Stephen Conroy, as usual on a Friday, made some major filter announcements today, using the excuse of a review of the “RC” classification category to put the filter on the back burner for 12 months. He also announced that three large ISPs – Bigpond, Optus and Primus – would begin a voluntary filtering scheme. Although that raises some red flags, it would be definitely preferable to having a compulsory government-controlled scheme. However, it looks like the old plan is still very much in the offing.

Read more on the SMH here, or listen to me discussing the issue on the ABC:

ABC – The World Today

Today was officially “Quit Facebook Day”, whereby 24,000 users – out of 400 million – threatened to quit over privacy issues. I was on “The Circle” today to discuss the issue – and it was good fun. Watch below.

Four Corners tonight tackled internet censorship in an episode entitled “Access Denied”. For a debate ruled, like most debates, by sound bites – “child pornography”, “censored like North Korea” – I was excited to see the issue get a detailed examination over 40-odd minutes of quality investigative journalism.

I thought they did a good job. There was, as usual in this discussion, much emphasis on the evil content on the internet without really pointing out how the vast majority of people use the internet the vast majority of the time without any unpleasantness whatsoever. There was, for some reason, a lot of filler shots of porn sites themselves. But several sides of the debate got an airing that we wouldn’t normally hear. At about 12 minutes in, teenager Justin Katz is asked about whether kids need to be protected from nasty material, and he says exactly what you’d expect from a sane person: “I think if you just have common sense and the right attitude you don’t need to be protected from anything, that with just a straight mind you’ll know what’s right and you’ll know what’s wrong.”

The pro-filter camp included some of the usual suspects like Jim Wallace and Clive Hamilton. Clive did not disappoint with his rhetoric about “perverse and extreme sexual practices”. The phrase “penetrated in every orifice” quickly made an appearance along with “bestiality” and “copraphilia.” (Eww. I start to worry about what’s on Clive’s hard drive for research purposes.) Unfortunately for my self-image someone on twitter pointed out that Clive and I look somewhat similar: “Clive Hamilton and Colin Jacobs are both bald w/glasses. But Clive has the look of a man who doesn’t get laid much.” Thanks, @renailemay.

I also though the producers did a good job highlighting the democratic dangers and putting the lie to the government’s “child pornography” rhetoric by showing some much more controversial material that would be blocked, and is currently prohibited. The oldies learning about proxies and the outraged anti-abortion candidate certainly illustrated this important point.

I also found it surprising that they discussed how the current classification scheme applies to normal adult material, with Fiona Patten of the Australian Sex Party showing the audience how some pirate porn needs to split the swashbuckling violence onto a separate DVD to the piratical sex in order to pass classification muster. I think most Aussies have little problem with the idea of adults being able to watch this sort of harmless material, and it was a good and light-hearted counterbalance to the worst-of-the-worst rhetoric we normally get.

I’m in there with a couple of grabs about how the filter was presented to the electorate and how it has since changed. Mark Newton had better material with his final line, though (spoiler alert): “The idea that the internet is this scary place that parents don’t understand, that everyone needs protection from, isn’t a view that’s held by  most of society . What it really is is a scary place that politicians don’t understand and politicians need protection from, and that’s why we’re having this debate now.”

You can watch the show at the Four Corners site or on ABC iView.

The topic was also discussed on Q&A after Four Corners. Kaiser Kuo, who I have followed and read since living in China, had me worried but actually proved to be an eloquent opponent of censorship under all but the most extraordinary circumstances. A poll of the audience showed the overwhelming majority against the filter. Brett Solomon stuck up for us internet-loving nerds with genuine passion. Definitely worth checking out on iView.

Today’s sacking of Catharine Deveny by the Age is the latest in a string of people getting in trouble for offensive tweeting. Nick Snowden was kicked out of the Liberal party only a couple of weeks ago.

I think this is a terrible move by Age and sends a terrible message. Is it too much to hope our newspapers might wear a little embarrassment for the sake of erring on the side of free expression?

Is The Age suggesting that Catharine is an advocate of child sex, as evidenced by her tweet? If so, the sacking might indeed be justified. Some views are too extreme or offensive to the public to want to have them associated with your organisation. As a media organisation, I wouldn’t want to employ virulent racists, for instance – not only are they unpleasant people, it would be bad for business. Encouraging promiscuity in 11-year-olds would be a pretty extreme and offensive position to most people.

However, if The Age doesn’t believe that’s Catharine’s position, it must believe the tweet was a joke – an offensive, off-colour joke. This means that they fired a humorist, known (and hired) for being edgy, for making a one-sentence offensive joke on her own time in another medium.

To me that’s obviously no way to run a newspaper. A newspaper can employ somebody who writes something they wouldn’t publish in another medium, surely. Are Age columnists all constrained to having opinions that are uncontroversial enough for the papers of a daily broadsheet, even when not on the Fairfax clock?

