French take a stand against Australias Internet censorship proposal

Reporters without Borders, a France-based organisation that, among other things, fights against censorship and laws that undermine press freedom, has written an open letter to Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, condemning communications minister Stephen Conroy’s plan to introduce mandatory Internet filtering by ISPs.

In the letter the organisation says: “If Australia were to introduce systematic online content filtering, with a relatively broad definition of the content targeted, it would be joining an Internet censors club that includes such countries as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.,

It claims that the plan, as proposed would violate the rule of law. “The decision to block access to an ‘inappropriate’ website would be taken not by a judge but by a government agency, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Such a procedure, without a court decision, does not satisfy the requirements of the rule of law. The ACMA classifies content secretly, compiling a website blacklist by means of unilateral and arbitrary administrative decision-making. Other procedures are being considered but none of them would involve a judge.”

Reporters without Borders also says that the criteria the proposed law would use are too vague. “Filtering would be applied to all content considered ‘inappropriate,’ a very slippery term that could be interpreted very differently by different people. In all probability, filtering would target ‘refused classification’ (RC) sites, a category that is extremely controversial as it is being applied to content that is completely unrelated to efforts to combat child sex abuse and sexual violence, representing a dangerous censorship option. Subjects such as abortion, anorexia, aborigines and legislation on the sale of marijuana would all risk being filtered, as would media reports on these subjects.”

The organisation also casts doubts on the claimed efficacy of the proposed filtering techniques and it further notes that “As regards paedophilia, the most dangerous places on the Internet are websites offering chat and email services. So if this project were taken to its logical conclusion, access to sites such as Gmail, Yahoo and Skype would also have to be blocked, which would of course be impossible.”

Reporters without Borders calls for “A real national debate” on the subject but claims that Conroy “made such a debate very difficult by branding his critics as supporters of child pornography [thus] an opportunity was lost for stimulating a constructive exchange of ideas.”