The Australian Federal Government is planning to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to censor the internet for all Australians through the use of a technological ‘filter’ that will attempt to block access to certain websites on a government controlled list.
The government’s main ‘selling point’ for this filter is that this will protect children from seeing inappropriate material on the internet, and stop the trading of child sexual abuse material. Some groups applaud this as a child protection measure, while others protest against it for various reasons, such as that it will make the internet slower, it will be easily bypassed, and it will cost a great deal of public money to build and enforce.
– Does this filter comply with the ‘end to end’ design principle of the internet?
– What formal and informal regulatory structures can you identify in this filtering proposal?
– How does Barlow’s ‘Declaration’, written as a response to a proposal to censor the internet, contrast with Electronic Frontiers Australia’s response to the filter? You can find the EFA response here: https://openinternet.com.au/
A. Journal article:
1- Barlow, J. A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.
https://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html
2- Committee on the Internet in the Evolving Information Infrastructure, The Internet’s Coming of Age. Overview and Recommendations, and Chapter https://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9823
B. Supplemental reading
1- Lloyd, I. (2011) Information Technology Law, 6th Ed. Oxford University Press. Chapter 27, pp 567-8.
You may find the introduction to the chapter 27 (pp. 567-8) a valuable starting point to understand the justification for expanding regulation of the internet.
2- Easterbrook, F. Cyberspace and the Law of the Horse, 1996 U. C,
https://www.law.upenn.edu/fac/pwagner/law619/f2001/week15/easterbrook.pdf
3- Lessig, L. The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach
https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/1999/The_Law_of_the_Horse