In response to Senate questions, ACMA admitted this evening that their current blacklist contains only 32% child abuse material. During a Senate Standing Legislation Committee for Environment, Communications & the Arts, they revealed that the list contains 51% refused classification material (which includes child abuse material), meaning the other 49% is rated X18+ or less.
Given these numbers, 68% of the current list is almost definitely legal content.
The amount of child abuse related content is down from previous numbers and ACMA notes that turnaround on sites containing child abuse material is around 2 months, so the amount included on the list does fluctuate.
ACMA also stated that online content complaints have increased by 90%. Between July 2008 and April 2009, the media authority received 1002 complaints, where as in 2006 to 2007 they received 602 legitimate complaints. According to ACMA, the only groups which made multiple complaints were law enforcement agencies and child protection groups.
Senator Conroy stated that the Government is also considering the possibility of greater transparency, but it cannot publish the list. He said this could include regular panel reviews or a review of all URLs by the Australian Classification Board.
10 comments
Colin Jacobs says:
May 25, 2009
The 90% increase struck me, too – ACMA said it was due to “increased awareness” amongst the public, which is certainly a result of the ISP-level filtering proposal. How many of those 90% of new cases are people testing the waters and seeing just where the boundaries of ACMA’s mandate are?
Matthew says:
May 26, 2009
How much of the lists that were leaked contained any child abuse material? I don’t recall hearing anyone finding anything of that nature on the lists, and the few random sites I went to were mostly all commercial porn. There wasn’t any child porn on the leaked ACMA blacklists, was there? What a load of crock.
Toejam says:
May 26, 2009
“How many of those 90% of new cases are people testing the waters…?”
And how many of them are part of Jim Wallace’s Zombie Horde trying to “support the government’s initiative?”
Max T says:
May 26, 2009
This pack of incompetents needs to be disbanded.
NO black-list.
NO censorship.
NO ACMA.
Damn good thing!
Glenn says:
May 26, 2009
“During a Senate Standing Legislation Committee for Environment, Communications & the Arts, they revealed that the list contains 51% refused classification material (which includes child abuse material), meaning the other 49% is rated X18+ or less.
Given these numbers, 68% of the current list is almost definitely legal content.”
Well, this contradicts Conroy’s claim that the blacklist ONLY contains RC material.
Toejam says:
May 26, 2009
He never actually said that the blacklist contains “only RC material”. What he said (on Insight and Triple J) was that the ALP *policy* was to block “almost exclusively RC material” and that it had never been otherwise (a lie in and of itself).
But six months ago — back before the leaks, back when the policy was still “ACMA prohibited content” — he *did* say that the blacklist was “mostly child pornography.” An assertion is even more of a lie now than it was then.
Say it with me now. « Imho says:
May 28, 2009
[...] is trying to polish a turd. Fucking pointless. Also, the ACMA secretive blacklist will only block a third of child abuse images. Oh yeah, also, what’s the point in having a list of things that [...]
Actualize says:
Jul 1, 2009
“Only 32% of current ACMA blacklist is child abuse material”
Actually this is completely incorrect – 32% may be _’alleged’_ child abuse content – but it is not confirmed (the ACMA list is all alleged, almost none of it has actually been classified by the Classifications Board). Many people have seen the URLs on the list – and it seems like the ‘actual’ illegal content is closer to 5% than to 32%.
Conroy spreads more misinformation as PM and ACMA websites attacked - Somebody Think Of The Children says:
Sep 9, 2009
[...] fact, in May of this year the Government revealed that the blacklist (at the time) contained only 32% child abuse material. Another 19% was refused classification material and the remaining [...]
Tech giants criticize Australia plan for Internet filtering | Australian Forum says:
Mar 24, 2010
[...] criticisms of its blocking policy and claims by critics that fewer than half of the sites on the current list relate to child abuse, the ACMA has [...]