The Greens split on ISP filtering
- 27 October, 2009 12:29
- Comments 41
Dr. Clive Hamilton, Federal candidate for the Greens and mandatory filter advocate
Mandatory filtering advocate, Dr Clive Hamilton, has maintained his strong support for a clean feed despite joining the Australian Greens to become its candidate in the seat of Higgins.
Earlier this month the Greens’ technology spokesperson, Senator Scott Ludlam, stated his general opposition to mandatory filtering.
“It’s just a bizarre policy and I don’t understand where it comes from and I think that was a real mistake,” Ludlam said. “We’re going to need to wait and see what the Government actually comes up with, but I can’t see a scenario where we could actually support it.
“The Greens will stay at the forefront of the campaign to throw an accountability spotlight on the Government's proposal," he added in a statement.
A noted academic and campaigner for mandatory filtering, Dr Hamilton acknowledged his published views differed from those of Ludlam.
“We emphasise different aspects of it, he’s particularly concerned about compromising the Internet services and people’s accessibility to it. My concern is more focussed on children’s access to extreme and violent pornography,” he said.
But Dr Hamilton said his views had not changed and he remained a strong conditional supporter of ISP filtering.
“I think there’s a lot of paranoia in this debate comparing us to China, for example. We live in a democratic country. We don’t have that sort of political censorship in other mediums,” he said.
“My position is and has always been that I’d support a mandatory filter if it can be shown to be effective and if it’s done in a transparent way,” Dr Hamilton said. “This is all about children not having access to adult pornography.
“I’m keen to let people know that there’s some very nasty stuff on the Internet, that it’s not just men and women having sex.”
The Greens’ candidate also said that anti-filtering protestors such as GetUp had not done themselves justice by focusing on technical issues with the majority of ISP filtering trial participants confirming little to no slowdown in speed.
“This idea that filtering couldn’t occur because it would crash the Internet was always exaggeration. I don’t think it helped the opponents of filtering at all making those sorts of wild claims,” he said.
“I’m not a tech expert, but I do know that the Internet and people that work on it are tremendously innovative. If that was a significant problem looming then they’d solve it.”
Dr Hamilton called for any blacklist of banned websites to be managed by “a panel of well-qualified representatives of Australians” to prevent Governmental abuse.
“We should, if we can, apply the same kind of censorship regime to the Internet that is currently applied to sexually explicit videos, magazines and other materials,” he said.
While he acknowledged some legitimate websites would probably face accidental blocking by a mandatory blacklist, Dr Hamilton said this was a necessary evil and that the good outweighed the bad.
“Do you have a spam filter on your email account? Do you sometimes have legitimate email sent to your junk email box? Does that annoy you? But does it annoy you enough for you to stop having a spam filter?” he asked.
“It’s a trade off. Obviously if it was a huge problem that might rule it out but if it’s a bit of a problem, well it could be tolerated.”
State of the IT Channel 2012: Register your view and win a Toshiba tablet!
Come socialise with us! Facebook | LinkedIn
- Bookmark this page
- Share this article
- Got more on this story? Email ARN
- Follow ARN on twitter
- What is Wireless 2.0
- Market Potential-Strategy Guide to the Active Archive Market
- Premier Media Group Fast Study
- Churchtown Primary School UK Primary School Chooses Aerohive's Reliable, Manageable, Scalable and Economical Controller-less Wireless LAN Architecture
- Aberdeen Group: Building Business Resilience Through Active Archive
-
Security Manager's Journal: Should physical security belong to us?
-
Opinion: Is Google evil? The jury is out
-
Synnex Australia to distribute Toshiba
-
Lenovo awarded NSW DET netbook contract
-
Synnex Australia to distribute Toshiba
Get exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events. 
Comments
Anonymous
Clive Hamilton and the Greens
He is still confusing the internet with other media - the internet is not a medium, it is a communications channel.
No Australian government has ever previously proposed the censorship of a major communications channel in peacetime. This alone should give pause to those who support the idea, quite apart from the fact that it will simply not work - anyone, including Hamilton, who thinks that a blacklist of a few thousand will have any impact on a web with over a trillion URLs, is simply innumerate. And then there is the fact the filter will be trivial to bypass.
