicator of video game content and aligning games classification more closely with film classification.

Please take the time to make your voice heard on this crucially important issue.

If you’re a politician, and something nasty is brought to your attention, what do you do? The best and sometimes only tool in your toolbox is the one you reach for. The tool is this: to pass a law banning it. Therefore, although it’s always discouraging, a story like this one, is far from unusual or surprising. ”Laws to tackle racism on the Internet are set to be beefed up,” it announces.

“Authorities warn they are often powerless to act against online content, which is responsible for almost one in five racial vilification complaints,” it continues, then:

Attorney-General Robert McClelland has ordered the Australian Human Rights Commission to conduct a sweeping review of ”arrangements for dealing with racist material on the internet”.

”While freedom of expression is one of the most fundamental rights, this is not at the expense of the rights of people, while using the Internet, to be treated with equality, dignity and respect,” Mr McClelland told The Sunday Age.

Certainly, nobody likes hate speech. But these words, by our Attorney-General, are concerning. Firstly, they show a terrible lack of  consideration of the complexities of the issue, and secondly, they demote freedom of speech in a significant way.

Banning racist content on the Internet might seem like a good idea on the surface, but you don’t have to dig very deep before the idea becomes problematic. The existing laws throughout the states grapple with some thorny issues. How do you define hate speech? “Kill all Jews” certainly counts, but what about “Liberate Palestine”? Is Holocaust revisionism hate speech? What about an honestly held  opinion on the undesirability of immigration from a certain part of the world? Does this inspire “hatred, contempt or severe ridicule” against a group of persons? These ambiguities will become more problematic if a new national law is introduced that applies to every blog on the Internet.

The proposal also shows a considerable lack of understanding about the realities of censoring the Internet. The Internet, it should go without saying, is global. Billions of web pages are out there, far beyond the reach of Australian lawmakers, and reflecting a multitude of different cultural values. Content hosted in Australia can be removed, but it can just as easily be moved or copied overseas by its authors. It is therefore questionable whether any law could have a meaningful impact.

The comments by the AG and others pay lip service to freedom of speech, but their words lack conviction. Freedom of speech is fine, but “not at the expense of the rights of people… to be treated with equality, dignity and respect.” That sounds like a noble sentiment, but are we certain that freedom of speech shouldn’t include the right to be mocking, disrespectful and offensive? There are definitely limits to freedom of speech that we can all agree on. But the above comments seem more like a dismissal of free-speech concerns than a debate of their merits.

We need to ask ourselves, is this the best way to tackle racism in Australian society? Is racist web content a cause of racist attitudes, or merely a symptom of it? In our view, other, more substantive and community-based policies are needed if we want to see a real improvement in this area.

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today welcomed the results of a recent survey that found Australian Internet users do not support the idea of mandatory Internet filtering.

The preliminary results of the Australian Broadband Survey 2009, conducted by Whirlpool (whirlpool.net.au), found that 91.8% respondents did not support the idea of mandatory Internet filtering.

The survey also found 83.4% of respondents said that the introduction of mandatory Internet filtering might affect their vote at the next Federal election.

“The results highlight widespread community disagreement with the Government’s plan,” said Peter Black, EFA’s campaign manager. “These results also show that Australians believe the Government would be better off focusing on increased education and law enforcement, instead of an impractical and costly policy of Government censorship.”

When asked what the Government should focus on in terms of internet safety, 81.8% supported educating parents, 63.9% said educating children, 43.7% said law enforcement, 42.1% said subsidising desktop filter software, and 33.5% said subsidising ISP-level opt-in filters, with only 3.2% supporting mandatory Internet filtering.

These preliminary results from the Australian Broadband Survey 2009 only include respondents aged 18 years of age or older. The survey was successfully completed and verified 21,775 times by respondents aged 18 years of age or older. The full results of the Survey are expected to be published soon.

“These results confirm that people who understand the issue overwhelming oppose the Government’s policy,” Black said. “The big challenge now is to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Australians, who perhaps aren’t particularly computer or Internet savvy.”

That is why last week EFA launched the Open Internet campaign, centred around a new website, OpenInternet.com.au, blog and Facebook fan page, to, to, that together will act as campaign hub for all the different individuals and organisations that are campaigning against the Governmentb s mandatory Internet filtering policy.

