Yet again, and of course as usual, the government of Australia demonstrating how much they value their citizens by totally ignoring them in favour of big business. Good job Tony.
In moves surprising nobody, leaders and party figures have already suggested using these new laws as a stepping stone to blocking other objectionable content such as pornography and who knows what else.
Whilst I agree with your sentiment as a legal permanent resident of Australia, I think it is dangerous (if very seductive) to blame Mr Abbott. He's been the party attack dog for so long that people focus their energy on making it personal with him (much as the Democrats focus on Bush and the Republicans have a thing for Obama).
First, from the little I've been tracking this issue, it appears it was the "relatively moderate", friendly, centrist, old guard Turnbull that was behind these moves. Chances are it's done as a favour to someone in Washington who needed something from someone connected to the Hollywood lobbies. Not the strongest of motives and the kind of thing that popular opinion can reverse.
Second, legislation doesn't magically happen in a vaccuum when the PM says so. Australians, you MUST get in touch with your local politician, both to let them know (politely) how you feel about certain issues, and to give them arguments to use in Canberra if you want any chance of legislation being passed the way you like it. It's not about Labour vs Liberals. Whoever has been locally elected, is now responsible for listening to you. They also don't do much thinking so it helps to do it for them: "This proposed legislation infringes individual rights like this, this and this; moreover, as per the Constitution, that" goes much further than "I am pissed at you for letting the PM get away with it".
This is of course not a personal response to your comment, but a general note that I thought about and that was triggered by your Tony note. I've found Australians relatively politically disengaged, with the general opinion - at least in Sydney - basically being "they're all scumbags anyway, things will work out in the end", followed by some expletives about Gillard, Rudd or Abbott depending on where the Australian leans...
A very good point, and well written. My only observation is this: politics doesn't happen in a vacuum, but the current government has set about ignoring polls and comments from the public on a range of other issues making me less inclined to believe they will shift for this one. That being said Labor isn't innocent of this either.
My local member has on several occasions refused to even answer calls or meet me to discuss this, based only on the fact that as a young adult my opinion must not be valid.
That's pragmatic, he/she made the calculation that you have little political weight. Chances are there are people who contributed to his/her campaign or who are members of the community with more pull, and that you and your family aren't part of that group, and current members of that group disagree with you on the topics you brought up to your member. Or maybe he just did the maths and decided that an hour's meeting would have a higher return on investment with someone else.
There's no easy solution: either you earn influence and use it to further your agenda (a la George Soros), or you try and build influence in some other way, such as publishing reasoned arguments in an easily shareable format, which is what the EFF is very good at. It's never been easier to have some impact.
There have been a number of web campaigns* initiated in Australia that have gained some traction. As you suggested, that's the best bet for the average person with technical skills and a way to get a concept to resonate with people.
Send a registered, written letter. There are legal requirements for written letters that mean MPs have to respond to them. I'm told that you should also ask a couple of disparate questions in the letter, as this means they can't simply respond with a form letter.
Hrm. Perhaps things have changed? I was told a while back by someone closer to Canberra than me that there were legal requirements for responding to letters; email was a boon, because it wasn't subject to those requirements. My apologies if I've misled.
It's not exactly in the mainstream media's interest to cover public opposition to this, either. For the most part, they have a vested interest in pushing this.
>First, from the little I've been tracking this issue, it appears it was the "relatively moderate", friendly, centrist, old guard Turnbull that was behind these moves. Chances are it's done as a favour to someone in Washington who needed something from someone connected to the Hollywood lobbies. Not the strongest of motives and the kind of thing that popular opinion can reverse.
With Netflix, Fox backed Presto (and the possibility of HBO) all starting up their streaming services over here in the past 6-12 months, It makes commercial sense to get rid of the free competition.
Yes, but these are American companies, not Australian. The move is a favour to Washington, not Australian businesses. Australia has been an extraordinary cash cow for global businesses for a few years [1] although the AUD being hammered more recently has diminished the advantage somewhat.
The reason it's important is that politically, local stuff is always much more valuable than scratching the back of foreigners. Take the JSF: it was pure lobbying genius by Lockheed to locate its supply chain in what, 47 states (and 9 countries). If you want to try and make that supply program more efficient, you're going to have to ask a representative to tell his electorate that 2,000 jobs are about to get axed in his state. These kind of things need to be killed before they get started, they are impossible to stop afterwards.
[1] I know a large, publicly listed retailer who made 40% of their GLOBAL profits from Australia in 2012. RRP was 50% higher there, and they offered free shipping. That company was present in at least 20 countries and based in Europe. The AU office was a couple of guys to answer any questions with local shipment companies - they didn't even have an Australian warehouse...