That the blacklist must remain secret is a frank admission that it will not work! If it was effective there would be no need to keep it secret. The only alternative is to believe it really is intended for underhand use.
Eddie
"While he acknowledged some legitimate websites would probably face accidental blocking by a mandatory blacklist, Dr Hamilton said this was a necessary evil and that the good outweighed the bad."
Tell that to the legit businesses whose websites were on the blacklist, Clive. I don't think they'll agree with you.
Clive's presence in the Greens has cost the party a lot of votes, mine included.
Ben
Faith has no place in this debate
Hamilton speaks of 'protecting the children', but doesn't say how all of this 'bad' content will be found and blocked. Are they seriously proposing to chase the 'bad' content once discovered? That's like running after a plane taking off. No matter how hard they try, they will never succeed.
Do they propose a several hundred billion entry blacklist? Do they propose content filtering? Do they propose whitelisting the internet? Saying that the experts will get it right eventually is rubbish and taking a "I know they're problems, but I have faith that they'll be solved" is downright dangerous.
On another note, I recently completed a bridge over a river made of toilet paper for cars to use. All the experts have to do is plug the leaks when found...
Tony Gibbs
Stunning
"I'm not a tech expert but......"
My advice to Dr Hamilton would be to spend a day discussing this with Scott Ludlam before offering any more opinions. Ludlam has a good grounding on Labor's policy and its shortcomings.
“My position is and has always been that I’d support a mandatory filter if it can be shown to be effective and if it’s done in a transparent way,” Dr Hamilton said. “This is all about children not having access to adult pornography.
That one paragraph illustrates perfectly how Dr Hamilton has failed to grasp what is going on. The mandatory list has nothing to do with children accessing pornography. If he he prepared to go down that path he is advocating that adult material be permanently blocked from all adults with no choice offered to them. (btw blacklisting at the ISP is child's play to step around).
If he wants something that may reduce the amount of adult content children see via ISP infrastructure than an optional filter at the ISP might fit. At that level it needs to be optional so that adults can get to adult material (no, not just porn). It's at that level of blocking the performance becomes an issue because of the need to use dynamic content analysis. (And parents still must supervise etc because adult content will still be available via several protocols and methods)
A better solution would be more education for parents and PC filters (they are actually much harder to bypass now than ISP filtering).
I'm tired of public intellectuals trying to shape policy involving technical issues and major infrastructure while having little understanding of what they are talking about. I'm stunned.
Dr Hamilton, don't just wish for the tech fairies to solve your problems. Get a better education in these issues yourself please!
Roddy
The internet is both medium and comms channel...
And more...
There are online publishers, comms providers, apps providers, content providers, services providers, etc ad infinitum... Each one of them a component of the whole, which we call "The Internet"
Trying to squeeze a definition of the internet down to it being a comms medium alone is misleading and an incredibly narrowed representation of an entity which delivers far more than that, ignoring many, many things that actually get processed and executed across the whole breath-taking scope.
Someone with a website is still part of the internet, true? Is the website publisher a comms medium or a publisher...?? Obviously a publisher, who uses the comms channel component to deliver his published content.
The rest of this related post is misinformation based on a fundamentally flawed and inherently restricted view of what the Internet actually is...
BTW, where did you get the idea that the Internet is only a communications channel? Load of hogswallop mate...
david_ramli@idg.com.au
Omg, Roddy the Filter King is back!
Jimboot
Well geez thanks Clive...
For protecting us and everything but stay out of the debate as you clearly know nothing about it. And why may I ask is it necessary to let everyone know about the very nasty stuff on the net? There is very nasty stuff everywhere. Stop looking for it!
@roddy The Net is a comms medium. If a web page is not requested it's not viewed. I can request an R or MA rated DVD be sent to me via the post but it is illegal for me via itunes.
The problem you scream is but kids can access it! They can't do that via the post. So the issue is ease of access.
Where are the parents?
The Womp
Well, at leat they did it early
They've lost my vote.
