The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy keeps saying that the only material the Rudd Government intends to ban from view on the Australian Internet is material that is actually Refused Classification.
In fact he told a Senate estimates committee on 26 May 2009 that the focus of our policy has always been refused classification, RC.
He also says that the aim of this nationwide censorship is to stop the digital transmission of child pornography and to prevent children accidentally seeing pornography from anywhere in the world on the their computers.
Leaving aside the fact that the Australian Senate already blocks senators from accessing a wide range of material when using their government Internet accounts, including at least one online newspaper which is not in the RC category, what exactly is Senator Conroy and his department banning right now on com.au websites?
Here's one small nugget of information:
Topic: ACMA BLACKLIST
Senator Ludlam asked:
What proportion of the current ACMA Blacklist consists of RC material?
Answer:
At 30 April 2009, 51 per cent of URLs on the list provided access to content that had been, or would likely to have been, classified RC by the Classification Board.
Notice that the 51% mentioned includes material that hasn't actually been formally assessed for Refused Classification by the Australian Classification Board? Apparently staffers at ACMA just know in their little hearts what is not fit for viewing when that member of the public complaint lobs on their desk.
Also notice that 49% of the government ACMA blacklist is not even capable of being passed off as "likely to have been" classified as RC if it had been formally assessed?
If you delve a bit deeper you will find Senator Conroy stating that only about 30% of the Refused Classification segment of this blacklist is made up of URLs which lead to child pornography content or similar.
So what exactly is the mysterious 49% of the current ACMA blacklist composed of if it doesn't include material containing depictions of child sexual abuse, bestiality, strong nudity, implied sexual activity, fetishes, drug use or violence, very frequent or very strong coarse language, illegal activity such as detailed instructions in euthanasia methods and other material that is strong in impact? All of which ACMA apparently includes in this RC category. Well, that is something we may never know as this is a s*e*c*r*e*t [Sssssh!] blacklist with no truly independent scrutiny of its accuracy and compliance with legislation or regulations.
And what does the 49% represent as a hard number? At the moment it probably means that there are in the vicinity of 479 websites/pages on the blacklist which would contain content which is likely to be perfectly legal across Australia if it were available in printed form or on DVD.
We all know to our collective amusement that in the recent past the ACMA list contained a Queensland dental practice website.
I have to wonder how many of these banned URLs are quite innocuous, apart from holding and publishing opinions critical of those things which fundamentalist Christians and the likes of Senator Conroy hold dear.
I also have to wonder just how many freelance journalists and citizen bloggers will end up on this blacklist as it expands under mandatory filtering of the Australian Internet.
