Concerned that the Australian government is poised to implement stringent online censorship regulations, Electronic Frontiers Australia announced Monday a campaign to rally netizens against the government's recently released proposals for policing content on the Internet.
Members of EFA say they are most concerned that the recommendations put the onus of policing content on Internet service providers. "The whole concept of making service providers responsible for content is bizarre," Kimberley Heitman, EFA's chair, said in a statement. "It's as senseless as making paper makers responsible for books published using their paper."
Apart from the concerns voiced by Net-savvy computer users worldwide whenever governments try to put the burden of content monitoring on ISPs - that service providers simply don't have the wherewithal to track the contents of every post that goes up - EFA has highlighted a strictly Australian problem. Under the proposed regulations, ISPs are forbidden from "knowingly allowing a person to use their service to publish content that would be refused classification under [Office of Film and Literature Classification] guidelines."
At best, charge Heitman and other critics, OFLC's judgment of acceptable content is whimsical. While R.E.M.'s acclaimed Losing My Religion video and Derek Humphry's Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying are both considered potential incitements to undesirable behavior - homosexuality and suicide, respectively - Brett Easton Ellis' extraordinarily violent novel, American Psycho, which has actually been cited as a contributing factor in at least one Australian murder, is not.
The end result of making service providers ferret out what OFLC might or might not think Australian citizens should see and hear will, fears Heitman, be overly zealous self-censorship. "ISPs whose skills are primarily technical are expected to enter the legal minefield of censorship classification," he said. "This is an extraordinary burden which can only result in perfectly legal material being removed 'just in case.'"
Australians have until 8 August to comment before the proposals go to the national Senate for action. EFA plans to take advantage of the commentary period by petitioning the Senate, coordinating a joint statement with other online Australian organizations, and writing a detailed response to the 47-point proposal.
