In recent debate over the Australian Government’s schemes to censor the Internet, ‘censor’ is increasingly the word of choice for those – such as myself – who oppose these plans.
Swimming Pool: a filter keeps it nice and clean
The Government’s preferred term – the one it tried to get accepted in the debate – is ‘filter’. Along with key proponents of this scheme in civil society, Communications Minister Conroy pushed the term ‘filter’ from the outset.
Battles over terminology can be important. In a local campaign over a proposal to carve a huge new highway through World Heritage rainforests, as long as proponents got away with the word ‘Upgrade’ they had momentum. Conservationists opposing the road insisted on the term ‘Four-Lane Highway’. Not a big difference, perhaps, but significant in its implications. Everyone wants ‘upgrades’! But are we quite sure we want more big highways? That’s not so alluring by half. (I should note that other factors, such as escalating cost, were also involved in the temporary demise of that dreadful proposal).
Anyhow, back to ‘filters’. It’s easy to see why the government liked this term. It makes it seem like a cleansing measure. The kind of thing any responsible swimming pool owner would insist upon. Who wants algal slime and creepy-crawlies in their pool?
Where river meets ocean: try filtering that!
But a moment’s reflection is enough to establish the analogy is utterly false.
The World Wide Web is nothing like a swimming pool. A local computer station is more like a swimming pool. That’s where it’s appropriate to apply a filter – and the ‘pool owner’ (computer owner/administrator) takes responsibility for doing so. That’s what has been happening in Australia with web ‘filtering’, assisted by government, until now.
But the World Wide Web is no swimming pool. It’s a much bigger pond than that! It’s more like the ocean – or a mighty river like the Amazon.
No-one in their right mind would try to filter such phenomena. It’s nuts.
Does the word ‘censor’ better reflect the reality of the government’s proposals? Of course it does. Like the ‘Four Lane Highway’ expression, it’s not excessively loaded. It doesn’t falsely skew perception. It is simply the technically correct word, in this case.
If the Rudd Government believes there is a case for censorship of the World Wide Web (and the broader Internet?) so powerful that it believes it must over-ride Articles 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the general public, why not present it, without fabricated moral panics, spin and loaded terminology?
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act, the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.”
Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
