Those that support mandatory ISP filtering (there’s one or two) often do so because they simply don’t understand how filtering works and believe it’s a solution to protecting our children from the risks they face when using the Internet.

There’s also those that do so because they would benefit financially from filtering being mandated and others who see it as a means of authenticating their morals and beliefs while opening avenues for controlling those of others.

AustralianWomenOnline.com’s (AWO) support for the plan seems to stem from pure ignorance.

Earlier this week, AWO deleted many of their earlier articles about filtering (and the comments that accompanied them) after Whirlpool users stumbled upon them and consequently criticised AWO writer Deborah Robinson for her views and reluctance to debate the issue.

Nothing has changed. In AWO’s most recent article Danielle Hutchinson writes:

The apparent unwillingness of some to rationally discuss, compromise and problem-solve over the use of this shared virtual world seems to us a sad reflection of the ever growing sense of individualist entitlement that’s becoming so prevalent in the “real” world.

At the same time AWO closed the ability for users to comment and debate the article as soon as it was published. Other recent AWO articles are open for comment.

Which brings me to this post. Geordie Guy has asked me to publish this letter he wrote to Danielle Hutchinson and AWO. I invite Danielle and anyone else from AustralianWomenOnline to respond.


Dear Danielle,

My name is Geordie Guy, I’m a member of the noisy minority you refer to in your article “Australian Women Online on ISP Filtering Debate” at http://www.australianwomenonline.com/australian-women-online-on-isp-filtering-debate. Your article contains a lot of misinformation, incorrect assumptions and misleading angles on the facts. I’d like to have commented on the article in place, or emailed you personally, however yourself or someone else from Australian Women Online have closed the comments on the article and your email address isn’t available. I therefore approached Mike Meloni to have my thoughts published.

Firstly in your article you state that the Internet is a shared resource and what goes on in this space must be negotiated. This paints an inaccurate picture. Your assertions invoke the idea of a playground in which it is unacceptable to misbehave because other users of the playground would be inconvenienced or threatened; this is not correct. One user of the Internet rarely directly intervenes in another’s experience unless that user or the parents that supervise that user permits it, and in the rare exceptions there are a host of laws and law-enforcement instruments already in existence to protect Australians. Your imagery of an ideological level playing field that has for too long been a no-go zone due to the misuse of the resource by others is wrong. It reads as a call to “take back the Internet”, and this is patently an appeal to emotion. I think you are to be admonished for it.

You go on to talk of a mystery “some” (this is frequently referred to as “weasel words”) who are unwilling to rationally discuss, compromise and problem-solve this shared virtual world. Perhaps you refer to me and those like me, that’s OK, but for rational discussion I am responding to your article via another website that champions the viewpoint opposing yours. It’s wrong of you to cast aspersions about the unwillingness of advocates of a free Internet to engage in rational discourse when we are unable to even comment at the bottom of your website in 160 characters or less. To problem solve, well that’s a whole different kettle of fish.

Your comments about doomsday tactics are, I’m sorry, humorous. At no time have I seen (and I suppose that doesn’t preclude it), doomsday tactics from the anti-censorship lobby. We have stated the facts as they relate to the clean feed proposals and if those make people frightened or provide an “impending sense of doom”, it truthfully bolsters our argument, not the argument of those who would see the Internet censored;

  • The clean feed proposed will do nothing to protect Australian children as it does not moderate the technology by which child abuse products or even other offensive material are predominantly shared
  • The clean feed proposed will slow the Internet , cementing us at the bottom of the western world in terms of reliability and speed
  • The clean feed proposed will inadvertently lead to the accidental moderation of material that it is not meant to block
  • The clean feed proposed will still permit offensive material to be accessed by children or others who don’t wish to see it, and encourage laxness from parents who believe their children are protected
  • The clean feed proposal is a colossal expense, which in the face of popular opinion, should be spent elsewhere, anywhere

I’ve covered some pretty assertive points there so I’ll elaborate on why, because your article misrepresents some things that I’ve rejected only in summary.