And, I had previously on occasion put them first, not any more.
At, least they did it early, and if there is a double dissolution we now know well in advance not to trust the Greens at all.
Don't vote Greens!
acdcfan
Everyone....
listen to Clive,
Everyone....
listen to Clive, he knows it all. Industry experts don't know anything.
For starters, stop comparing the internet to 'other mediums'. The internet is not a broadcast medium, but a communications technology. Compare it to the postal service or a phone service. Secondly, our country is the only western democracy to ban books such as 'The Peaceful Pill'. Existing political censorship in our country is very real, and even without the internet censorship proposal in place, highly political issues are already banned, including euthanasia and abortion.
Furthermore, can he personally give us an iron-clad guarantee (not Conroy's iron-clad guarantee) that the scope won't be expanded? How about this Hamilton: If any government from now until eternity expands the scope of banned online content, no matter how insignificant, you spend the rest of your life in prison. Are you willing to take that chance?
Yonan
Greens will lose my vote if he keeps this up
Having a spam filter on my account is to prevent the annoyance to ME of spam. Having internet filtering on my account is to prevent a possible annoyance to SOMEONE ELSE. The first case is acceptable, the second is not.
Anonymous
The Greens have failed Australians
Check this out: Hamilton seems to have made an anti-gay comment
"It's not just men and women having sex."
Jay
I don't understand the argument
I don't understand Hamilton's argument here. Does he want to see all pornography weirder than "men and women having sex" filtered? Is he a homophobe / prude?
All blocking some pornography does is potentially restrict consenting adults in accessing legal material and reduce the likelyhood of kids stumbling across pornography by a <strong>very small amount</strong>
I really hope Hamilton isn't suggesting the Mandatory blocking of all pornography so kids can't stumble across it. The election of Hamilton and the vagueness of his arguments worries me deeply.
Vengful
Well...
Greens has lost my vote now
Anthony
Filter not needed
Dear Clive,
You state and I quote, "“This is all about children not having access to adult pornography."
I don't have any children at my home, so why are my tax dollars being wasted on forcing a mandatory filtering to my internet connection? I don't want it, I don't need it, I am perfectly able to manage my own online life without the government sticking it's nose in.
Craig
“Do you have a spam filter on your email account?"
Why yes I do. I would like to point out that I chose to put the filter there. And that I check the results myself to ensure that I am not missing out on legitimate and make adjustments as necessary.
As for a net filter? I'll look after my own kids thanks. How dare you try to not only take that role but also to treat myself and every adult in my household as a child. Shame on you.
If the govt wants to force ISPs to offer a voluntary a filter then you go right ahead. I may even choose to use it. But don't you dare think you have the right to monitor every piece of data that flows over my connection like some kind of secret police. What next? Listening in on my phone calls?
Roddy
Re: Omg, Roddy the Filter King is back!
Thanks Anon, pleasure to be here...
Surely you do not want a one sided debate here? I am certain that you wish to mature and develop your own views though consideration of different perspectives and additional information that you did not previously have.
And if no one corrects inaccurate statements from both sides, you would be in danger of developing a biased opinion...
And surely the Greens, in a democratic Australia, are permitted to have variety in the people they work with, and to have spirited debate on issues? That has always been the trademark of their party...
Roddy
Re: Filter not needed
You won't want to watch any of the banned stuff anyway, so what's your problem?
The filter will not affect normal folks at all, they will never notice it...
Anonymous
.
Get your hand off it roddy people will notice when their internet costs goes up because ISP's would not be able to absorb the costs for the crap filtering systems and the ISP's has to pass it on to the consumers.
I never voted to have my internet filtered and I never will.
You want be looking at banned sites what if most of the sites are ligit..
I will be bypassing the filter if it does come in to action.
Anonymous
Not just children
“My position is and has always been that I’d support a mandatory filter if it can be shown to be effective and if it’s done in a transparent way,” Dr Hamilton said. “This is all about children not having access to adult pornography.”
