Clive Hamilton: Straw men, five year old polls & cherry picked libertarians
December 1, 2008 – 11:34 amGuest post by Geordie Guy
Were I to commission you with the sum of $145 million to single-handedly cook and eat all of the elephants in existence before Christmas, with what would you season them?
I am unaware of any demography that actually eats them, but I imagine they are red meat. Would you apply a Diane sauce? Cook them in a rendang curry? Would you adopt a minimalist approach and apply freshly cracked black pepper and a pinch of flake sea salt? Perhaps as a presumably gamey meat they would be a triumph in a pressure cooker with a bay leaf, new potatoes and some thyme. I’m paying the $145m so the people who gave me all this money are curious as to how you are going to go about it.
Before you proceed to the bottom of the page and comment that I have clearly not paid my brain bill, or quote me on another website as an example of the Internet’s latest fool, consider that this question is what Clive Hamilton posed at ABC online today. Despite the patent absurdity of a nauseatingly ridiculous claim before you, why do you insist on rejecting the finer points of debate on the approach?
To say the answer is obvious is to go into far more detail than the question warrants or deserves. Clive’s article available here meanders on a wandering straw man attack.
He finds some pretty good straw men, selecting comments such as “It’s a big bad electronic world out there, so the kids better get used to it” as indicative of the logic behind the swelling voice of dissent against the Government. Of course were we as the sensible, educated opponents of the logically bankrupt plan to choose comments such as “The Internet is full of paedophiles and it killed Jesus” as indicative of the handful of supporters I would imagine we’d take quite a bit of flak – but of course it doesn’t serve Clive’s arguments to consider the rational opposition to his confused and factually specious arguments.
Clive’s position is largely misdirecting empathy. He states, “We know that parents are extremely concerned and feel overwhelmed by the pressure on them to regulate their children’s access to this type of material. They don’t want to be the household spy and policeman, forever looking over their children’s shoulders or checking to see what they have downloaded on their mobile phones” and to an extent I can sympathise.
I have not yet begun to grow my family to the point that my interaction with children is more acute than my young cousins, nephews and nieces but I imagine that parenting is difficult. What Clive unfortunately does in this patronising absolution of parental responsibility is open himself to attack on the sole aspect of the argument he is even willing to show up to the battlefield on; that parents want mandatory ISP level filtering for the protection of children.
It’s logically axiomatic to think that parents are concerned, it’s no stretch of the imagination to believe they are extremely concerned. This extreme concern is what has seen billions of children grow to adulthood through their parents’ fear that they will be killed in traffic accidents, drown at the beach or otherwise meet an early demise. Were parents apathetic to their children who are at least initially incapable of keeping themselves alive, the results would be obvious and final. Where Clive tries to hide the fact he seems to believe he is in possession of a crystal ball, is when he says that they are (or more accurately, feel) overwhelmed.
His favourite source, the 2003 Australia Institute commissioned poll that asked Australian parents whether they would support a system that automatically filtered out internet pornography going into homes, unless adult users asked otherwise, has taken its place in the debate around ISP level filtering and set a new standard for push-polling and its utility in public debate. It’s been reiterated over and over again that a poll put forward to parents asking if the Government should provide an option for parents to better protect their children is going to get overwhelming support. I would have responded yes, I’m shocked a percentage of any side responded no.
Clive continues to champion this five year old poll as support for the current plan, a mandatory (no opt-in, no opt-out, no opt-sideways) ISP level filter that will destroy the Internet’s utility and cement us at the bottom of the developed world (or see us relegated to the top of the third world) for Internet infrastructure. Of course that’s my opinion and the opinion of highly qualified and experienced technologists everywhere. I can imagine eightieth percentile rejection of the plan were I in charge of phrasing the poll question too.
Clive meanders along citing some more “libertarians” who’ve chosen to be quoted for their fervour more than their restrained logic and finally comes to the bottom of his article, with the age-old chestnut;
“If the people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor government is going to disagree”
Wait… no he didn’t, that was someone else. Sorry. Clive’s article says;
“I have heard no one argue that films, television, books and magazine should be a free-for-all. But somehow all of this goes out the window when it comes to the internet.”
