The Federal Government’s mandatory internet filter will not likely be introduced for a year, until after a review of what content would be blocked.

Stephen Conroy today announced a new set of ‘transparency and accountability’ measures that will be introduced alongside the filter, and chief among them are changes to the Refused Classification guidelines.

“Some sections of the community have expressed concern about whether the range of material included in the RC category currently reflects community standards”, Senator Conroy said.

His department is recommending an independent review of what the community deems to be inappropriate content. Senator Conroy expects the review to take around a year, and the filter will not be introduced during this time.

In the interim, several big ISPs including Telstra, Optus and Primus have agreed to voluntarily block a list of child porn and child abuse URLs provided by the government.

Maha Krishnapillai, Optus’ Director of Government and Corporate affairs, said he was very supportive of the measures.

“There have been a lot of misconceptions about what kind of things will be blocked, and that we are the ones who are blocking them”, he said.

“If people want to look at (content that’s currently rated RC), that’s ok, we don’t care. So if the review comes back and says that stuff’s ok it will be ok.”

In many European countries ISPs block content according to a voluntary code, without mandatory filtering or government involvement.

Mr Krishnapillai said he imagines a similar system will eventually be implemented in Australia.

“We have a long way to go before we get there. These are just the first steps.”

Blocking will be accomplished simply using a list of URLs known to contain RC content, meaning slow-down to internet speeds will not be noticeable.

When the filter is introduced, measures will come in alongside it including a notification to the owner of the page before it is blocked, an appeal and review mechanism, industry consultation on technical issues and the immediate classification of any pages that are complained about by public.

Attempting to access a blocked URL will display a page giving detailed information on why it was blocked, and the ACMA website will frequently update an exhaustive list of reasons why a website may be blocked.

Senator Conroy denied that these changes are being instituted as an election issue, though given his focus on clearing up ‘misconceptions’ about the filter, it seems likely the aim is to appease the voters.

He also said the filter is not designed as a “silver bullet” that will make accessing the internet safe, but it is a major part of a multi-million dollar plan that also includes education, training and increased online law enforcement.

You can tune into Four Corners at 8:30PM and Q&A at 9:35PM, both on ABC1.

Four Corners will provide what looks to be a good overview of the Government’s plan to filter the web, including how much that plan has changed since it was first announced. Meanwhile, Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor, Shadow Minister for Innovation Sophie Mirabella, Beijing-based internet consultant Kaiser Kuo, Internet activist Brett Solomon and commentator Helen Razer will take questions on Q&A. There’s a bingo card to play along with as well.

For International readers, both shows should be available to download not too long after.

Speaking against net censorship is journo and author Antony Loewenstein, Google’s Ross LaJeunesse and David Marr. For is Professor and Associate Dean of Law at Flinders University, Elizabeth Handsley, Beijing-based columnist Kaiser Kuo and Alastair MacGibbon, founder of the Internet Safety Institute and Managing Partner of internet consultancy the Surete Group.

When I bought the ticket back in January Senator Conroy was set to speak. Unfortunately, he’s pulled out (for whatever reason). Nevertheless, there’s still a great range of range of high-profile and knowledgeable speakers so I’m sure it’ll be interesting

Event details:

Governments should not censor the internet

May 11, 6:30PM
City Recital Hall Angel Place
2-12 Angel Place
Sydney

Architects of the internet have championed its promise as an instrument of liberty – a free-wheeling republic in which the ordinary person can bypass the gatekeepers of power and influence.

Beneath the shiny towers of liberty electronic sewers run thick with child pornography, terrorist propaganda, racial hatred, crazy conspiracies and other products of the grimy denizens of the internet’s underworld.

Some governments think that they should protect us from what they deem to be harmful to the common weal.

Can we not be trusted to care for ourselves? And if not, then will censorship inevitably shut out the light along with the dark?

It is important that audience members are seated by 6.35pm as the event will be screened live.

You can also buy yourself a ticket here.

