Somebody Think Of The Children

Conroy’s Office: Groups opposing filtering hold extreme views

Tech Wired Australia has conducted an interview with Senator Conroy’s media contact, Tim Marshall. I suggest you listen (unless you suffer from high blood pressure). Update: Transcript here.

Marshall accuses lobby groups who oppose mandatory ISP filtering of having extreme views and not having too much interest in the facts. Pot, kettle, black I know. That’s an insult to every Australian opposed to this filtering plan — Nearly as big of an insult as filtering itself.

Here’s my response to Tim Marshall’s accusations:

1) “Speculative coverage” – From day one Conroy’s office has remained silent on this issue, only bobbing their head up when they have a press release to shove in front of the media. They continue to not respond to questions and when they do it’s a standard form reply that outlines policy we knew about a year ago. I like so many others are still waiting on countless answers.

It’s not just speculation either. Coverage hasn’t been unfounded it’s been based on what we know: that the Government intends to censor the Internet and they intend do it in a way that will decrease performance and simply not work. The only real speculation has been about what it intends to censor, but even there we know it will be ‘prohibited content.’

2) “Lobby groups keen to put their extreme view out there, perhaps without having too much interest in the facts” – If groups like the Internet Industry Association, the Library and Information Association and EFA have extreme views, I’d love to hear how Mr Marshall describes groups The Australian Family Association. It’s not just groups who hold the ‘extreme view’ that mandatory filtering is unworkable, it’s thousands of Australian’s who understand ISP filtering is ineffective, costly and does not protect children from the real dangers the face online.

And as for no interest in the facts? I like so many other people have published details of the facts. The Tasmanian trial showed performance degradation, overblocking,  a lack of proper analysis and unrealistic test conditions. It’s Conroy’s office who refuses to deal with the facts. And as heard in that interview, they now want shift the blame of that trial’s major faults onto the previous government.

Results are results and even in a closed lab setting, filtering proved to be a failure. It won’t get better in the real world it will only get worse.

I’m disappointed Ben Grubb from Tech Wired didn’t take the opportunity to bring Marshall to task on the hundreds of issues people have with filtering that have been published here and elsewhere online. Ben says drawing blood from a stone isn’t easy, especially with a PR type. That I can understand. I’ve had my fair share of bomb interviews. What I can appreciate is Tech Wired bringing this issue to the attention of more and more people. Let’s hope Ben gets the chance to do a followup.

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