Users will be unable to opt out of new internet filter

The Internet content filtering system created by the government, which is currently pending, will not allow Australian users to opt out of the system. Experts say that instead users will be placed on a weak form of blacklist.

The new Cyber-safety plan that the government will spend $125.8 million on will have two blacklists, one which blocks content classed as illegal and the other blocks material that is inappropriate for children, and users will be able to switch between them.

The mistaken belief that the proviso will allow the content filtering to be completely removed, experts say, is something many consumers are being led to understand.
According to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital economy the upcoming technology trial will give the government the opportunity to iron out the implementation and policy issues of the Internet content filtering software.

The filtering system would be mandatory for all Australian users said Communications Minster, Stephen Conroy’s spokesman.

Marshall said “Labor’s plan for cyber-safety will require ISPs to offer a clean feed Internet service to all homes, schools and public Internet points accessible by children. The upcoming field pilot of ISP filtering technology will look at various aspects of filtering, including effectiveness, ease of circumvention, the impact on internet access speeds and cost.”

Due to the quality of the software many Internet Service Providers (IPSs) believe that Internet speeds will essentially be crippled if blanket content filtering is implemented.

Content such as drugs, protest and euthanasia may become censored material as the blacklist is expanded some online libertarians claim.

Mark Newton, an Internode network engineer said that it is wrongly believed by many users that the content filtering can be removed under the new opt-out proviso.

Newton said “Users can opt-out of the ‘additional material’, which is a list of things unsuitable for children, but there is no opt-out for ‘illegal content’. That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring that some kind of Internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out. Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blocked — end of story.”