In public submissions on ‘measures to increase accountability and transparency for Refused Classification material’ released today by the DBCDE, Google said moving to a mandatory ISP level filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond child pornography is heavy handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.

Our primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide.

Yahoo! agreed:

Yahoo! are entirely supportive of any effort to make the Internet a safer place for children, however mandatory filtering of all RC material could block content with a strong social, political and/or educational value such as:

• Safe injecting and other harm minimisation websites,

• Euthanasia discussion forums,

• A video on creating graffiti art,

• Anti-abortion websites,

• Gay and lesbian forums which discuss sexual experiences,

• Explorations of the geo-political causes of terrorism where specific terrorist organisation, and propaganda is cited as reference material.

Read all of the submissions here and remember: If you’re in the mood, watch Senator Conroy on The 7Pm Project, Wednesday 24/03/10 at 7PM AEST, Channel 10. Just don’t expect anything new.

Family First Senator Steve Fielding has won a seat reserved for minor party and independent senators on the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety. He beat Greens Senator Scott Ludlam by two votes.

AAP reports:

A ballot was held in the upper house on Tuesday to decide which minor party or independent senator would be appointed to a federal parliamentary committee on cyber-safety.

In a very close secret vote, Senator Fielding was awarded the job with 34 votes to Senator Ludlam’s 32.

The Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety will look at online bullying, stalking, sexual grooming, the development of addictions, identity theft and privacy breaches.

The committee, which was proposed by Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Anthony Albanese, will investigate and report on:

• abuse of children online (cyber-bullying, cyber-stalking and sexual grooming);
• exposure to illegal and inappropriate content;
• inappropriate social and health behaviours in an online environment (e.g. technology addiction, online promotion of anorexia, drug usage, underage drinking and smoking);
• identity theft; and
• breaches of privacy.
• increasing awareness of cyber-safety good practice;
• encouraging schools to work with the broader school community, especially parents, to develop consistent, whole school approaches; and
• analysing best practice approaches to training and professional development programs and resources that are available to enable school staff to effectively respond to cyber-bullying.

Of course, Albanese also noted that the government will introduce into parliament legislation for mandatory ISP level filtering.

The Australian Classification Board (ACB) has responded to accusations by The Australian Sex Party that material with depictions of women with small breasts has been banned. A spokesperson for the ACB told me today that publications which contain offensive depictions or descriptions of persons who are or appear to be persons under the age of 18 (whether they are engaged in sexual activity or not) must be classified RC.

They said the Board classifies publications on a case by case basis, in accordance with the Guidelines for the Classification of Publications, the Code and the Classification Act and that the Publications Guidelines do not specify breast size.

Female Ejaculation Bans

In response to accusations that films containing female ejaculation would now be banned, the spokesperson said the Film and Games guidelines do not specify female ejaculation, but it does specify that the fetish of ‘golden showers’ will be Refused Classification and have been in the past.

The ACB is yet to answer followup questions about whether it considers female ejaculation to be a golden shower.

The ACB said they do not and could not direct Customs and Border Protection officers to confiscate any material and that Customs and Border Protection have advised that they will only seize material that is Refused Classification or would be Refused Classification if it were to be classified.

What’s Been Banned

Fiona Patten from the Australian Sex Party (ASP) said she attended a ACB training session late last year where they showed examples of publications that had been Refused Classification due to the size of the woman’s breasts.

‘That information is not provided to the applicant when their publication is Refused Classification. When a publication classification is revoked sometimes a little more information is provided’ she said.

According to Patten some of the titles banned included Barely Legal (Hustler), Finally Legal and Purely 18.

‘The general comments on the publications mentioned were that the model appeared under 18′ she said.

However, the titles mentioned are all regulated and records of each model’s age are required to be kept by 18 U.S.C. 2257 and 28 C.F.R. part 75. These regulations are enforced by the FBI.

The ACB’s database of banned publications contains four references of banned copies of Barely Legal, one of Finally Legal, and two of Purely 18.