This trend concerns me a bit. Imagine I make an embarrassingly off-colour joke today, then I run for office in 10 years time. Must I defend everything, including its context, lest it be held up forever as an example of ignorance, insensitivity, bigotry, or just a ribald sense of humour? I’d be worried if all of our future politicians are selected from only those who, in their 20s, never dared to write something embarrassing.

I hope Catharine finds another outlet for her writing.

For more corporate censorship fun, if you missed it, see my article on the iPad in New Matilda last week.

Last night I appeared on Radio National’s Australia Talks show alongside Senator Conroy (literally – he was next door in another booth). The filter was the topic, of course, and the debate went as expected; the Minister did his best to monopolise the airtime, scared the public with talk of how horrible child pornography is, and obfuscated where possible.

The audio of the show can be downloaded here.

I have an opinion piece in today’s Age, expanding on the theme of offensive internet content: do we need Rudd to step in and save us? I’m seeing more and more panic, fanned by the media, and a sense of proportion is quickly being lost.

This also continues on my new favourite theme, “Why should the Internet be any different?” I particularly dislike this sentence, often uttered by Senator Conroy, as it so clearly has a number of obvious answers explaining why the Internet is fundamentally different to other media. More on that later.

The online version of the piece is available here.

Conroy will be facing questions about the filter on ABC Radio National’s “Australia Talks” show at 6pm today, and I’ll be there to ask a few of my own.

Conroy faced the public tonight on Channel 10’s The 7PM Project. I gave my input and let fly a few sound bites for the lead-in piece, but the interesting bit is the discussion that follows. The producers and hosts of the show were well-informed, and asked the tough questions. They demonstrated that filtering won’t help parents, nor will it stop illegal material. Conroy was left with nowhere to go but to rabbit on about RC material.

If Conroy is now reduced to defending the filter as an expensive and complex way to harmonise the classification scheme, it’s a debate he can’t easily win, but I’d be happy to have.

He also repeats a line I love to hate – “How is the internet any different?” I’ve written about this before (most recently, this week at EFA) and will have more to say on the subject. Suffice it to say, the internet is different, in so many fundamental ways. The fact that the Communications Minister doesn’t realise this should worry every Australian.

Here’s a video of tonight’s segment:

There’s a depressing cycle repeating itself in the Australian news. Something nasty happens. The media report the outcry about how nasty it is. Then comes the depressing bit; the politicians, wanting to be seen to respond to the confected crisis, propose some sort of ill-thought-out, knee-jerk regulation to mitigate it.

A good example is Senator Nick Xenophon’s reaction to the tragic murder of Carly Ryan. Apparently, her killer lied about his age online to entice her into a meeting. The Senator’s proposal, therefore, was to outlaw lying about your age to minors online. Can anything be said in defence of such a proposal? Never mind that the crime is vanishingly rare. Isn’t it enough that rape and murder are already illegal? How many murderers would balk at a little lie, legal or not, in pursuit of a victim?

The trend is worse when it comes to the internet. Recently we’ve had flaps about racist speech, and do you remember the furore over a stupid web game called “Muslim Massacre”? If there is a politician who can resist the temptation to forcefully condemn something so obviously tasteless, I’ve yet to see one.

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I think Tim Dunlop missed the point yesterday in his Crikey piece about the Men at Work/Kookaburra case. Trying to decide whether they did or did nor borrow the melody from the folk song seems, to me, insignificant compared to the question of “should it matter if they did?”. Here’s my response (as a letter) in today’s Crikey.

Re. “Music copyrights and wrongs: money hits the right note“. Tim Dunlop’s piece seems to have missed some of the larger issues at play in the “Kookaburra” case. To me the question shouldn’t be whether a musical riff was borrowed consciously or unconsciously, was part of the composition or the arrangement. It’s not who owes whom money. The question is whether culture can grow and thrive under conditions where a few notes can land you in a courtroom.

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The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic thanks largely to Senator Conroy’s announcement that it’s full steam ahead with Internet censorship. At EFA we’ve been flat out keeping up with media requests and corralling the outflow of support into a coherent campaign. We’re working with volunteers, other organisations, and internally to make sure January will see some exciting announcements and interesting campaigns.

Below is a Youtube of my appearance on the 7pm project. I hear it may have at least helped touch a nerve with the Minister himself. My small piece a few days later in Crikey reporting on the appeal by Reporters Without Borders to the Prime Minister to abandon the plan also seems to have gotten through, as it was one of the pieces singled-out for a bollocking by Conroy himself in a letter to Crikey. (See the previous blog post for my response.)

Thanks to everyone who has said nice things about the work I and the rest of EFA are doing – it means a lot to know people are listening and on our side!