The greens aren't really interested in this issue; it just panders to their inner-city elite demographic. Also, I wouldn't clump the independents together - the PUP or the DLP aren't usually up for what's right.
Scott Ludlam is always genuinely interested in issues like this. Renai LeMay shut down Delimiter to join his staff, showing Ludlam values our sector IMO.
Ludlam is (I saw him panel at a sec conf once), but the Greens in general don't. It's not a very important plank to them - check out their site, and you can find it hidden away somewhere in one corner, behind everything else.
Conveniently there are no laws (currently) that compel people to support or vote only for either of the two big parties.
A subtle point that seems to be lost on most of my fellow citizens. Mind, it seems to be a regrettably common misconception elsewhere in the world too.
"The Coalition has never supported mandatory internet filtering. Indeed, we have a long record of opposing it," the statement said.
"The policy which was issued today was poorly worded and incorrectly indicated that the Coalition supported an 'opt-out' system of internet filtering for both mobile and fixed-line services. That is not our policy and never has been.
"The correct position is that the Coalition will encourage mobile phone and internet service providers to make available software which parents can choose to install on their own devices to protect their children from inappropriate material."
Apparently the ISPs are just going to use DNS poisoning, which anyone will be able to circumvent by using an overseas public DNS server, like Google's 8.8.8.8
That's not really the point though. The fact that a minority of tech-savvy users will be able to get around it doesn't change the fact that it's a very effective measure against Joe Sixpack and his family having unfettered access to information.
More generally, this is why i'm very sceptical of technical solutions to political problems. Years from now, you might find yourself along with your technically proficient minority of friends being the only people able to still access the Internet freely—most of it might have already become a corporate-controlled walled garden. I for one don't want to have to end up living in digital almost-exile just because we were too lazy to Do Something™ now, when there is still hope.
I admit that this is at once probably rather tinfoil-hatty but also almost reality (how many people would be able to find whatever they're looking for if something like Google Search were blocked? 5%? Never mind if DNS poisoning was added to that). We on HN would be fine, but this would seriously impede democracy, given how the other 95% would be stuck without access to information.
It's sad to think that with these laws being passed, regardless of what position you take, that we still don't have any Fair Use provisions in Australia. There was even a discussion paper [http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/4-case-fair-use-australi...] put forward by our Law Reform Commission suggesting this. I would have though the productivity benefits associated with education and innovation alone would make this a no brainer
Don't really think people from any other county should be looking down on Australia. This is the progression in every country, just at varying degrees currently.
People will look back on the first few decades of the Internet as the wild-west era. Kids will be born knowing nothing but draconian rules and enforcement for the Internet. And the powerful elite will once again have squelched anything that challenges their dominance. Business as usual.
I truly believe it is a core duty of technical people to subvert this control mechanism in whatever way we can. For example by inventing and writing freeing software like Tor, FreeNet, encryption, et cetera, and educating nontechnical voters, and calling and writing our elected officials.
It's also worth noting that this kind of legislation flows from the US entertainment industry. The US leans heavily on Australia to toughen up IP laws, and there really is no grassroots movement here that's interested in them. Some would say that Murdoch is involved as well, but we do get infected with US law via treaties.
I'm glad there are others in the information war who don't share that defeatist attitude. SOPA and PIPA were defeated and the exposure of the NSA phone metadata program has spurred an unprecedented movement to encrypt the web. The fight isn't over by any means.
A big problem I have with every law like this is how inherently inconstant and big business favored its enforcement is.
Say for example that you are a content developer and finds that illegal copies are sold on ebay. You ask them to take down one seller only to find new ones every day, and thus you go to the police and ask them to block ebay.
I doubt the person will ever get a day in court. There could be thousands of illegal copies listed each day and yet the political nature of blocking laws means that enforcement is depended on who does the accusation and whom the accused is.
At this point in our society, does this even matter? If you go against the status quo, you will be silenced by special interest groups and other users online for only expressing your opinion.
They did it to themselves. When you create a system where anyone and everyone can be silenced for their opinions, this is the result.
38 comments
[ 78.9 ms ] story [ 269 ms ] threadIn moves surprising nobody, leaders and party figures have already suggested using these new laws as a stepping stone to blocking other objectionable content such as pornography and who knows what else.
First, from the little I've been tracking this issue, it appears it was the "relatively moderate", friendly, centrist, old guard Turnbull that was behind these moves. Chances are it's done as a favour to someone in Washington who needed something from someone connected to the Hollywood lobbies. Not the strongest of motives and the kind of thing that popular opinion can reverse.
