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2010 Election Snapshot

Greens Internet Filter Policy

  • Summary

    The Greens do not support the ALP’s proposed ISP based internet filter as it creates the mechanism for the abuse of public power, and has no evidence of achieving its objective of protecting children from harmful material. An ISP based filter is technically unworkable due to the sheer volume of content available online. The Greens instead support a strategy that includes education, increased funding for greater law enforcement, and tailored optional PC based filtering in order to ensure the internet is safe for children.


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    While in the 2009 Bi-election the Greens preselected Clive Hamilton whose think tank The Australia Institute first supported an ISP based filter, they have removed all political ambiguity in 2010 by declaring their policy of opposition to an ISP based filter. The Greens strongly support freedom of the speech and individual rights. If regulation of an industry is required, it must be administered within an independent an equitable framework.


    The government in their view ought to support and adopt the open source paradigm and open standards. Even further, the Greens are adamant that net neutrality and the maintenance of an open internet at the expense of corporate profitability, is essential to encourage and support entrepreneurial efforts by consumers and small business, and to bring about the next generation of innovation to the internet. While they support an independent and transparent review of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) blacklist, the Greens advocate a consistent scheme of regulation of X-rated material that must be transparent and accountable while protecting freedom of speech and the right of access to information.


    The Greens feel that Australia needs a world class national broadband network but do not need the government taking the rights of citizens to privacy and choice in accessing the internet. Children also deserve a safe online experience but can be adequately protected via voluntary PC based filters that ISPs ought to be compelled to provide to all customers. This filter in their view will be able to block a wide range of content effectively.


    The Greens also support further research into cyber safety risks and strongly advocate the allocation of more resources to fund law enforcement in cyber crime units in order to combat illegal material and activity such as child pornography. Additionally, the Greens support greater internet literacy within the community.


    Given the lack of evidence to do with the frequency of inadvertent access to child pornography, and the lack of evidence relating to the positive effect a filter will have on the safety of children, the Greens do not believe the filter will protect children online, and do not believe that an absence of an ISP filter is at the expense of the safety of children.


    The ISP based filter proposed by the ALP provides a physical firewall on each ISP that will block material, and will enable future governments the architecture to implement further censorship. It does nothing to protect children. No prosecution of perpetrators is affected, no websites are terminated, and no images are removed. It may also have the effect of engendering a false sense of security that the internet is then safe for children, when this will not be entirely true.


    Industry professionals argue that the filter is technically unsound and unable to achieve its objectives which are technically unachievable. Google and Bing logged the 1 trillionth unique website address in 2008, and billions of addresses continue to be added each day. Google have logged only 0.004% of the 5 million terabytes of data on the net. The filter simply cannot block this sheer volume of dangerous material available online; the dangers extend to more than just pornography. Most of the dangers to children will indeed still remain, and the filter will be easily circumvented with moderate technical ability. As many teenagers possess these skills, the exercise is futile. If they have not the necessary skills to circumvent the ISP filter, instruction of the technical process to circumvent the filter will also be available to them.


    The internet is evolving from a static addressed environment to one with increasing use of dynamic database-served and generated content. In this event, any ISP filter will also need to be dynamically applied, rather than blocking addresses on a static list. This requires a discretion that should not be given to government.