EFA Filtering Fact Sheets

Get an overview of the scheme by checking out EFA's Filtering Fact Sheets.

What is the Government's plan?

Minister Conroy has announced that he will introduce “mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused Classification (RC) –rated content.”¹

The filter will be based on URL filtering of a blacklist of between 1,000 and 10,000 URLs.
The list of URLs will be based on the current ACMA blacklist, and will be supplemented by lists from international organisations (probably IWF).
RC computer games will be excluded from mandatory filtering until the completion of the R18+ review.
Additional funding will be available to encourage ISPs to offer voluntary filtering systems.

Filtering will not inhibit the access of people determined to create, distribute or receive child sexual abuse material

The proposed filter will only filter unencrypted web (HTTP) traffic. Not only will it be trivial to circumvent by those who want to, but it will not be able to stop the distribution of illegal child sexual abuse material on encrypted peer-to-peer networks, where the greatest majority such material is traded.

In order to address concerns about the sexual exploitation of children, greater investment is required in police investigations who are able to infiltrate the secretive groups where this child sexual abuse material is distributed and charge those who are creating and sharing this material.

Mandatory filtering will not protect children from inappropriate content

The list of URLs that will be filtered is only a tiny fraction of the material on the internet that may be considered harmful to children. A mandatory filter cannot address the bulk of inappropriate content, and the government is not in a position to determine what each parent believes to be suitable or not for their individual children.

The biggest risks that children face online are not the risk of exposure to inappropriate content, but the risk of inappropriate contact with others. In order to protect children online, we propose the following measures:

greater education for parents about the availability of voluntary filtering systems that can be tailored to block a much larger range of material;
greater education for parents and children about the risks that children face online, and how to address those risks.

Material that is 'refused classification' (RC) includes much more than child sexual abuse material

Only 18% of the URLs on the current blacklist contain child sexual abuse material (212 of the 1,175 URLs). The rest of the material is X18+ content (41%), R18+ content (5%), and 'other' (a whopping 36%). See libertus.net's breakdown for more information.

The National Classification Code defines what material is to be Refused Classification in Australia. The code states that the Classification Board must refuse to classify films, publications, and computer games that:

(a) describe, depict, express or otherwise deal
with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction,
crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or
abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they
offend against the standards of morality,
decency and propriety generally accepted by
reasonable adults to the extent that they
should not be classified; or

(b) describe or depict in a way that is likely to
cause offence to a reasonable adult, a person
who is, or appears to be, a child under 18
(whether the person is engaged in sexual
activity or not); or

(c) promote, incite or instruct in matters of
crime or violence

The code additionally states that all computer games that are unsuitable for a minor to see or to play are to be refused classification.

The only material that is illegal to possess in Australia is child sexual abuse material. In all states and territories except for Western Australia and certain prescribed areas of the Northern Territory, it is legal for adults to view and own material that has been refused classification. Australia's classification regime has always been about empowering adults to make appropriate choices and restricting only the public sale and demonstration of RC material. The filter, however, will attempt to prevent all Australians from accessing, rather than selling, prohibited material.

The list of material that will be banned under a mandatory filter is much broader than illegal child sexual abuse material. Based on previous decisions of the Classification Board, it includes:

Information about euthanasia;
Movies such as Ken Park or Baise-Moi;
Books such as Join the Caravan and Defence of the Muslim Lands
Many, many computer games, because Australia lacks an R18+ rating, although the filter will not immediately ban such games.

Items that have been banned because they 'promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence' include things such as:

A satirical article title "The Art of Shoplifting" in a student newspaper (see libertus.net's summary of the case).
A computer game that features "an amateur graffiti artist [...] who uses graffiti and tagging as a way to protest the corrupt Dystopic city of New Radius, in a future world where freedom of expression is suppressed by a tyrannical, Orwellian city government" (wikipedia) because it "provided elements of promotion of the crime of graffiti." (see libertus.net's summary of the decision).

Outstanding technical issues

The clean-feed, if attempted, will be a technical disaster. The Internet does not work in a manner that would let a filter be effective, and the World Wide Web contains far more content than could ever be effectively rated by a Government organisation. The host of technical hurdles include:

Only illegal material published on web sites could be targeted, completely missing other methods of distribution such as BitTorrent.
Any determined user - including children - could bypass the filter quickly using an anonymizer service, open proxy, or VPN connection.
The clean feed would be less customisable and effective than a PC-based filter.

In short, as the best experts in the country unanimously agree, Conroy's plan does not make sense technically.⁸

There are free-speech concerns.

Although the initiative is intended and marketed as a tool to help protect children from the dangers of the Internet, this paternalistic scheme raises some troubling issues that affect all Australians. As a source of daily information, the Internet increases in importance every day. Do we really want the Government of the day deciding what Australian adults can and can't see? Do we want Australia to join a censorship club in which Burma, China and North Korea are the founding members?

The list of prohibited sites will probably be secret, so it will be hard to know what content the Government has effectively banned.
Filtering will be compulsory in all homes, even where there are no children.
It is unknown whether there will be any way to have content removed from the prohibited list.
How far will the list go, now and in future? Will it filter out material on sexual health, drug use, or terrorism? Euthanasia and anorexia have been touted by Government MPs as topics worthy of filtering.⁹

The Clean Feed is bad policy.

In short, even if it worked the filter would be terrible policy. By censoring the entire country's Internet access down to the level of a child of indeterminate age, it robs Australian adults of ability to make their own decisions about what content they view.

Most Australians don't want the filter.Support for this overly broad policy is virtually non-existent, even from child-protection organisations. A recent survey shows that 51.5% of Australian net user strongly oppose the plan, while only 2.9% strongly support it.¹⁰
One size doesn't fit all. A single filter list can't deliver results that are appropriate for all parents, teens and children, with no way to customise the filter for your household.
The protection for children is minor at best, an illusion at worst. The clean-feed does nothing to protect children from real threats like cyber-bullying, online sexual predators, viruses, or the theft of personal information. It may provide a false sense of security to parents, reducing effective monitoring of their children's online activities.
The money is better spent elsewhere. The filter will cost tens of millions of dollars to attempt. Yet the Government's own studies admit education is more effective than filtering in protecting children, and that "content risks" are less dangerous than other risks.¹¹
No other democracy has a scheme comparable to the clean-feed. Comparable systems in Europe only filter a handful of illegal sites, and then only to prevent accidental access. ¹²