FITUG e.V. Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft

FC: Electronic Frontiers Australia on Net-censorship efforts

------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 09:57:11 -0500 To: politech@politechbot.com From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: FC: Electronic Frontiers Australia on Net-censorship efforts Send reply to: declan@well.com

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From: Irene Graham <exec@efa.org.au> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: EFA review/analysis of C'th Net censorship regime Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 13:42:26 +1000

Declan

Below message has been distributed to a number of Australian mailing lists. Info below FYI, and feel free to post part or all to politech if you wish.

Regards Irene ======

When releasing the fourth report on the government's Internet censorship regime on 21 August 2002, the Minister for Communications Senator Richard Alston proclaimed: "Internet safety for Australians continues to grow".

EFA has conducted a comprehensive analysis of Government reports on the regime, in light of the Minister's admissions to the Senate that official reports contain statistical errors exaggerating the alleged effectiveness of the scheme, and reviewed the overall operation and effectiveness of the scheme. We conclude there is no evidence or indication to support the Minister's claim that the Internet has been made safer. Our review and findings are contained in:

EFA submission to the DCITA review of the operation of the C'th Internet censorship regime, 8 Nov 2002 http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/efasubm_bsa2002.html

(The Dept of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) is currently conducting a review of the operation of the scheme, as required by the legislation to be done before 1 Jan 2003.)

Short summary of EFA submission:

- The ABA spent 83% of its Internet censorship efforts investigating content on overseas-hosted websites over which it has no control.

- Approximately half of the prohibited items designated as hosted in Australia were found in world-wide Usenet newsgroups, most likely originated outside Australia, and were not taken down from the Internet.

- The ABA's refusal to provide the URLs or titles of taken-down Australian-hosted web pages, on the ground that such information would enable a person to access prohibited content on the Internet, indicates the ABA believes such content has not been taken down from the Internet.

- Ministerial statements trumpeting the success of the scheme have been, by the Minister's own admission, based on erroneous statistics.

- Misleading statements have been made by the government about the proportion of prohibited content that is actual child pornography.

- The scheme exaggerates the outcomes by claiming newsgroup postings removed from one Usenet newsgroup server as content that has been removed from the Internet.

- The referral of prohibited content to scheduled filter vendors is not followed up to ensure that the vendors add the content to their filter blocklist.

- The application of film classification guidelines to static images and text on the Internet is inappropriate and results in prohibition of content online that is legally available in magazines offline.

- OFLC fees for classification, and review of a classification, of a web page are exorbitant, costing approximately five times the fee for an entire offline magazine.

- Online publishers have less rights in relation to review and appeal of classification decisions than offline publishers.

- The effectiveness or otherwise of the complaints system would be clearer if the outcome of investigations resulting from legislatively valid complaints (i.e. from Australian residents), and information received from other entities such as overseas hotlines, was reported on separately.

- No information has been made available by the government about successful prosecutions, if any, resulting from the scheme.

- The estimated $2.7M annual cost of the scheme is difficult to justify given the limited outcomes achieved.

- EFA recommends that Schedule 5 of the Broadcasting Services Act be repealed and the costly and failed Internet regulatory apparatus be dismantled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Irene Graham Executive Director - Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA) EFA: <http://www.efa.org.au> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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