Can't he see the contradiction in what he's saying? The very fact that it is MANDATORY means it isn't just about pretecting children, it's about restricting what EVERYONE in Australia can see on the internet. And it's not just porn, as it currently stands it's everything rated MA15+ and above (including political views on euthanasia etc.) most of which is perfectly legal to view.
Anonymous
Many thanks to the Greens for providing Hamilton an opportunity to air his mandatory ISP filtering rubbish. Ever read his 'academic' paper on the subject? The one that says while they actually have no evidence of harm - the 'likely' effects of harm to children are obvious, and then goes on to lengthy discussions of the subject is if those assumptions are fact. That passes for intelligent comment?? No wonder his co-author Flood has distanced himself from it and the idea of mandatory ISP filtering.
Why have the greens aligned themselves with this goose - the only 'likely' effect of harm will be immediate and lasting damage to their prospects as a political party in this country
Roddy
Re: Anonymous and his thing with hands....
So how much will ISP costs have to go up Anon?
0.5% / 1% / xx% ??
Do you have a costs analysis for the various sized ISPs and any levels of gov funding yet?
I never voted for a lot of things Anon, yet I have them anyway as well. You have a series of stuff you never voted for, that does not make them automatically wrong.
You have zero evidence that most of the sites will be ligit. Especially with CB oversight.
Bypass away Anon, but be aware that bypassing will slow down your bandwidth access and raise your costs...
And for what? I think that most folks that have bypass apps will only use them when they get a "Denied Access" screen, otherwise why bother?
Anonymous
Seems the Greens don't actually support the filter
Well, notwithstanding everybody jumping on the "well I vote green occasionally, but..." bandwagon, did anyone noticed that Senator Ludlam said "I can’t see a scenario where we could actually support it."
So before you all rush off crying the sky is falling, why not wait and see what actually turns up in Parliament (and if Hamilton even gets close to being elected). You know, disengage fingers, engage brain...
Anonymous
I'll be the first in line to donate 50% of my bandwidth to TOR
I'll be the first in line to donate 50% of my bandwidth as a TOR exit node, and I hope others will too. After all, everything illegal will be filtered, so anything I access will obviously be legal.
Then I can help the dissidents in any number of countries while they allow me to access 4chan...
JamesD
Anyone worried that Clive Hamilton will get elected to federal parliament and be an unhelpful filter advocate should check out the results of the last election in the seat of Higgins when the margin was over 18% !!
Yep 18%, someone who has more time than I can lookup how many of the 150 reps seats are safer but I suspect it can't be more than 15 of them.
Point being: making a song and dance out of it just ads credibility to his position. Personally I'd rather people were talking about some of Clive's statements about consumerism, climate change and economic transformation. But then I'd like to see The Greens do well enough in the by election to give the major parties a scare.
Anthony
What makes you think it's perfect
Given that no tests, no implemation of any internet filter in the world is perfect, they all underblock, overblock, impact performance, leak blacklists and in the case of the UK early in the year, blocked wikipedia for 1000's of users, what makes you think that any system here will be perfect.
Cameron Price-Austin
If Hamilton was truly aiming to protect children, he'd be advocating for client-side filters (one of which was freely available under the prev. government) and optional ISP filters.
Me
So the Greens have sold out the tech savvy youth vote.
Hey Bob, give my regards to the democrats during your slide to political oblivion!
What has the world come to where I have to vote for the Liberals to get some freedom around here???????
harry
who can you trust
The Greens just lost my vote.
Roddy
Re: What makes you think it's perfect
Good question Anthony.... Will any filter setup be perfect?
Of course not, NOTHING on the internet is perfect... Naive to even expect this from any internet related system, obtuse and disingenious to demand perfection from any internet related system.
By that benchmark you would not even be using this website, or your ISP, or your computer, or your browser, or your OS, our police force, your bank, your parents, your own opinions, lol... etc ad infinitum None of these are perfect... True?
Now getting back to a semblance of reality, and knowing that nothing is perfect on the internet, what is the relevance of your question?
If you are waiting for perfection I suggest you wrap yourself up in a cacoon and wait for the "End Time" and humanity, or just wait until I make you one of my incredible coffees... >;))
Telstra and Microsoft cause 200 times as many problems for Australian internet users than this puny filter will ever cause... lol
Anonymous
Roddy
It doesn't have to be perfect.
