Internet Filters

The invention of the internet has been one of the major advances of the modern world. It has allowed people from all over the globe to communicate with each other and ideas to be shared. In addition to this it is a free platform. Unlike television and radio it doesn’t cost anything to put your idea on the internet, making it a base of personal expression. This freedom coupled with the global access attracts around a billion users worldwide. Unfortunately, just as easily as the information is produced it is abused. The internet, although mostly used appropriately does harbour all manner of illegal activities. These range from phishing scams, trying to steal someone’s personal details, viruses, malicious code that attacks a person’s computer and websites that are morally questionable or illegal under Australian law. To combat this, the Rudd government has started action to impose an internet service provider level internet filter. An internet service provider is any company that provides internet services to its customers. Most notable of these is Telstra which is one of the top internet service providers in Australia. This filter will prevent a list of websites, the blacklist, from being accessed in Australia. In theory this is an excellent plan, but in reality, once implemented it will have little effect on preventing the illegal activity which occurs on the internet. The major arguments against the proposed filter are, cost of the filter, the ineffectiveness of the filter to stop illegal activity and the possibility of the blacklist expanding to block anti-government websites.

A major flaw of the proposed filter is the futility to prevent crime. The internet is a massive network of computers and web pages are just one use of thi...

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...uickly becoming clear that this filter is no longer aimed at internet crime. Under the proposed legislation all RC content, content that has been refused classification by ACMA (Australia communications and media authority) as well as X18+ content will be on the blacklist. This shows that the government has changed the filter’s goals when it became clear that internet crime won’t be stopped and is instead offering a “protect the children” reason for the filter.

The proposed internet filter is not only a flawed concept, but an expensive one. If implemented, it will do little to nothing to prevent online crime. The cost of the filter far outweighs any benefit and the potential for abuse in the future is frightening. Viruses will still exist, phishing scams will continue, illegal downloading of movies will still exist and paedophiles will still get their child porn.