Censorship ==> Refused Classification Review Pessimism
Posted: 16-07-2010 16:29, By: admin

One week ago the Outcomes of consultations on Transparency and Accountability for ISP Filtering of RC content was released by the Department for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. Some of the changes that affected Labor’s Internet Censorship scheme included the following.

  • An annual review of the Refused Classification blacklist by an independent expert
  • Avenues for appeal for blacklisted website owners
  • All URLs complained against to be classified by the Classification Board
  • A block page indicating that a URL has been blacklisted

Two other related decisions were also announced, the first being a voluntary code that was adopted by Telstra, Optus and iPrimus regarding filtering “a list of child abuse URLs compiled and maintained by ACMA”. While that is another debate in itself the thing I wanted to share my thoughts about was the proposed review of the Refused Classification category.

Senator Conroy stated in the media release that he had sent a recommendation to the States and Territory censorship Ministers, for a review of the Refused Classification category. In the media release Senator Conroy wrote, “Some sections of the community have expressed concern about whether the range of material included in the RC category, under the National Classification Scheme, correctly reflects current community standards”.

“In order to address these concerns, the Government will recommend a review of the RC classification to State and Territory Ministers, be conducted at the earliest opportunity. The review would examine the current scope of the existing RC classification, and whether it adequately reflects community standards.”

“As the Government’s mandatory ISP filtering policy is underpinned by the strength of our classification system, the legal obligation to commence mandatory ISP filtering will not be imposed until the review is completed.”

Now my personal view about the Refused Classification category is that it should be completely removed and replaced with illegal and non-illegal categories, with the non-illegal category contained subset categories like; R18+, MA15+ etc; The Classification legislation was meant to be used for classification, that gives guidance to individuals so than can make their own decisions, but somewhere along the line it became a tool of suppressing information that is legal to possess in the majority of Australia. If I could borrow a phrase from Mr Conroy, it is unacceptable that with material that is legal to possess; “you can't buy it in a bookstore, you can't go the movies and watch it, you can't buy a DVD and look at it, and you can't see it in newspapers.”

If the material is legal there is not a single rational reason why it should be censored. While currently the Refused Classification includes illegal material such as child abuse and bestiality it also contains more innocent material such as; Euthanasia, abortion, fetishes, games unsuitable for 15 year olds and graffiti videos. So while I support this recommendation which will hopefully result in a review of the Refused Classification category I remain pessimistic that;

A) The recommendation will result in a review,
B) That if a review took place it will result in any change (see Censorship Ministers ignoring 60,000+ (~98%) submissions in support of a R18+ category for video games) and
C) That if a review took place, and changes were made, the result would be any better than the status quo

Throughout the history of the Refused Classification categories, all amendments resulted in a larger scope covered by it. Funnily enough the majority of all these changes for more conservative censorship originated from the Christian Right (see fetish material ban on Libertus.net).

Let’s not fool ourselves that just because the Internet censorship has been placed on the backburner for a year it doesn’t mean in any way that we have won. If anything we have just received a major setback. Customers on Telstra, Optus and iPrimus will all soon receive mandatory, secret censorship without even being consulted. I realise this is only supposed to be for ‘child abuse’ URLs but we will never know what is being censored until either; A) This list’s contents is published by ACMA, or B) This list leaked. And like what has happened time and time again on secret blacklists, said to only contain certain items contains numerous other innocuous URLs appear (see Thailand's, Denmark's and Finland's blacklist on WikiLeaks).

This is a tool that can be abused quite easily and it provides no real benefits. Does filtering a small number of child abuse URLs disrupt the distribution of that vile material? No. Does filtering a small number of child abuse URLs stop people from deliberately or accidently accessing that material? No. So I question why we need to set up infrastructure that can be easily abused to take away our civil rights that provides no real benefits.

Just give the money to the Feds who desperately require it and be done with it. This stupidity has gone on long enough. I suspect that this issue will continue to come up every few years even if Labor is not in power after this election, so we need to keep opposition strong.






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