A simple weighing-up of pros vs cons is most illustrative.
Cons:
* Cannot be implemented without introducing SOME nationwide slowdown, however "negligible".
* List of banned pages will be maintained in secret.
* No accountability.
* No legal recourse to get a page unbanned.
* Few, if any, of the banned pages are/will be genuinely illegal.
* Even if they were, it will be trivial to bypass.
Pros: None whatsoever.
So why are we still going ahead with this, again?
Roddy
Hi Anonymous...
OK Anonymous, hi....
It doesn't have to be perfect.
** Absolutley correct, well said.
A simple weighing-up of pros vs cons is most illustrative.
** Let's look at that then...
Cons:
* Cannot be implemented without introducing SOME nationwide slowdown, however "negligible".
*R* There is a point where any potential delay introduced is "negligible" and therfore irrelevant.
* List of banned pages will be maintained in secret.
*R* Why is that a con? There are many valid reasons for this, even if not in your view. That is more a Pro...
* No accountability.
*R* That is blatantly incorrect and a sad red herring mate. The CB has already been given oversight and accountability for the list. You are speaking your opinion of the lack of open accountability of the past... This is now a Pro.
* No legal recourse to get a page unbanned.
*R* Do you have that confirmed that this is guaranteed going forward, or are you again speaking of past practices?
This would be a Pro.
* Few, if any, of the banned pages are/will be genuinely illegal.
*R* Do you have that confirmed that this is guaranteed going forward, or are you again speaking of past practices?
The legislative bodies and the CB will make decisions on the legality of pages listed going forward, not you or I.
That will also be a Pro.
* Even if they were, it will be trivial to bypass.
*R* Well then you have nothing to worry about do you. Just bypass and enjoy life, there is no law against that. The definitions of "trivial" may apply to some folks and not to others.
Pros: *R* Several if implemented and run as planned, but I also am waiting to see just what get's decided.
So why are we still going ahead with this, again?
*R* Because the democratically elected government of the day has decided to do this and the broader Australian public is not demonstrating opposition, and the both houses of Parliament look like they will *probably* pass whatever legislation is required.
Child abuse is a serious matter, there are enough apologists that say nothing can be done about it, except for someone else to do it.
Anonymous
"That is blatantly incorrect and a sad red herring mate. The CB has already been given oversight and accountability for the list. You are speaking your opinion of the lack of open accountability of the past..."
Wrong. Just because ACMA occasionally defer to the Classification Board (with rather more frequency since March 09, I wonder why) does not mean that they have palmed maintainence of the list off to them altogether - that would require changes to the Broadcasting Services Act. This has not happened.
And YOU talk of blatant...
Anonymous
Roddy
> There are many valid reasons for this, even if not in your view.
Name five.
> That is more a Pro...
Why? You can't pick up a turd by the clean end.
> That is blatantly incorrect and a sad red herring mate.
Addressed in previous post.
> This is now a Pro.
Prove it. You can't pick up a turd by the clean end.
> Do you have that confirmed that this is guaranteed going forward, or are you again speaking of past practices?
While I must thank you for acknowledging that this is currently a major problem (ie con), I have yet to see any evidence that it won't continue to be a major problem (ie con) in the future.
> This would be a Pro.
No, it isn't. You can't pick up a turd by the clean end.
> Do you have that confirmed that this is guaranteed going forward, or are you again speaking of past practices?
While I must thank you for acknowledging that this is currently a major problem (ie con), I have yet to see any evidence that it won't continue to be a major problem (ie con) in the future.
> The legislative bodies and the CB will make decisions on the legality of pages listed going forward, not you or I.
The Classification Board has no say in whether material is legal or illegal (remember, Refuse Classification is not the same as Illegal, even accounting for hypothetical intents and purposes).
> That will also be a Pro.
Prove it. You can't pick up a turd by the clean end.
> Well then you have nothing to worry about do you.
Your abject rejection of logic is nigh Herculean.
