Stilgherrian » bernadette mcmenamin

Is Internet filtering inevitable?

Stilgherrian — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:21:36 +0000

I’ve written previously that the Federal Budget sort of explained what’ll be happening with Internet filtering. Now that Senator Conroy has announced his Cyber-Safety Consultative Working Group I’m not so sure.

As Michael Meloni says over at Somebody Think of the Children:

When you consider people like Anthony Pillion, manager of filtered Australian ISP Webshield, and Child Wise CEO Bernadette McMenamin are on board, the odds of mandatory filtering being found a good solution are disappointingly high.

Pillion has a business interest and for McMenamin the gesture alone of protecting children is better then doing nothing, even if it has no chance of working. Here’s part of her letter to Stilgherrian:

If filtering of child pornography cannot work then why is there so much anger, fear and resentment to any attempt to block child pornography and other illegal sites?

[...]

Thankfully, the group does contain at least two people opposed to mandatory filtering: Sue Hutley from the Australian Library and Information Association (who asked Conroy questions about his plan that we all want answered and is opposed to filtering in public libraries) and Peter Coroneos from the IIA.

I’ve written plenty about censorship before. so while I’m busy at CeBIT’s Transaction 2.0 today, feel free to discuss this amongst yourselves. Play nice. I’ll ponder it in more detail later.

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Angry geeks: “Don’t waste money on internet filters”

Stilgherrian — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 03:12:19 +0000

[This is what I wrote for Crikey, finally published today.]

Child Wise’s Bernadette McMenamin found out the hard way: geeks get angry when you suggest filtering their Internet. OK, she only wants to block child porn and other illegal nasties, that’s clear now. But the geeks are still angry.

Why?

Two completely different problems are conflated. One, preventing distribution of already-illegal child pornography to anyone. Two, preventing children from viewing undefined “inappropriate” material, but allowing access to others in the same home. Different problems need different solutions, but they’re jumbled together for political purposes. Naughty naughty, Senators Conroy and Fielding.
Taxpayer-funded technical “solutions” are proposed for social problems. As John Birmingham reminds us, the government is not your babysitter.
Technical illiterates are demanding specific answers: filters. Those in the know are already several pages ahead in this story, and know filters won’t work. Geeks get angry when their knowledge isn’t respected — even when it isn’t understood (or understandable).

Real-world experience in everything from spam filters to the record industry’s futile attempts to stop copyright violations always shows that filters only block casual users. Professionals, the desperate or the persistent will always get through.

However if a politician demands a filter, pretty soon a shiny-suited salesman will appear, ready to sell him a box with “filter” written on the front. It’ll work — well enough for the demo, anyway.

“Look, Minister! Nice Minister. Watch the screen. See? Filter off, bad website is visible. Filter on, bad website gone. Filter off. Child in danger. Filter on. Child happy and safe. Filter off. Voter afraid and angry. Filter on. Voter relaxed and comfortable. Cheque now please.”

The UK’s CleanFeed system is hailed as a model, but even its builders admit that it won’t stop the hardened paedophile. By obviously blocking some websites but not others, they’re showing the bad guys where to concentrate their efforts at breaking through.

Mike, creator of somebodythinkofthechildren.com, sums it up:

We don’t want to waste money and pretend we are helping kids when we actually could be helping kids. You know, by funding health services and the police. A bloody filter won’t reduce how many kids are being exploited.

Just as the local council connects us to public roads, ISPs connect us to the public internet. They can’t “filter out bad stuff” any more than councils can prevent kids encountering anything bad once they walk down the driveway. Unless we hold their hands.

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Computerworld: Why Internet filtering will fail

Stilgherrian — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:21:40 +0000

As well as the piece Child Wise CEO calls for government re-think on ISP filtering which Neil H mentioned in a comment, Computerworld is also running an item headed Great wall of Australia: Industry rejects sanitized Internet. It’s subtitled “Part one: why content filtering will fail” so presumably there’s more to come.

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Child Wise’s Bernadette McMenamin on Internet filtering

Stilgherrian — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 03:43:45 +0000

I’ve just received a response to my post about Internet filtering and child pornography from Child Wise CEO Bernadette McMenamin. She raises some good questions — particularly why people in the Internet industry seem to react so angrily when there doesn’t seem to be any argument about child pornography and other exploitation being A Bad Thing.

Ms McMenamin has given permission for her response to be published. I’ve highlighted what I think are her most interesting questions. Answers appreciated. I’ll be drafting my own reply overnight.

Dear Stilgherrian,

I appreciate your comments and feedback. I also appreciate the respectful words that you say about me as yes I am trying to stamp out child sexual abuse and have dedicated my life to this cause for the last 25 years. I will do so until I die, which is hopefully not soon.

