The US Government has spoken out strongly against the Rudd Government’s move to censor the Internet, but Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is not backing down.
A US State Department spokesperson raised concerns about Australia’s filter plans earlier this week.
“Our main message of course is that we remain committed to advancing the free flow of information, which we view as vital to economic prosperity and preserving open societies globally,” US State Department spokesman Michael Tran told The Associated Press.
“We don’t discuss the details of specific diplomatic exchanges, but I can say that in the context of that ongoing relationship, we have raised our concerns on this matter with Australian officials,” he added.
The Federal Government intends to introduce legislation within weeks requiring all ISP’s to block access to illegal material, such as child pornography or content refused classification (RC) by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Mr Conroy said it would be inappropriate to talk about discussions with the US Government, the ABC reported, but says the Government remains committed to the plan.
Criticism of the filter has centred around the Government’s refusal to release a list of banned sites, raising concerns governments could censor at will, without proper oversight.
While Mr Conroy conceded that there might have to be more oversight, he says the Government is only providing the same level of censorship it applies to films and books.
Releasing the “blacklist” would defeat the purpose of the filter, he said.
“When you publish a list of titles of books that are banned or movies that are banned, you don’t give access to the materials by producing that list,” he told ABC radio. “The problem when you produce a list of URLs is you are actually giving the address of where to go and look.”
Google Australia raised concerns about the filter on its official blog in December last year saying: “At Google, we are concerned by the Government’s plans to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia, the first of its kind amongst Western democracies”.
While Google conceded that there may be a need for certain restrictions, it said: “We have a bias in favour of people’s right to free expression.”
The Internet giant also noted that mandatory filtering would “negatively impact user access speeds”, while questioning the effectiveness of restricting material on high-volume sites, such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
A US State Department spokesperson raised concerns about Australia’s filter plans earlier this week.
“Our main message of course is that we remain committed to advancing the free flow of information, which we view as vital to economic prosperity and preserving open societies globally,” US State Department spokesman Michael Tran told The Associated Press.
“We don’t discuss the details of specific diplomatic exchanges, but I can say that in the context of that ongoing relationship, we have raised our concerns on this matter with Australian officials,” he added.
The Federal Government intends to introduce legislation within weeks requiring all ISP’s to block access to illegal material, such as child pornography or content refused classification (RC) by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Mr Conroy said it would be inappropriate to talk about discussions with the US Government, the ABC reported, but says the Government remains committed to the plan.
Criticism of the filter has centred around the Government’s refusal to release a list of banned sites, raising concerns governments could censor at will, without proper oversight.
While Mr Conroy conceded that there might have to be more oversight, he says the Government is only providing the same level of censorship it applies to films and books.
Releasing the “blacklist” would defeat the purpose of the filter, he said.
“When you publish a list of titles of books that are banned or movies that are banned, you don’t give access to the materials by producing that list,” he told ABC radio. “The problem when you produce a list of URLs is you are actually giving the address of where to go and look.”
Google Australia raised concerns about the filter on its official blog in December last year saying: “At Google, we are concerned by the Government’s plans to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia, the first of its kind amongst Western democracies”.
While Google conceded that there may be a need for certain restrictions, it said: “We have a bias in favour of people’s right to free expression.”
The Internet giant also noted that mandatory filtering would “negatively impact user access speeds”, while questioning the effectiveness of restricting material on high-volume sites, such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
