Mark Pesce on Internet filtering

Photograph of Mark Pesce

My new friend Mark Pesce (pictured) has written Blacklisted: Breaking Senator Conroy’s net censorship for the ABC.

The Web is the ultimate “greased pig” for the world’s governments — they can chase it, and perhaps briefly gain a handhold, but they’re always tossed on their posterior a few moments later. You would think that this lesson would have sunk in — after all the Web has been with us, part of our daily lives, for almost fifteen years. But no: there’s always a bureaucrat, somewhere, who claims: “This time, it’ll work. Really!”

Mark also quotes Wang Guoqing, which I hadn’t gotten around to doing yet:

Last May, Wang Guoqing, Vice Minister of the State Council of Information, the man who oversees the Great Firewall of China, was quoted as saying: “It has been repeatedly proved that information blocking is like walking into a dead end.” In essence, Wang was declaring the failure of the Chinese attempts to filter the Internet; the Chinese are now moving toward a policy, which reminds Chinese netizens that the state is watching them — and that they should surf the web appropriately.

Social pressure (with the threat of criminal prosecution) is taking over from a failed technical strategy. So Conroy is quite correct; Australia isn’t going down the Chinese road — because China has already backed out of this dead end.

A superb piece tying together pretty much all of the threads we’ve been discussing, and much more. Read and enjoy.

The Perils of Smoking

Photograph of Pong, cigarette in mouth and looking seedy, with his sister and her girlfriend

The Snarky Platypus has already messaged me tonight: “You are full of too many thoughts. You need a course of what Stephen Conroy is taking.” So I’ll change the pace with a photo.

Here’s a picture of ’Pong I took in 2002, back when he was still smoking that evil tobacco stuff. His sister Toi and her friend seem… concerned. Perhaps we need to come up with a caption for this image.

John Birmingham on Internet filters

Author John Birmingham posted a great piece last week attacking Internet filtering. Apart from describing Senator Conroy’s “puckered cat’s bum thing with your mouth” when equating freedom of speech with kiddie-porn-watching, he puts what I think is the best argument: “If parents are going to plug their kids into the net it is the parents’ responsibility to look after the little darlings while they’re online. You wouldn’t set a small child loose in the city and expect the government to step in and do your child-minding for you.”

Bernadette McMenamin’s logical fallacies

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?

Those magick child porn filters…

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.]