> Several if implemented and run as planned, but I also am waiting to see just what get's decided.
Pretending to sit on the fence while polishing a mountain of turds: hope you're being paid enough for it...
>Child abuse is a serious matter
Yes, it is. What does it have to do with censorship?
Roddy
@Anonymous...
"You can't pick up a turd by the clean end."
Well mate, if you spend so much time with t*rds I guess that will be your problem.
If you see a world full of t*rds around you then you might want to move to a cleaner location...
lol.
As you call into the forest, so it will echo back to you....
Anonymous
Nothing constructive left to add, I see?
I guess even Roddy can't defend the indefensible.
Roddy
@Anonymous
Oh there is much and very constructive to add, but I really have too much to do, and some decent follow-ups with Ben, to take too much time with low level time wasters...
If you were the previous poster, I am sure that your select choice of phrase and words will inspire the readers of ARN and the public to see your point of view...
Just throwing out some allegations and assertions and then smearing the response is not debate mate, it is an admission that this poster had nothing but the same old and tired dogma to roll out...
Have a nice day.
Anonymous
Re: @Anonymous
So when you can't be bothered responding to pointed questions, you dismiss them with ad hominem attacks.
I really wonder what it is you hope to gain by trolling this website.
Roddy
Re: @Anonymous
My interest is in openly debating the issues surrounding the filtering.
I have been responding to pointed questions for a while, and in some detail.
If that is "trolling" in your view, then that really is your problem to deal with. If responding to questions and articles on important issues is "trolling" in general, then we both suffer from that right now...
Some of the questions have become more aggressive and begin to use questionable language for this forum.
That says a lot about the individual. I am assuming at this time that this was not you...
joe
well, lets get back to what Hamilton said about his support for a filter:
“My position is and has always been that I’d support a mandatory filter if it can be shown to be effective and if it’s done in a transparent way,”
So show it to be effective - obviously, for a given value of "effective" it can be shown to be either.
Done in a transparent way? Again for a given value of "transparent"........
Don't forget sheeple that it would not have been common knowledge that a dentist and a canteen worker's sites were blocked in the trial if it were not for WikiLeaks.
It is disgusting that we must rely on volunteers from such organisations for oversight on the actions of our leaders.
@Roddy: first up, thanks for your efforts in the debate. Unfortunately you have yet to make a convincing argument FOR this proposed filter In the planned form of course.
nevermind the "turds", how can you suggest concerns based on past practice to be invalid? Governments should NEVER be assumed to be entirely trustworthy. "Never, ever GST" is a good one... You ask whether ineffectiveness is guaranteed, and yet no posing the first question which is: will its effectiveness be guaranteed?
It would seem you want us to be content to trust the Govt to do this properly (if indeed it is even possible) UNSUPERVISED. No, I shall not.
Power Corrupts. It is up to all of us to keep an eye on our "Leaders".
If you truly want some changes to our internet to make it "cleaner" maybe you could try lobbying the govt. to take steps that have a better chance of actually WORKING.
* Some education in our schools to improve a child's Safe Surfing skills.
* re-instating free software for home computers that parents can install to add a level of "safety" for their children's online experience.
* How about a non-mandatory (same cost) WHITElist connection? One where the only connections allowed are to a list of known OK pages?
* How about giving us a referendum asking whether to spend Xhundred million dollars on A) a filter or B) increased funding to the Child Protection Taskforce of the AFP?
As things stand many in the public feel they are having a Lemon rammed down our throats by quasi-religious dictators.
....And no I will not accept the concept of "Mandate" as being sufficient for putting up with said Lemon.
In the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Robert
The Greens will not support the filter whatever Clive has to say, Scott Ludlam is well and truly on top of this.
If you have any doubts vote for The Australian Sex Party their policy's are sound and will gain huge support for the upcoming election due to the Filter debacle.
u4Mitchell
I love the bit when he says it's about stopping children fromseeing adult pornography.
Theres just one problem. I'm not a child, so why should my access to adult pornography be blocked.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have steak because a baby can't chew it.~Mark Twain.
Post new comment