Clearly my ISP filtering article has stirred up much debate in the ISP world and I think that is good. Some emails to me from the ISP industry have been very educational for me but some have been downright rude. I just want to make my position clear. I only support ISP filtering of child pornography and other illegal content and not pornography and definitely not use this as a form of censorship of free speech.

I am a child protection specialist dealing with the aftermath of child sexual abuse on a daily basis. My motivation needs to be made clear. I am sure that the majority of people in the ISP industry are decent people and in retrospect my intention wasn’t to denigrate and insult people who care. There is no doubt that my opinion piece was emotive and if you could see what I see on a daily basis with people’s lives wrecked by the trauma of child sexual abuse I think that you and other members of the ISP industry may feel emotional about it as well. However in some ways I have stirred up healthy debate which will hopefully lead to a better outcome for children.

I am looking to you the ISP industry for the answers and to find and/or create the best use of filters to block child pornography. At least this will reduce some of the demand and some is better than none!

I am also a little perplexed about some of the feedback that I have been receiving about the uselessness of child pornography filtering. Now I am simply asking a question. If filtering of child pornography cannot work then why is there so much anger, fear and resentment to any attempt to block child pornography and other illegal sites? This is what I don’t understand.

Why not work on a filter that does only block out child pornography and if it doesn’t work then let’s stop any waste of money. All I am trying to do is to suggest an approach that may work.

It seems to be working (to an extent) in other countries i.e. Sweden, Denmark and UK. I am clearly not an IT expert so I will hand this over to you as the experts to find a way that is possible because I am sure you all agree that we should find ways to stop the sexual abuse of children in pornography which seems to be a growing and lucrative industry.

Kind regards,

Bernadette McMenamin AO
CEO
Child Wise

Comments please!

[Photo of Bernadette McMenamin from the National Australia Day Council. Ms McMenamin was a Victorian Australian of the Year finalist in 2004.]

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Bernadette McMenamin’s logical fallacies

Stilgherrian — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:38:33 +0000

Actually, I shouldn’t have bothered giving Bernadette McMenamin even the slightest attention because even in her first two paragraphs she commits logical fallacies. First, “It is beyond belief that…” is the fallacious argument from personal incredulity. And “there exists a small but vocal group” is an assertion that because an opinion is held by a “small” number (asserted without evidence) that it’s inherently wrong. While her cause — fighting against child abuse — is a good one, she does herself no credit by using such corrupt techniques. So, Ms McMenamin, are you a puppet of The Australian or a puppet of Senator Conroy’s office?

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Those magick child porn filters…

Stilgherrian — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 06:10:59 +0000

Bernadette McMenamin, CEO of Child Wise, has entered the debate on Internet filtering waving the “stop child pornography” banner.

It is beyond belief that some representatives of the Australian internet service provider industry are reluctant to install filters that would prevent access to child pornography.

Surely any decent person would do all they can to protect children. However there exists a small but vocal group in Australia which is opposed to the federal Government’s proposal to introduce mandatory ISP filtering to block child pornography and other illegal content.

I must admit, I always start worrying when I see appeals to “decency”, because it usually flags that I’m about to see an appeal to Victorian middle-class “family values” and a distinct lack of logic. Nevertheless I’ve posted a comment thusly, which The Australian may or may not publish:

Bernadette McMenamin is obviously a hard-working and committed woman “fighting the good fight” against child pornography and other abuses of children. Excellent. If only there were more like her.

It’s a shame, however, that in her eagerness she’s fallen for Senator Conroy’s trap.

If his proposal was only about child pornography then it’d be a good thing. Indeed, if such magic devices as “filters that would prevent access to child pornography” existed I’d buy three. I’d also buy a perpetual motion machine and an elixir of youth while I was at it.

The fact that Ms McMenamin is willing to hand the government a comprehensive online censorship mechanism while chasing this chimera of a Magick Filter only shows how naive her understanding of the Internet is, and how her passion has clouded her understanding of the bigger picture.

To which I would now add, the very premise of your essay is faulty. The proposal is not about filtering illegal content. It’s about filtering material which is legal for adults to view but which is “inappropriate” (another Victorian-values word!) for children — and making adults register in some as-yet-to-be-defined process to view what it legal for them to view.

I’m also wondering… What proposal have you actually seen which makes you so confident that you want to support it? Or do you just respond in a knee-jerk reaction when someone does the “Won’t someone think of the children?” fallacious argument trick?

[Update: The Australian has published my comment online, without the last paragraph.]