The Open Internet campaign marks an escalation of opposition to the Government’s policy, which will continue throughout the year. “Our goal is to ensure the Australian public know what they’re in for,” said Black. “It’s important that such a major and expensive policy gets the public scrutiny it deserves. And we believe that Open Internet portrays a positive and understandable message that will resonate with Australians who are yet to form a strong opinion on the Government’s policy.”

- Ends -

Below is:

- Background information
- Contact details for media

Background:
* EFA’s Open Internet campaign
- http://openinternet.com.au/

* Electronic Frontiers Australia
- http://www.efa.org.au/

* Australian Broadband Survey 2009 Pre-Release Report
- The pre-release report has been redacted.  The full report will be available at Whirlpool (whirlpool.net.au) in the next few days.

About EFA:

Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA) is a non-profit national organisation representing Internet users concerned with on-line rights and freedoms. EFA was established in 1994, is independent of government and commerce, and is funded by membership subscriptions and donations from individuals and organisations with an altruistic interest in promoting online civil liberties.

Media Contacts:

Mr Peter Black
Campaign Manager
Phone: 0421 636 496
Email: pete.black at efa.org.au

Mr Colin Jacobs
EFA Vice-Chair
Phone: 0402 631 955
Email: cjacobs at efa.org.au

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today welcomed the widespread opposition to the the Rudd Government’s mandatory Internet filtering plan.

“There are dozens of organisations and groups that are working against the Government’s plan to censor the Internet, highlighting the depth of community disagreement with the plan,” said Peter Black, EFA’s campaign manager.

EFA has launched a new website, OpenInternet.com.au, blog and Facebook fan page, to act as a campaign hub for these different groups.

“We hope that the Open Internet campaign will help unite all these different groups, so that we can work together to stop the Government’s plan,” Black said. “The big challenge for all of the opposition groups now is to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Australians, who perhaps aren’t particularly computer or Internet savvy.”

EFA is concerned that the actions of Anonymous are only hurting the movement’s cause.

“EFA condemns the denial of service attacks orchestrated by Anonymous, as they damage the cause by playing to stereotypes of filter opponents as juveniles motivated by a desire to ensure the availability of Internet pornography,” said EFA Vice-Chair Colin Jacobs. “They serve no purpose but to give the Government the moral high ground, and distract from arguments about the ineffectiveness of the policy and its ramifications for free speech.”

EFA also rejects any attempt to legitimise the actions of Anonymous.

“We are aware that Anonymous is now organising street protests on 20 February, dubbed Project Freeweb,” said Black. “However, EFA does not support these protests. Any attempt to legitimise the actions of Anonymous only makes it easier for the Government to dismiss the opposition to its filter as fringe extremists.”

“While we understand the frustrations that the Anonymous members feel, we would instead encourage people to contact their local Member of Parliament, or participate in the National Day Action activities being planned by Block the Filter and Stop Internet Censorship on 6 March,” said Black.

The Open Internet website has a list of 10 practical things that people can do to oppose the filter.

The Open Internet campaign marks an escalation of opposition to the plan, which will continue throughout the year. “Our goal is to ensure the Australian public know what they’re in for,” said Black. “It’s important that such a major and expensive policy gets the public scrutiny it deserves. And we believe that Open Internet portrays a positive and understandable message that will resonate with Australians who are yet to form a strong opinion on the Government’s policy.”

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Electronic Frontiers Australia today launched a new campaign against the Rudd Government’s mandatory Internet filtering plan.

The Open Internet campaign emphasises that Australians want an Open Internet that is free from an impractical and costly policy of Government imposed mandatory Internet filtering.

“This policy has caused considerable anxiety amongst Australian Internet users,” said EFA Vice-Chair Colin Jacobs. “The idea that the Government will be inserting itself in every Internet connection in the country is a tough one to swallow, especially without a workable policy goal behind it.”

“Australians support an Open Internet that empowers individuals to decide what they view online,” said Peter Black, EFA’s campaign manager. “Australians support an Open Internet that trusts parents to monitor what their children view online.”

The campaign is centred around a new website, OpenInternet.com.au, blog, and Facebook fan page, that together will act as campaign hub for all the different individuals and organisations that are campaigning against the Government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy.

