[LINK] Now even the child protectors think it stinks

[Jan Whitaker]

[I guess a govt program is really Really bad when those who the govt 
think they are appeasing are against it.]


Children's welfare groups slam net filters

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/11/28/1227491813497.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Asher Moses
December 1, 2008 - 9:21AM

Support for the Government's plan to censor the internet has hit rock 
bottom, with even some children's welfare groups now saying that that 
the mandatory filters, aimed squarely at protecting kids, are 
ineffective and a waste of money.

Live trials of the filters, which will block "illegal" content for 
all Australian internet users and "inappropriate" adult content on an 
opt-in basis, are slated to begin by Christmas, despite harsh 
opposition from the Greens, Opposition, the internet industry, 
consumers and online rights groups.

Holly Doel-Mackaway, adviser with Save the Children, the largest 
independent children's rights agency in the world, said educating 
kids and parents was the way to empower young people to be safe internet users.

She said the filter scheme was "fundamentally flawed" because it 
failed to tackle the problem at the source and would inadvertently 
block legitimate resources.

Furthermore there was no evidence to suggest that children were 
stumbling across child pornography when browsing the web. 
Doel-Mackaway believes the millions of dollars earmarked to implement 
the filters would be far better spent on teaching children how to use 
the internet safely and on law enforcement.

"Children are exposed to the abusive behaviours of adults often and 
we need to be preventing the causes of violence against children in 
the community, rather than blocking it from people's view," she said.

"The constant change of cyberspace means that a filter is going to be 
able to be circumvented and it's going to throw up false positives - 
many innocent websites, maybe even our own, will be blacklisted 
because we reference a lot of our work that we do with children in 
fighting commercial sexual exploitation."

Doel-Mackaway noted the claims by the internet industry that the 
filters would be easily bypassed, would not block content found on 
peer-to-peer networks and chat rooms and would be in danger of being 
broadened to include legitimate content such as regular pornography, 
political views, pro-abortion sites and online gambling.

Laboratory test results released in June by the Australian 
Communications and Media Authority found available filters frequently 
let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly block 
harmless content and slow network speeds by up to 87 per cent.

James McDougall, director of the National Children's and Youth Law 
Centre, expressed similar views to Save the Children.

He said the mandatory filters simply would not work and children 
should be able to make decisions for themselves. Concerned parents 
could easily install PC-based filters on their computers if they 
desired, or ask their internet providers to switch on voluntary filtering.

"This is called a child protection measure yet the vast majority of 
all serious child abuse does not occur on the internet, it occurs in 
the home," said McDougall.

"I take issue with the minister's perspective that children are 
themselves the danger in a sense that we have to make this decision 
for them because they are not capable of making it for themselves - I 
think there's very little evidence to support that and plenty of 
evidence to show that children are responsible decision makers given 
the skills and information."

Other childrens' welfare organisations, such as Child Wise and 
Bravehearts, continue to support the filters, saying the flaws are 
acceptable as long as they help block some child pornography.

Yesterday, as political activist group GetUp announced its plans for 
an elaborate anti-filtering campaign, 70 ISP filtering stakeholders 
converged on the University of NSW to examine the merits of the 
proposed censorship scheme.

"There seemed to be some consensus that the proposed mandatory filter 
model would not actually be directed at the real channel of child 
porn distribution, which is not the blacklist of known web sites, but 
via various other internet protocols and tools," said David Vale, 
executive director of UNSW's Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre.

"The idea of doing whatever was possible in stopping the problem at 
the source, including education of parents, kids, teachers and 
politicians, and serious law enforcement efforts at detection and 
prosecution of perpetrators and distributors, was seen as probably 
as, or more, effective than a filter initially aimed at preventing 
inadvertent browsing of child porn on the web by young people.

"Another aspect was the potential for the filter, once in place, to 
become the subject of a repeated bidding war, depending on which 
minor politicians had balance of power in parliament, or who had the 
'moral panic of the day'."

Senator Conroy's spokesman, Tim Marshall, has consistently failed to 
respond to requests for comment on the issue.



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

Writing Lesson #54:
Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for 
guests. - JW, May, 2007
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