Senator Conroy has just announced that the Labor government is green-lighting a plan to censor all Australian internet traffic with a mandatory ISP-level internet filter. Kevin Rudd’s election promise was that the filter wouldn’t be mandatory, and this backflip has dramatic consequences.
How many complaints does a government need before listening to the people they represent?
Over 120,000 Australians have opposed this scheme including industry experts and even child protection groups (with child protection being the main argument for the filter). When it comes to realtime complaints, this Twitter search is averaging a complaint per minute right now! Many people have tried to make their voice heard over the past year, from meeting with their local MPs and Senators all the way to crowdsourced phone bombing campaigns! Google Australia is behind this protest too and has particularly taken issue with the ambiguous scope of the filter.
What is scary is that the censorship doesn’t stop at the filter, but is also present in the public justification for the filter. In an even more shocking move, the Department has indicated that it may not publish all submissions, singling out submissions made by individuals using online tools like the Getup campaign (that now has over 120,000 signatures on this issue).
As Labor Senator Kate Lundy acknowledged in her post My thoughts on the Filter, the government has been supporting some really progressive projects such as the National Broadband Network, the Gov2.0 Taskforce, the Govhack Hack Day events, and more. Why then must they persist with a filter that not just lacks public support but has seen massive opposition?
As Silicon Beach’s Elias Bizannes says, it seems there is little we can do now but sit back and watch.
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