The policy, which will see all Australian Internet connections subject to a Government-controlled blacklist of banned sites, will apply to all Australian Internet connections within 12 months of the legislation being passed. Although originally touted as a “cyber-safety” policy, the resulting filter will not filter out all material unsuitable for children, instead targeting a select list of “refused classification” material, which would include content dealing with crime, drugs and certain types of adult material.

Concerns with the list include its broad scope, its secret nature, and the inability of Australian businesses to know if and when they have been placed on the list. “One of our main concerns is how the list might expand in the future,” said Jacobs. “It’s hard to imagine both this government and every government forever, resisting temptation from special interest groups as well as electoral and media pressure.”

The Open Internet campaign marks an escalation of opposition to the plan, which will continue throughout the year. “Our goal is to ensure the Australian public know what they’re in for,” said Black. “It’s important that such a major and expensive policy gets the public scrutiny it deserves. And we believe that Open Internet portrays a positive and understandable message that will resonate with Australians who are yet to form a strong opinion on the Government’s policy.”

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EFA has put together a submission to the DBCDE accountability and transparency review on what measures would be required to make mandatory ISP filtering legitimate. Many thanks for Irene Graham and Kylie Pappalardo for their tremendous help in putting this together.

If you want to put in a submission, the deadline is today. You can see our submission for some suggestions.

The point we’re making is that filtering is a terrible idea, but if it absolutely must be introduced, it must be legitimately administered. The only justification for secret censorship that are compatible with liberal democratic values is where the material is illegal to possess and publishing identifying information on censored material would cause direct harm – as may be the case with publishing the URLs or other identifying information of child sexual abuse material. Even in these circumstances, there are stringent requirements for notification, rights of appeal, and regular rigorous oversight of the secret list. In all other circumstances, classification, in order to be compatible with the ideals of liberal democracy, must be carried out in an open and accountable manner.

Our full submission is available here (PDF).

The specific recommendations we are making are over the fold.
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Internet vigilante group Anonymous have stepped up their campaign against the Rudd Government and its Internet censorship scheme today. “Operation Titstorm” began with denial of service attacks against various Government websites including that of the Prime Minister.

EFA naturally condemns these attacks – not only are they illegal, but they damage the cause by playing to stereotypes of filter opponents as juveniles motivated by a desire to keep the Internet safe for porn. They serve no purpose but to give the Government the moral high ground, and distract from arguments about the ineffectiveness of the policy and its ramifications for free speech.

It’s easy to understand the frustrations that the Anonymous members feel – it’s true that the censorship plan has been thrust on the Australian public without consultation, research or a coherent policy objective. But this campaign just serves for Anonymous members to get a little revenge. It certainly won’t persuade anyone; rather, it will hurt the anti-filtering campaign.

Worse, their objections are ill-informed and easily countered. They claimed:

Brief background information: Chairmen Rudd and his aid Steven Conroy have recently passed a ban accross all of Australia on porography depicting women with small breasts, in a supposed crackdown on “simulated” child porn. He is now pushing for mandatory ISP filtering, allowing him to completely control what Australians can view on the internet.

(The misspellings are in the original.) Although they allude to a genuine problem with a nebulous and subjective classification standard for adult material – well covered by Michael Meloni at SToTC - the insinuation that this is a new thing, or that it is related to filtering, is incorrect. In fact, Rudd and his “aid” Conroy have not changed the classification scheme for movies.

It may be frustrating – and lot of hard work – but there’s only one way to keep this ill-conceived plan at bay, and that is by bringing pressure on our elected representatives to see sense and move on to other priorities. Let the Minister, his shadow Tony Smith, and your local MP know that you are against the plan.

The public consultation on the introduction of an R18+ for computer games closes at the end of the month. Jessi Citizen, on behalf of EFA and in conjunction with Ausgamers, has prepared a draft response to the consultation that sets out our understanding of the issues and our arguments.

• Draft submission paper (MS Word format)

In the spirit of community involvement, and to ensure that we have the strongest argument we can possibly put forward, we are opening this draft paper for public comment. You can see (and edit) the paper on Google docs. Please provide us with your comments and suggestions on this paper. In addition to the draft document, we also have some research that we conducted (thanks to Julian Merlo and Matt Postle) that details comparative ratings for games in 2009 worldwide (showing that over half of the games that were rated as MA15+ here were given adult ratings by all five comparative jurisdictions overseas!)

