Ref Rap - ISP Filtering

• Will it really help? There is a big question mark as to whether the scheme will really prevent people looking at illegal sites. As a true pessimist I would have to say no. There are so many ways to get around blocked sites. Potentially illegal material could be encrypted or proxied and the ISP filter would not pick them up. In addition to this, Facebook, distribution links and file sharing networks are not subject to filtering - so anyone can post as much illegal content as they'd like on there. Even some child protection groups such as 'Save the Children' believe that the filtering system will not prevent the distribution of child pornography and that the Government would be better off spending the money on educating the public to make informed decisions about the web content they publish and view. In fact, the Howard government's previous voluntary filtering system was circumvented by a 16 year old! In the age of growing Internet use I wouldn't be surprised if Kids were moving straight from Rhymetime to computer hacking! This filtering means that Libraries could see a temporary relief of the occasional Patron viewing porn sites on the Internet. This relief is likely to be only temporary however, as people become more tech-savvy.
• Effects on the Internet - It can be so frustrating when a Patron has a question that requires Internet research to find the answer . . . and the Internet just won't work - or at least works very slowly. It is possible that use of web filtering will slow the Internet either minimally or substantially depending on the bandwidth of the user. In a growing digital age, the Internet is more important than ever and is frequently used to deliver services and find information. ISP filtering could make this increasingly difficult. There is also a chance that ISPs may increase their costs to users to account for the increased cost of web filtering. This could then become a financial issue for Libraries.
• Underblocking and overblocking - there is a chance that filtering could underblock or overblock sites. The ACMA blacklist will not cover every illegal site there is and it has the potential to block sites that do not contain illegal material at all (see below). Furthermore, the second tier, while optional, has even greater potential to underblock and overblock sites. Filtering based on specified words and terms means some very innocent sites could be viewed as 'illegal' (e.g. sex education sites). If it is our job to help people find information and if the information cannot be accessed then it presents a real problem for educational and research opportunities within Libraries. According to the June 2008 Report: 'Closed Environmental Testing of ISP Internet Filtering', there were high degrees of accuracy and low degrees of overblocking using all filtering products tested. I'd be interested to see how they perform in practice.
• Blocking of controversial material - Earlier in the year, whistleblower site Wikileaks published the ACMA 'blacklist'. According to the Sydney Morning Herald this list contained sites for a tour operator and a dentist as well as sites on topics such as Euthanasia. Aside from the fact that the SMH will continuously twist facts (as all good newspapers do) this does raise the question over whether or not this new scheme has the potential to act as a vehicle for corruption and whether or not the Government could possibly ban sites that might affect their reputation or contain controversial material (I love a good conspiracy). The fact that there is a mechanism by which such material could be blocked makes it suspect in the least.