Who’s monitoring the Internet screeners?

By Jane Searle September 2002

Public scrutiny of Internet censorship is under fire, as the federal government tightens provisions on Freedom of Information laws. Changes proposed in July will make Internet censors unaccountable, says the civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia.

“Some information we’ve obtained raises questions about the accuracy of government reports on the operation of the regime. There is no reason for the broad exemptions proposed other than to prevent public scrutiny”, says EFA Executive Director Irene Graham.

Amendments to the FOI Act would increase government power to censor documents concerning the activities of the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) and the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). Both organisations collaborate to classify and regulate Internet content referred to them by the public.

“The exemptions are extraordinary. The ABA and OFLC could write the name of a ‘prohibited’ web page on any document they don’t want to release and the entire document would then be exempt”, said Graham.

The proposals follow a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to uphold a policy of non-disclosure for the ABA.

A two-year legal wrangle between the ABA and EFA came to a head in June, when the AAT ruled in favour of the Internet censor. “The decision flies in the face of assurances given by the Minister for Communications, Senator Alston, to the Commonwealth Parliament that the Internet censorship scheme would not censor censorship decisions themselves”, said Graham.

ABA Chairman, Professor David Flint, said he was pleased the AAT saw the need to protect information that would enable people to access illegal and offensive Internet content.

The AAT, in the decision’s closing remarks, acknowledged that “the veil of non-disclosure” could bring the scheme’s integrity into question, and that “secrecy may of itself undermine the public’s confidence”. The Tribunal said the case had raised “important issues relating to censorship and openness of government”, which it hoped would be addressed in a review of the scheme.

Since January 2000, legislation has empowered the ABA to issue take-down notices to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Australia hosting “unsuitable content”. The system is complaints-based, with the ABA assessing submissions from the public.

In February 2000, EFA filed a number of Freedom of Information requests, demanding greater accountability from the ABA. A fraction of the applications were met. “The number of excuses the government and other organisations use to deny FOI requests is incredible – they do everything they can to delay the request as long as they can, and by the time you get it it’s useless”, said Graham.

EFA alleges that discrepancies exist between government reports and information released to them in FOI requests. They say the ABA has overblown statistics to enhance the scheme’s perceived effectiveness.

In one example, the ABA reported 67 “items” of prohibited content in a six-month report to December 2000. EFA says the figure is misleading as just six sites were taken down – a statistic supported by the Office of Film and Literature Classification.

Richard Fraser, ABA’s Online Services Manager, says: “An ‘item’ is a web page or newsgroup posting, and we generally encourage people to complain about a specific page, as opposed to a URL. With the reporting of items, we’re really following international conventions, and we believe that’s what gives the best indication of the amount of material we work with.”

Due to the Internet’s global reach, EFA have criticised regulation as futile. They claim that over 95 percent of the ABA’s spending is related to classifying overseas-hosted sites – which the organisation has no power to ban, but which it may refer to filter providers.

According to EFA, any content the government does ban is merely re-hosted overseas. ABA’s Richard Fraser estimates that overseas material accounts for “some 80 percent or three quarters of the sites we work with”. He also admits that filter technologies block material that is “often innocuous”.

The need to protect addresses of banned sites has also been queried. Questioned on this, ABA’s Jason Crossman says: “I’d like to know that myself”.

The practice of placing R-rated material behind restricted access systems has also been widely criticised. R-rated content includes issues such as racism, marital problems and religion – which critics say could restrict online discussion of politics, relationships and medicine. John Fairfax Holdings has also voiced concern about the impact for online news reporting.

The Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Enforcement Amendment Act 2001 was passed by parliament last year, but referred to a committee for review.

In June the NSW Government's Standing Committee on Social Issues recommended the legislation be repealed. The committee's report said proposed legislation was "likely to restrict law-abiding content providers while doing little to deter those with malicious motives".

Child pornography and protection of minors remain contentious issues in the censorship debate. ABA’s Richard Fraser says most of the material the organisation deals with is overseas-hosted child pornography. “By making available a list of sites, it would be highly likely that the information would quickly fall into the hand of pedophiles and people in child pornography”. Fraser declined to comment on EFA’s claim that material regarding child pornography was never sought by the organisation.

Graham says child pornography is used to cloak wider issues. “The ABA has consistently implied that EFA was seeking URLs (site addresses) of material involving child pornography, but that is not factual. We told the AAT that, in the presence of the ABA, but apparently it’s more convenient to the ABA to continue to imply that is what the case was about”, she said.

Graham says other organisations involved in Internet censorship are equally opaque. The Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) – which classifies content referred to it by the ABA – is “just as secretive”, says Graham.

“On their last annual report they (the OFLC) cited a lot of classified content that was PG and MA. We’re asking why the ABA is so unsure of classification that it’s wasting taxpayers’ money to ask the OFLC to classify these sites.” A freedom of information request is yet to be processed by the OFLC. The government’s Internet censorship scheme is due for review in January 2003.