To join in our discussion on the draft paper process, please join our discussion list. Putting these documents together takes money, and EFA is entirely volunteer funded. If you would like to contribute to our R18+ submission, please consider making a small donation to help us recoup our costs:

In addition to comments, we would like to see as many people as possible put together their own submission to the public consultation. You can do this either by using Grow Up Australia’s submission form or following the submission template and the instructions on the AGD’s website.

Here’s some tips for writing a submission:

• Be reasonable; don’t attack the classification board or any particular Attorneys-General. We have the facts and the theory on our side, and we don’t gain anything by sounding childish or petulant.
• Follow the submission guidelines – make sure your voice is heard.
• Make your points clearly and succinctly. Feel free to take any of the information we present in the discussion paper; you’re usually better served by being brief and to the point.
• Express the issue in your own words, and tell your own story; Explain to the AGD why you personally want an R18+ rating, and how it affects you.

The main points that we are trying to stress in this discussion paper are really quite simple:

• Gamers are adults; games, like films, tell expressive stories, not all of which are suitable for children. Banning everything that is not suitable for children amounts to unacceptable censorship of legitimate expression.
• Gamers are parents; as responsible parents, we take care to monitor what media our children consume, and can take responsibility for those decisions.
• An R18+ rating is about empowerment; the goal of Australia’s classification is to empower adults, protect children, protect people from accidental exposure to offensive material, and to take into account community concerns about particularly offensive content. An R18+ allows adults to choose what is suitable for themselves and for their children.
• An R18+ rating will be more likely to decrease rather than increase the exposure of children to inappropriate content, because it sends a clear message to parents that certain material is not appropriate for children; the lack of an R18+ for games, particularly when one exists for films, only causes confusion and lessens the ability of parents to take responsibility.
• Australia’s system is out of step with the rest of the world; games that are clearly not designed for children are being released with an MA15+ rating, and games that are suitable for adults are being banned. Our research shows that of the 47 games that were rated by the Australian Classification Board, the US ESRB, the UK BBFC, the EU PEGI, and the NZ OFLC, more than 50 per cent of titles that were rated MA15+ in Australia were given an adult rating overseas. The Australian system is demonstrably less effective in warning parents and gamers about the content of video games than our international counterparts. Introducing an R18+ rating will address some of this disparity and enable Australians to make more informed choices about what games they play or allow their children to play.

Thank you to everyone who has signed the Senate Internet Censorship Petition.  So far we have just under 10,000 signatories to the e-petition, but that is just the beginning.

Please let your friends, family and colleagues know about the Government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy and what they can do to help defeat it, including signing the petition online as well as collecting paper signatures.

We now have badges you can use to help promote the petition.  If you would like to help publicise the petition, you can copy the code (next to each badge) and paste it onto your blog or website.  Or feel free to right click on the image, save it, and use it however you would like.

	<a href="http://www.efa.org.au/petition/"> <img src="http://www.efa.org.au/main/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/petition135.jpg" alt="EFAPetition" width="135" height="48" border="0"/></a>
	<a href="http://www.efa.org.au/petition/"> <img src="http://www.efa.org.au/main/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/petition180.jpg" alt="EFAPetition" width="180" height="63" border="0"/></a>

All this week Australian websites having been going black as part of the Great Australian Internet Blackout.  So far this online demonstration has successfully reached a wide range of audiences, educating them about the problems with the Government’s mandatory Internet filter policy:

• There are 480 verified participating websites (and that only counts the websites that have directly submitted their sites for inclusion on our list),  including the websites of the Australian Greens, the Australian Democrats, iiNet, New Matilda and Online Opinion.
• More than 2300 Twitter users have blacked out their profile pictures using a countable method (Twibbon), while many more have blacked out their profile using their own artwork (which is much harder to count).  You can black out your Twitter profile picture here.  You can also set your Twitter background to 1000 supporters of the Blackout here.
• More than 5200 Facebook users have joined the Great Australian Internet Blackout group (quite a number of whom have blacked out their profile pictures), up from around 2000 at the start of the week.  You can join that group here.
• There have been over 260,000 unique visitors to the Great Australian Internet Blackout website.
• The blackout information popup (which appears on sites that have joined the campaign using our script) has been seen more than 375,000 times.