That’s better. Yet again a graduate of the Australian Women Online, David Koch school of “offline life is different to online life and the Internets are a Godless, lawless parallel universe of evildoers”. Clive’s argument that if you are against an impossible scheme of censorship of the Internet, you are an anarchist, is reminiscent of the same straw man arguments that have been thrown around all through this debate and still doesn’t seem to get any truer despite the amount of times they’ve been repeated.
We are still no closer to a regime whereby a Government official sits with us slamming their hand down on a book as we turn a page to “unwanted content”, and nobody is at the cinema clapping their hand over childrens’ eyes during the scary bits. But Clive can’t resist temptation to equate a system whereby people are punished for doing the wrong thing with a system where people are prohibited from attempting to do something that pro-censorship lobby groups consider morally objectionable.
Finally, “The Government is currently commissioning trials to see how effective filters can be”. Well, it seems Clive is so seasoned at prejudging a conclusion that it snuck into the sign-off on his article.
As Clive’s imagined visage of Internet libertarians would put it, “pwned, kthx bai.”
Geordie is a computer systems architect in Sydney with a decade of experience working with business and people in both the IT industry itself as well as other markets. He is a qualified network engineer as well as certified by Microsoft, Citrix Systems, Cisco Systems and IBM. Geordie has a strong interest in technology rights management as well as online censorship and Australian public policy as it relates to technology. He joined the EFA board in 2008.
11 Responses to “Clive Hamilton: Straw men, five year old polls & cherry picked libertarians”
Clive is so fond of pointing out that the Australian Government is already censoring film, books, magazine, and presumably he thinks they’re doing a fine job of it.
But after he invited me to tell him about the OFLC and “Damon and Hunter” in 2006 and “Ashley and Kisha” in 2007, he had no response. Clearly Clive is more able to deal with censorship as he imagines it would exist that the hoary reality of how it is practiced.
By Tony Comstock on Dec 1, 2008
As far as I am concerned Clive’s article can be summed up as:
Because there are some irresponsible parents, their children need to be society’s responsibility. Because these children “should” be society’s responsibility ALL children should be. Therefore we need to limit ALL information that ANYONE can have access to on the internet.
… scary, scary, scary ……
By julie on Dec 1, 2008
I was going to post this as a reply to Clive’s original post, but they’re not accepting comments anymore, so I hope you don’t mind if I post it here.
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What an amazing piece of ill-informed, sanctimonious drivel.
Why is this a problem that even merits discussion of a theoretical solution? There is no consensus regarding the effects of viewing pornography on either adults or children, if you look for actual scientific studies, beyond demagogues and the vendors of internet filtering products…
Where is the demand for this filter? You quote figures from a five year old push-poll of a question not relevant to what is currently being proposed (an infallible, opt-out filter that technomagically knows if the end user is an adult or not) that says 93% of adults want what Conroy is peddling, but consider this: if parents, who ISPs make large portions of their sales to, really wanted ISPs to filter their traffic, then why aren’t there ISPs jumping out of their skins to offer such a service? If there are, why aren’t they blowing the competition out of the water? Demand creates markets. There is no market.
However, such as there is demand for internet filtering, it is met by user-installed filters like NetAlert, another government initiative. Your hypothetical club of parents who would like the government to help protect their kids from internet nasties have basically got a free kick here – why not use it? You may well say “Oh, but it’s been proven that kids can get around NetAlert”, and you’d be right – highly motivated kids with some technical ability can get around them. They will also be able to get around whatever the government mandates that ISPs shoehorn into their networks. Kids who may inadvertently see porn (and, I must say, in about 12 years of internet use I have never found porn I wasn’t looking for) or who casually look for porn will be deterred at least as effectively by NetAlert as any ISP-level system. The main difference is that NetAlert is opt-in and causes no imposition on anyone else.