The Australian Sex Party (ASP) said Wednesday that the Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. It comes just a week after it was found that material with depictions of females ejaculating during orgasm are now Refused Classification and Australian Customs directed to confiscate it.

ASP’s Fiona Patten writes on her party’s website that they are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup breast size:

“This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year. Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint’s Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications.”

Patten writes that such bans may be an unintended consequence of the Senator’s actions “but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late”.

How can this be happening

The National Classification Code dictates that anything that describes or depicts a person who is, or appears to be, a child under 18 (whether the person is engaged in sexual activity or not) in a way that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult is Refused Classification.

State Crime Acts are also similar. Victoria’s Criminal Code includes the ‘or appears to be’ clause in its definition of child pornography and it doesn’t need to cause offence to a reasonable adult for it to be illegal.

Even if you are 18 years old but you look younger, taking a photograph of your breasts and uploading it to the Internet could land you or someone you know in serious trouble.

Keep in mind it’s highly unlikely that a naked photograph of a 30, 40 or 50 year old woman with small breasts would ‘appear’ to be child pornography on the basis of her breast size alone. Small breasts do not automatically mean something will be banned or is illegal.

A bad message

Australian adult blogger Ms Naughty says we need to look at what this ruling says to Australian women:

“Why ban small boobs? I can only assume it stems from paranoia that flat chests somehow stir up the pedophiles. And you only need to mention that “p” word to start a full-scale moral panic in Parliament.”

“Shall we put such hysteria aside and look at what this ruling is saying to Australian women? Basically, it’s classing a certain normal female body type as obscene. It’s declaring all flat chests to be automatically juvenile, something that should not be viewed by anyone because of a fear that it will stir up “base instincts” in certain people.”

“Can the Classification Board be any more insulting or sexist?”

Ejaculations

According to Patten, female ejaculations films are being Refused Classification on one of two grounds:

1. That the depictions are a form of urination which is banned under the label of ‘golden showers’ in the Classification Guidelines or
2. Female ejaculation is an ‘abhorrent’ depiction

“Films that show both male and female ejaculation have routinely been given an X rating since 1983″ said Patten. “The new ruling follows a boom in the numbers of adult films featuring female ejaculation since the pioneering research of Professor Emeritus Beverly Whipple was published in her book The G Spot.”

Content Refused Classification will be blocked to Australian adults under the Government’s planned Internet censorship scheme.

“There are over one million sites featuring female ejaculation and for Australia to be banning depictions and discussion of this important issue, takes us back into the Victorian era where they didn’t even believe that women could have orgasms.”

The ACB has been contacted for comment.

Website for the Greens blacked out.

Online Campaign Coordinator for The Great Australia Internet Blackout, Jeff Waugh, shared these figures today:

• 455 verified participating websites (this only includes those who pledged or informed organisers, others are yet to be tallied).
• Websites include (or included) iiNet, Booko, Australian Greens and Australian Democrats.
• The information popup which appears on sites participating in the campaign has been seen more than 270,000 times.
• There has so far been over 196,000 unique visitors to the Great Australian Internet Blackout website.
• Media coverage included a top story on SMH.com.au, as well as articles on ABC,  ZDNet, News.com.au and many more news websites.
• Drive time radio coverage.

When you are a Government of a Western nation about to introduce a mandatory censorship regime unlike anything in the else in the Western world it is a good idea to try to play up comparisons with social democracies like Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland and our Commonwealth cousins the UK and Canada. It is also good to downplay comparisons with authoritarian regimes like Iran, Saudi Arabia or China.

So, naturally enough the Government’s FAQ about their current filtering policy attempts to do this by asking the rhetorical question: “How does Australia’s approach compare with other western democracies?”

It’s a good question, but sadly for the Government the answer only serves to emphasise what is so wrong about the Government’s proposal. In all the countries listed, not one has a mandatory filtering scheme. In all the countries listed, not one attempts to filter anything other than strictly illegal child abuse material.