It’s not too late for you and your business or organisation to participate in this demonstration.  Just visit the Great Australian Internet Blackout website for more information.

We will post the final numbers early next week.

Electronic Frontiers Australia today announced that over 500 web Australian sites will be “blacked out” on Australia day in protest against the Rudd government’s mandatory Internet filtering plan. Included among them are the Australian Greens, an Internet service provider, media outlets, and hundreds of other Australian businesses and organisations.

“This policy has caused considerable anxiety amongst Australian Internet users,” said EFA Vice-Chair Colin Jacobs. “The idea that the Government will be inserting itself in every Internet connection in the country is a tough one to swallow, especially without a workable policy goal behind it.”

The “Great Australian Internet Blackout” was the brainchild of activist Jeff Waugh, and is endorsed and supported by EFA. For a week starting on Australia Day, participating web sites will appear to turn black and will display a one-time message to visitors explaining the Government’s plan and offering them more information before allowing visitors to continue as normal.

The plan, which will see all Australian Internet connections subject to a Government-controlled blacklist of banned sites, will apply to all Australian Internet connections within 12 months of the legislation being passed. Although originally touted as a “cyber-safety” policy, the resulting filter will not filter out all material unsuitable for children, instead targeting a select list of “refused classification” material, which would includes content dealing with crime, drugs and certain types of adult material.

Greens Communications spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam, in deciding to support the campaign, said “The Government’s plan will not protect children, will do nothing to crack down on criminal activity online, and sets a dangerous precedent of centralised net censorship.”

Concerns with the list include its broad scope, it’s secret nature, and the inability of Australian businesses to know if and when they have been placed on the list. “One of our main concerns is how the list might expand in the future,” said Jacobs. “It’s hard to imagine this and all future governments responding to special interests, electoral pressure and the news cycle only with restraint forevermore.”

The Internet Blackout on Australia Day marks an escalation of opposition to the plan, which will continue throughout the year. “Our goal is to ensure the Australian public know what they’re in for,” said Peter Black, EFA’s campaign manager. “It’s important that such a major and expensive policy gets the public scrutiny it deserves.”

(more…)

Ever since I became campaign manager for the EFA’s campaign against the Government’s mandatory Internet filter two and a half weeks ago, I have been overwhelmed by the level of enthusiasm and support for the EFA’s campaign.  Accordingly, the most frequent question I have been asked is “what can I do to help?”  Given this level of support and the desire of so many Australians to help defeat the Government’s policy, I thought I’d suggest ten things you can do to help the EFA’s campaign against the Government’s mandatory Internet filter.

1. Sign the Senate Internet Censorship Petition.

Last week the EFA launched a petition gainst the Government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy that will be presented to the Senate of the Parliament of Australia.  You can sign the petition electronically by going to this page and leaving your name, postcode and email address.

2. Collect signatures for the Senate Internet Censorship Petition.

In addition to signing the online petition, we are also looking for volunteers to collect printed signatures.  If you would like to gather signatures for the petition, please download and read the Senate Internet Censorship Petition – Instructions before printing the Senate Internet Censorship Petition.  Simply print out the petition and take it to work, parties, and anywhere else you might be able to talk to people about Internet censorship and persuade them to sign this petition.

3. Participate in the Great Australian Internet Blackout.

This week is the Great Australian internet Blackout, a week long online protest against imposed online censorship.  Over 500 groups and thousands of individuals are blacking out their websites and profile pictures to inform a wider audience about the Government’s plan.  Learn how to black out your website here, and learn how to black out you profile picture on Twitter or Facebook here.

4. Renew your membership or donate to the EFA.

The EFA relies on membership fees and donations to fund its activities.  Renew your membership or make a donation so that we can continue to fund our campaign against the Government’s mandatory Internet filter. (more…)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday delivered an important, wide-ranging speech on the subject of Internet freedom. Coming on the heels of the Chinese cyber-attacks on Google and other U.S. companies, and the increasing use of online censorship by authoritarian governments around the world, the speech draws a line in the sand and presents the USA as the global champion of online openness.

Secretary Clinton Recognised that free access to information online is just as important in the modern age as the right to use a printing press was in earlier times. The ability to communicate with others over the net is as important, now, as the right to assemble and discuss politics ever was offline. Said Clinton, “The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate. Once you’re on the internet, you don’t need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society.”
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