You mock the argument that parents who can’t install NetAlert aren’t trying, but you neglect to discuss the actual effort required, so you really don’t know, do you? Buckling seatbelts before driving off takes effort. Appropriately regulating bathwater temperature takes effort. Raising children…*gasp*..takes effort, and against that backdrop, installing NetAlert is a pretty easy win for parents.
You say you deliberately avoid discussion of technical feasibility of filtering to concentrate on whether it is right or not. This is highly disingenuous on your part. We (ie: technologists, as opposed to you, a philosopher) know enough about the technology driving the Internet and about the nature of the filtering Conroy is peddling to know that it cannot deliver benefits making the requisite sacrifices worthwhile, any more than a rain dance will solve the drought. The only way it could would involve a fundamental redesign of the Internet, which could only occur by network-wide consensus, not the whim of a government department in some far-flung country with a measly 20 million people that hosts precisely none of the world’s important Internet exchanges (IXes). This is not a new debate; it has been played out over and over again and ultimately, each time, the only advocates for government censorship with any sort of technical background have been vendors of the products that would be used to achieve said censorship. Learn how the Internet works, learn the history, then come back and try again.
I note that in your talk at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival on the 31st of August, 2007, you quoted Franz Kafka on the injustice of man being ruled by secret laws, in relation to the then-recently passed anti-terror laws. How does that square with your apparent in-principle support for Internet filtering driven by secret blacklists? Where does your research funding come from?
By James on Dec 1, 2008
Clive Hamilton: “The types of arguments used by net libertarians and the vehemence with which they make them are similar to those used by opponents of gun control. “I’m damned if I will sacrifice my rights for anyone” seems to be the gut reaction, one that drowns out any concern for the social implications of protecting individual “rights”.”
Mr. Hamilton has just made a very strong case for the deregulation of gun ownership. That is to say, he’s pushed me further towards supporting gun ownership.
If Mr. Hamilton believes the effects of his argument are so, “irresponsible”, and damaging on impressionable minds*, perhaps online editorial such as his should be added to the blacklist.
*I don’t actually consider myself to be impressionable but such is the price of maintaining my sarcasm.
By Icaria on Dec 1, 2008
I am yet to see any rational or logical arguments for the introduction of the mandatory filter. clive seems convinced that porn is destroying our youth and it is his personal agenda to put that to an end by supporting this flawed system of filtering.
“…support a system that automatically filtered out internet pornography going into homes, unless adult users asked otherwise…I’m shocked a percentage of any side responded no.”
“Unless adults users asked otherwise” indicates it would require adults to Opt-Out, that in my view is fascist and i certainly wouldnt support that. I have no problems with it being Opt-In and adults can chose whether they have it or not.
By Jarrod on Dec 1, 2008
“”I have heard no one argue that films, television, books and magazine should be a free-for-all. But somehow all of this goes out the window when it comes to the internet.””
There’s an obvious rebuttal to this that even Clive should be able to understand:
“The World Wide Web isn’t like ‘films, television, books, and magazines’. The World Wide Web is like films, television, books, magazines, speeches, lectures, meetings, soapboxes, panels, parties, coffee klatches, crafting circles, political rallies, noisy pubs, arts soirees, jam sessions, sports gatherings, fan conventions, and millions upon millions of people conversing with each and showing each other stuff. Unless you think the Government should be mandatorily automatically filteirng each and every one of these things, your analogy fails. Next?”
By lauredhel on Dec 1, 2008
Hamilton is a about as progressive as a 16th century witch hunter general
By rem.winchester on Dec 2, 2008
In response to Lauredhel:
Even considering how broad the scope of the net is as a form of media when compared to film, television and literature and how it is functionally unique; his was a strawman argument to begin with. Most anyone who is ideologically opposed to the censorship of the Internet is almost certainly opposed to other forms of censorship as well.
By Icaria on Dec 2, 2008
A lot of European countries have legal age to view pornography at 15 and youngsters are still alive and healthy. There is no need for moral panic.
By SkipEU on Dec 3, 2008