[LINK] QUT Prof: 'Co-regulation key to safer internet'

[rene]

On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 09:40:02 +1100, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> At 09:26 AM 7/03/2012, Roger Clarke wrote:
>
>> However, Flew indicated that similar classification regulation may
>> be
>> required on the internet to restrict public access to adult content
>> with an R18+ or X18+ rating .
>>
> Question: are materials under those ratings illegal or legal for
> adults? 

Legal (except for X18+ in Cth Govt "prescribed" areas of the N.T. since 
several years ago).

> Those are two different ideas. Restricting public access to
> legal material could be seen as restraint of trade and illegal
> itself. Maybe by 'restricting', the good professor doesn't mean
> blocking, but controlling access?

It's a back to the future (1996-2002) proposal/recommendation[1]. He means 
that all AU online content providers (including ordinary Net users who make 
content available for free) should be required to block/prevent minors from 
accessing any content on their web site that is "likely", if it was 
classified, to be R18+. (R18+ includes detailed information about social 
and political issues, e.g. euthanasia, abortion, etc, etc, that may be 
disturbing to minors). Much the same re X18+ (non-violent sexually 
explicit) but I think the ALRC's proposing/recommending that it be an 
offence not to have material that might be X18+ classified before 
publication. Whereas the ALRC's view re R18+ is that if content providers 
can just lock R18+ behind a restricted access system.

It was proposed in the ALRC's discussion papers, and many submitters 
strongly objected, particularly in relation to applicability to 
non-commercial content providers. Reasons include that:
* most have no means of implementing a restricted access/login system that 
only lets adults in, and even if they do, they have no means of verifying 
whether an applicant for access is over 18 or not;
* restricted access systems prevent search engines indexing the content, so 
no-one can find it unless they're told the URL;
* most can't afford to pay $500 to have one web page of text, or one image 
classified, and it's impossible to know/guess how the Classification Board 
would classify anything. (The Classification Board members make 
non-unanimous decisions, and the Classification Review Board sometimes 
disagrees with the Board).

Therefore, the result is: only speak online in a manner suitable for 
children, else risk being prosecuted for inability to know, and inability 
to find out, whether or not your speech should have been "restricted".

Oh, unless you're uploading your content to someone else's web site, 
e.g. a social networking site, in which case the ALRC reckons those persons 
shouldn't have to know/guess whether their content's suitable for kids or 
not.

The proposal's worse than the existing C'th online content censorship 
regime, under which, the worst thing that can happen to a non-commercial 
providers is that their e.g. web hosting provider could get a take-down 
notice from the ACMA. (There's no provision to prosecute content providers  
who make available adults-only material.)

[1] Back to the future .... in 2002 the NSW Parliament accidentally passed 
Net censorship legislation almost identical to the above ALRC proposal, 
then had a Parliamentary Committee inquiry into the matter, and having 
discovered what a bad idea it was, the NSW Gov't/A-G decided not to 
proclaim the legislation, so it never commenced operation.

Much else in the ALRC's proposals/recommendations about the Internet remind 
me of the period 1996-2002. Rather than actually reform the 
"classification" system, the ARLC's objective seems to be to try to make 
the online world conform to long existing regulation/censorship of offline 
material.

Irene