Earlier this month I was forced to accept the effectiveness of Stephen Conroy’s ‘child porn’ agenda to push the upcoming internet filter through. It appeared that the greatest nation on earth for internet censorship, China, had learnt from our Conroy and based their new pc filter around his sales pitch.

China plans to require that all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 be shipped with software that blocks access to certain Web sites, a move that could give government censors unprecedented control over how Chinese users access the Internet.

The government, which has told global PC makers of the requirement but has yet to announce it to the public, says the effort is aimed at protecting young people from “harmful” content. The primary target is pornography, says the main developer of the software, a company that has ties to China’s security ministry and military.


It seemed protecting the children from porn harmful content was much more effective in selling the filter to the masses then the usual “don’t write anything negative about us or we’ll come to your house and drag you away”.

Whilst slightly different then Conroy’s proposed filter for Australia, in that China already has a mandatory national filter set up, the fact that this additional level of protection was being introduced by the Chinese government begged two questions;

1. If the mandatory state filter was an effective solution, why the need for an additional filter at the pc level?

2. If China, who have 30,000 internet police removing content 24/7, feel the  need for an additional home based filter for effective internet censorship, will mandatory home level filtering be the next phase of Conroy’s filter agenda?

With the announcement today that the enforcement of a mandatory home filter has been delayed, thankfully the ramifications to the answers of the above questions don’t matter, well at least for now.

In a rare reversal, China’s government has given in to domestic and international pressure and backed down from a rule that would have required personal computers sold in the country to have internet-filtering software.

Just hours before the rule was to have taken effect on Wednesday, the government said it would postpone the requirement for the “Green Dam Youth Escort” software.

Chinese government's depiction of an internet filter: Apparently we need to save the children from black spiky potato porn.


“Green Dam Youth Escort“, no seriously who comes up with these names? If I ever go visit a dam and the water is GREEN I’m certainly not going to feel any safer from child pornography let alone feel compelled to drink the water.

And what’s with Youth escort? It sounds like some kind of fancy upper class name for a child prostitute.

“Hi I’d like to book a hotel room for me and my youth escort here.”

What gives China?

In Australia we are currently in what must be the final stages of the ISP filter trial, with the reports due to be published later this month. Unfortunately as far as I know there is still no success criteria (or failure criteria for that matter) so I’m not sure what the report could possibly contain beyond:

Hay guys, we blocked 908,096,091 websites during the trial = LOL SUCCESS!

The latest debarcle in Conroy’s filter project was the announcement last week that websites selling games that were above an MA15+ rating would be blocked by the proposed national filter.

Currently Australia does not have a higher rating beyond MA15+ for games, so despite non classified games not necessarily being illegal to own they are illegal to sell in Australia. Why we have such a system when anybody with half a brain can just jump on the internet and legally purchase from overseas I have no idea, but the government is clearly looking to put a stop to it.

Firstly there is currently nothing illegal about adults buying refused classification games from overseas vendors. These transacations are mostly conducted via credit card and usually have clauses stating minors are not allowed to purchase. Currently the median age of gamers in Australia is 30, so it’s not like kids are out there buying RC games in the thousands.

Not to mention the fact that it’s illegal for minors to do so. If parent’s cannot reign in their kids just how much is the adult population of Australia supposed to put up with? If the government doesn’t want me as an adult legally buying RC games from overseas then make possessing RC material illegal in Australia and face the backlash.

Or alternatively or the next time some deadbeat parents gets onto the news complaining because their kid downloaded a Japanese child hentai game from a bittorrent site educational website while doing their homework, PROSECUTE THE FREAKING PARENTS.

To give you an example of just how arcane our existing rating system is here in Australia, I’ll use the example of Fallout 3 which was featured in a SMH article about the gaming censorship proposal.

The photo (shown to the right) was accompanied with the caption:

Fallout 3 was banned from sale in Australia until it was modified to remove objectionable content.


As if to suggest violence was why it was banned. Infact the game, which was targeted at an adult market, was banned for its “realistic depiction” of drugs as health powerups.

Meanwhile any adult in Australia can walk into a dvd store and hire out thousands of movies showing drug use in a much more realistic manner then running over them to gain some health in a video game ever will.

The news today that China has backed down on it’s controversial mandatory home filter policy proves that there’s room for negotiation at the highest level of internet censorship support. I think it’s important that we keep this in mind as we the public negotiate the shaky future of internet censorship in Australia.

With the reports of the trials due to be published this month and the lackluster enthusiasm the government has shown so far in sharing information with the public, one can place some fatih in the results of the trial putting a hold on any national filter plans.

Clearly we’ve seen the original scope of ‘we’re here to protect the children from porn’ blown out of the water. How much further are the government willing to intrude on Australian adult’s day to day lives and how long will it be before we see a mandatory home filter system in Australia?

Conroy seems to be a great subscriber to China’s internet policy, hopefully that includes their mistakes too.

1. Stephen Conroy censors TV debate on internet filter
2. Stephen Conroy admits internet filter is useless
3. Google says no to China censorship, but Australia ok?
4. The future of Australian internet under Stephen Conroy
5. Is big business behind Conroy's filter?