Second, legislation doesn't magically happen in a vaccuum when the PM says so. Australians, you MUST get in touch with your local politician, both to let them know (politely) how you feel about certain issues, and to give them arguments to use in Canberra if you want any chance of legislation being passed the way you like it. It's not about Labour vs Liberals. Whoever has been locally elected, is now responsible for listening to you. They also don't do much thinking so it helps to do it for them: "This proposed legislation infringes individual rights like this, this and this; moreover, as per the Constitution, that" goes much further than "I am pissed at you for letting the PM get away with it".
This is of course not a personal response to your comment, but a general note that I thought about and that was triggered by your Tony note. I've found Australians relatively politically disengaged, with the general opinion - at least in Sydney - basically being "they're all scumbags anyway, things will work out in the end", followed by some expletives about Gillard, Rudd or Abbott depending on where the Australian leans...
My local member has on several occasions refused to even answer calls or meet me to discuss this, based only on the fact that as a young adult my opinion must not be valid.
There's no easy solution: either you earn influence and use it to further your agenda (a la George Soros), or you try and build influence in some other way, such as publishing reasoned arguments in an easily shareable format, which is what the EFF is very good at. It's never been easier to have some impact.
* This is one example: http://howfastisthenbn.com.au/
letter-to-MP tips https://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/lobby.html#tipsletter
With Netflix, Fox backed Presto (and the possibility of HBO) all starting up their streaming services over here in the past 6-12 months, It makes commercial sense to get rid of the free competition.
The reason it's important is that politically, local stuff is always much more valuable than scratching the back of foreigners. Take the JSF: it was pure lobbying genius by Lockheed to locate its supply chain in what, 47 states (and 9 countries). If you want to try and make that supply program more efficient, you're going to have to ask a representative to tell his electorate that 2,000 jobs are about to get axed in his state. These kind of things need to be killed before they get started, they are impossible to stop afterwards.
But then you get things like Rick Santorum trying to stop the National Weather Service from publishing data publicly for free after getting just $11,000 from AccuWeather (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Weather_Service_Dutie...).
[1] I know a large, publicly listed retailer who made 40% of their GLOBAL profits from Australia in 2012. RRP was 50% higher there, and they offered free shipping. That company was present in at least 20 countries and based in Europe. The AU office was a couple of guys to answer any questions with local shipment companies - they didn't even have an Australian warehouse...
sigh why is it only the Greens and Independents who are willing to stand up for what's right.
Look at the history, collectively, it got Labor/Liberal support from Federal and State governments as far back as 1995.
A subtle point that seems to be lost on most of my fellow citizens. Mind, it seems to be a regrettably common misconception elsewhere in the world too.
"The policy which was issued today was poorly worded and incorrectly indicated that the Coalition supported an 'opt-out' system of internet filtering for both mobile and fixed-line services. That is not our policy and never has been.
"The correct position is that the Coalition will encourage mobile phone and internet service providers to make available software which parents can choose to install on their own devices to protect their children from inappropriate material."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-05/no-internet-filter-say...
That's a second backflip. But I think it is a complete 360 turn.
More generally, this is why i'm very sceptical of technical solutions to political problems. Years from now, you might find yourself along with your technically proficient minority of friends being the only people able to still access the Internet freely—most of it might have already become a corporate-controlled walled garden. I for one don't want to have to end up living in digital almost-exile just because we were too lazy to Do Something™ now, when there is still hope.
I admit that this is at once probably rather tinfoil-hatty but also almost reality (how many people would be able to find whatever they're looking for if something like Google Search were blocked? 5%? Never mind if DNS poisoning was added to that). We on HN would be fine, but this would seriously impede democracy, given how the other 95% would be stuck without access to information.
Using a different DNS server is not a "workaround," once enough people do it, it is "escalation" that demands a response.
People will look back on the first few decades of the Internet as the wild-west era. Kids will be born knowing nothing but draconian rules and enforcement for the Internet. And the powerful elite will once again have squelched anything that challenges their dominance. Business as usual.
Say for example that you are a content developer and finds that illegal copies are sold on ebay. You ask them to take down one seller only to find new ones every day, and thus you go to the police and ask them to block ebay.
I doubt the person will ever get a day in court. There could be thousands of illegal copies listed each day and yet the political nature of blocking laws means that enforcement is depended on who does the accusation and whom the accused is.
Guess whose site will go down. Hint: not yours.
They did it to themselves. When you create a system where anyone and everyone can be silenced for their opinions, this is the result.
Bravo!