Web Strategy Micksup

fahrenheit burn

Originally uploaded by mrtwism

It’s been a while since I wrote on this blog, but this issue is crucial.

Elias has written a great post about the Internet Filtering issue here in Australia and I wanted to have my say.

Summary - In an effort to protect the Australian youth from potentially harmful information and material on the Internet, the Australian government is proposing to filter all information at the ISP level and decide what gets through.

In an effort to understand the argument from both sides, I can see how this would appear to be a good solution. There are sites out there with offensive material that I wouldn’t want my children, or anyone probably, to see. Only showing approved material would reduce that risk dramatically and the ISP’s are the ‘junction box’. So I see how a busy politician can sign this off as a nice, clean, quick fix.

But it would be a bad fix. A disastrous fix. A fix that heads us down a very dangerous path that will not even work. Here are my reasons.

1. You can’t filter the Internet.

The Internet is not a finite set of media. It’s unlimited. It’s pervasive. You can’t effectively filter it and trying to just means that all the really good stuff gets blocked, damaged or obfuscated too.

The Internet is as open as conversations are. Shall we also filter our verbal communication too? Everyone who wants to say anything must first submit it to the government body for approval, then wait 4-6 weeks for it to go through the department, then if it’s approved, you can say it.

2. Banning and burning books has never worked.

You are trying to stop people learning about ideas that they want to learn about. Banning books, newsletters, websites doesn’t stop that information for wanting to be learned, in fact in history the opposite has happened. Human nature increases the desire to find out what is hidden from us.

3. It tries to deal with the symptom not the cause.

I’m not talking about taking the websites down at the source. I’m talking about dealing with the issue of looking after our children.

Putting a filter on the Internet is like bringing in a nanny full time to raise our children. We’re abdicating responsibility for something that is too important. Unlike Whitney, I *know* that children are our future, and I want them to live amazing lives and take our world to unimaginable places. This is not going to happen if I, you and everyone else spends so much time at work, gym, pub, that we don’t have the time to be with our children. Enough time to listen to them, talk to them, understand them, help them.

They say that if norms are not enough, then laws don’t matter. In this context, this means that if our kids don’t know enough not to be looking for, reading or being influenced by the websites we’re trying to filter, then blocking them can never work. It never has in history.

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The Bottom Line

Don’t filter the Internet. You can’t, it won’t work and you shouldn’t.

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More on this topic;
USA Today
Tom’s Tech Blog

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