Australia's Foray into Internet Censorship

Australia's decision to implement Internet censorship using
technological means creates a natural experiment: the first Western
democracy to mandate filtering legislatively, and to retrofit it to a
decentralized network architecture. But are the proposed restrictions
legitimate?

The new restraints derive from the Labor Party's pro-filtering
electoral campaign, though coalition government gives minority
politicians considerable influence over policy. The country has a
well-defined statutory censorship system for on-line and off-line
material that may, however, be undercut by relying on foreign and
third-party lists of sites to be blocked.
While Australia is open about its filtering goals, the government's
transparency about what content is to be blocked is poor.
Initial tests show that how effective censorship is at filtering
prohibited content - and only that content - will vary based on what
method the country's ISPs use.

Though Australia's decision makers are formally accountable to
citizens, efforts to silence dissenters, outsourcing of blocking
decisions, and filtering's inevitable transfer of power to
technicians undercut accountability.

The paper argues Australia represents a shift by Western democracies
towards legitimating Internet filtering and away from robust
consideration of the alternatives available to combat undesirable
information.