Just as revealing is the list they did not enumerate – the list of 30 or so Western democracies which, like Australia, do not presently have any filtering regime.

And, of course, it is no surprise to learn that the Government does not list the countries that do have mandatory filtering regimes like Iran, Saudi Arabia and China.

Comparing Australia’s proposed policy with other Western democracies actually highlights how draconian this policy is. Why is it that Australia is the only Western demoncracy to propose a mandatory filter? Why is it that the scope of Australia’s filter is so uniquely broad that it will include material that is actually legal to own and view?

Part of the problem is that Australia is trying to do with ‘taste’ police, what other countries do with real police. Other countries treat child abuse as what it is: a horrific crime against children. Australia is trying to deal with the problem of child abuse by dealing with it as a content classification problem. The Government would have us believe that it can do something meaningful about the problem of child abuse by devoting more effort to content classification and then ensuring that content classification decisions are riguourously enforced at our digital borders (e.g. on the other side of the pipes into your living room).

Or, at least, it used to believe this. It is clear that the Government now understands that a mandatory filter can’t contribute to fighting child abuse because it now states that the purpose of the mandatory ISP-level filter is merely to “reduce the risk of inadvertent exposure” to Refused Classification material. It readily admits that a technically competent user with the motivation to do so can circumvent a mandatory filter.

However, even this more modest aim is still far more draconian than those of other Western democracies that have some kind of filtering policy. These countries seek only to minimize inadvertent exposure to illegal child sexual abuse material which is a far more restricted category of material than that which is rated Refused Classification by the Australian National Classification Code.

Consider this: in 2003 Margaret Pomeranz, the ABC’s film reviewer, attempted to give the Refused Classification film “Ken Park” a screening before a crowd in Balmain, Sydney. Police physically intervened to prevent her breaking the law. Yet it is exactly material of this kind that will be subject to Conroy’s censorwall. Is Stephen Conroy prepared to call Margaret Pomeranz, a purveyor of “the worst of the worst” kind of internet filth? Or is she instead a decent person who strongly believes the National Classification Board made an error when it gave “Ken Park” an RC rating?

The ALP’s policy on ISP-level filtering has changed on numerous occasions since it was first drafted in 2006. At that time the policy was about mandating that ISPs offer a cleanfeed to families that wanted it. In December 2007, it was about mandating that ISP’s impose a cleanfeed that people could opt out of. In 2008, the policy changed again and opt-out ceased to be an option.

All along we were told that a mandatory filter was necessary to prevent Australians who seek child pornopgraphy from viewing it.

The Government has since learnt that a filter will be utterly ineffective for that task, primarily because most child pornography is traded on networks that are invisible to an HTTP-based filter. It now, at least, readily admits that the filter can be technically circumvented with ease. So, in recognition of these cold hard facts, the Government now insists that the mandatory filter is no longer about preventing criminal access to illegal material. It is now merely about preventing inadvertent exposure of ordinary citizens to Refused Classification material.

Think about that.

The Government insists that it must filter your Internet connection to prevent you being inadvertently exposed to material, such as the movie “Ken Park”, that the National Classification Board has deemed unsuitable for any other classification.

How paternalistic. How patronising.

There would be less (but not much less) disquiet about the mandatory filter if the Australian government chose to target, like the European governments it wants to compare itself to, only strictly illegal material. Yet the Government, despite the wriggle room afforded by changing its position once more, has explicitly decided not to go down this path. It has deliberately chosen to continue down the path of ensuring that the National Classification Code is uniformly and universally applied to citizens as if each and every one of them were themselves film and literature distributors.

People who are “inadvertently exposed” to films such as “Ken Park” are at little risk of abusing children because of that exposure. People who deliberately access child sexual abuse material are. Making it more difficult for Margaret Pomeranz to download “Ken Park” from the web does precisely nothing about the problem of child sexual abuse, irrespective of Minister Conroy’s persistent angry insistence otherwise.

Republished with permission. Visit Broadbanned Revolution for more of Jon’s writing.