You state that we argue about “technical difficulties”, and it seems you think that we those against the proposal have their reasoning that the effort involved is too much. That’s only part of it. The opportunity cost that the federal Government proposes to incur by going down this ludicrous path instead of doing anything that will actually help Australians including Australian children is an outrage.

The technical difficulties represent what all technical difficulties do – millions upon millions of dollars. Senator Conroy has advised at varying times, $125 million dollars for the cybersafety initiative. I imagine rather than censoring the Internet which has provided so much value to Australians over the last three decades, this money could be better spent on almost anything else. I would almost prefer to see the Government offer one hundred and twenty five $1m rewards for information leading to the conviction of a child pornographer. Instead of trying to address the consumption of the product, an impossible task, why does the Government not seek to go after the people who directly harm children in the production of this material? Is this not what we do fighting against illegal drugs?

Would I support the issue if the technical difficulties could be resolved? No. Because the method of the resolution of any technical difficulties is a waste of time, money and effort better spent in actually solving any problems that the Government’s intent is to resolve, and there are other problems that when you “peel back the layers”, are still there. This is important, even though the tone of your article suggests that they are mere useless backstops to a flaccid argument about technicalities.

The overall message that your article delivers is that a mythical divide between life online and offline exists, and that the Internet needs to be pulled into line. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be further from the truth. This assertion will be remembered (when the clean feed is a distant memory due to the outrage of informed Australians) as the most deceitful, fear mongering talking point of the debate.

I cannot articulate enough how dangerous and ill considered this position is. Its existence is the very reason why we go through this cycle. Tomes of legislation both state and commonwealth, instruments of law and trained law enforcement professionals apply the same standards to the behavior of people online as offline. Australians reject dangerous people and their criminal activities, and pay no attention to the tools they use to conduct them. Online is offline.

The Internet is “real life”. It’s sad that your article, while well written, adopts a “here be dragons” approach to something you clearly don’t understand. If one doesn’t understand something, they are likely to fear it, and in being complacent in clarifying the facts you are spreading the smoke and mirrors reputation of the Internet to readers of your article. This cannot go unchallenged. You are patently wrong.

Unlike broccoli which I consider delicious, I am an adult Australian husband and I do not want this. I understand that the plan to filter the Internet is nothing more than complacent laziness by ill informed people who do not understand the technological tools that are used to enormous benefit and freedom of everyday Australians.

These ill informed people, including yourself, whip up fear, uncertainty and doubt by painting a macabre picture of a behemoth entity teeming with criminals who consume the resources of good people and who are unwilling to share some mystic resource with them. I don’t feel that the same standards applied to the Australian gaming industry which was effectively outlawed overnight in 2001 (in your words, “negotiating its place”), should apply to information about sexual health, anorexia, opposing political views, advocacy of free speech, breast feeding or any other turn of phrase that would be censored under this plan or runs the risk of it.

I don’t believe our Government should waste its time, effort and money on a technologically flawed system and should instead protect Australians in ways that we expect to be protected – agnostic of the format in which the crime is conducted. Thirty years ago white collar crime was underprosecuted because it was considered not “real” crime such as mugging or rape, please, I implore you, don’t perpetuate the urban myth that the Internet is some foreboding playground of dangerous uncontrollable pseudocrime which is impervious to challenge by our police and Government, because it plays by an entirely different set of rules.

The Internet is not a free for all. Nothing is. We are all proud Australians and thus in any jurisdiction, subject to her laws. This is the case if we are in George St. Sydney, Chapel St. Melbourne, if we choose to exploit children in Vietnam or support it by consuming content at some website somewhere, or if we use the peer-to-peer networks that make up sixty percent of Internet traffic and almost all illegal material that the Government proposal would not regulate.  Please, join the effort to have ordinary people take the responsibility to live in a community with each other under the rule of law, not under a censorship regime.

There is no virtual world. There is just the real world. In this real world, I call upon you to support Australia in protecting children, not removing or obfuscating it’s technological tools as some abhorrent, anarchistic scapegoat.

Regards,

Geordie Guy

Dip. I.T. (Net. Eng), MCSA, MCTS, CCDA, IBMCDP, CCA, Husband, Son, Australian