Mandatory Filtering for Australian ISPs

I do not think Australian ISPs should be forced to filter Internet content, although mandatory filtering for Australian ISPs can protect children from exposure to RC-rated content when they are online to some extend. There are much more issues associated with Internet content filtering should be taken into consideration.

The first problem is the difficulty in identifying prohibited content which required to be filtered for mandatory ISP filtering. As I found that ISPs can not filter all material for prohibited content unless they are told which particular content is prohibited contend. The Australian Broadcasting Authority had only notified ISPs limited items of content that had identified. Therefore, blocking those partial items that expected to increase constantly would not protect children effectively. The second issue should be addressed is overblocking and underblocking of filters. Filters vary in their effectiveness. According to the data measured by their rates of failure to block prohibited content identified by the ABA. I discovered that some approved filter vendors had not added all ABA notified items of content to their blacklists. Subsequently, the filters failed to block some notified content, and may incorrectly block a significant percentage of material that apparently should not have been blocked including sexual health and education. The risk of privacy infringement is the third issue. I learned that auditing and tracking is an important feature of many Internet filtering products, except for blocking access to unacceptable content. Thus, surfing activity of individual users can be examined. The potential for mis-use or inadvertent disclosure of detail of customers’ Internet usage would threaten users’ privacy.

 In conclusion, the use of filtering software should not be mandatory. The key to protect children from inappropriate content and enjoy the wonders of the Internet is Internet safety education. The filtering software should be installed voluntarily to suit family’s needs, rather than a one-size-fits-all ISP filtering system. 

 

ISP level filtering won't work