Applying classification controls to Internet content in Australia

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-08-2014-0037
Published date11 May 2015
Pages82-97
Date11 May 2015
AuthorShona Leitch,Matthew Warren
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information management & governance
Applying classication controls
to Internet content in Australia
Shona Leitch
College of Business, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia, and
Matthew Warren
Faculty of Business and Law, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore Australian public and stakeholders views towards
the regulation of the Internet and its content. The federal government called for submissions addressing
their proposal, and this paper analyses these submissions for themes and provides clarity as to the
Australian public and stakeholders key concerns in regards to the proposed policy.
Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a qualitative approach to analyse the public
consultations to the Australian Federal Government. These documents are coded and analysed to
determine negative and positive viewpoints.
Findings – The research has shown, based upon the analysis of the consultation, that there was no
public support for any of the measures put forward, that the Australian Federal Government in its
response has not recognised this public feedback and instead has only utilised some of the qualitative
feedback obtained through the public consultation process to try to justify its case to proceed with its
proposals.
Research limitations/implications – The study is focussed on Australia.
Practical implications – The paper analyses a proposed national approach to ltering the content of
the Internet and discussed the public reaction to such an approach.
Social implications – The paper looks at how different parts of Australian society view Internet
ltering in a positive or negative manner.
Originality/value – The only study that directly looks at the viewpoint of the Australian public.
Keywords National cultures, Cyberspace, Internet ltering
Paper type Case study
1. Introduction
The Internet and the possibilities it provides is key to many societies from a
government, commerce and social perspective. The ability to exchange ideas, messages,
collaborate, undertake nancial transactions in a matter of seconds and even vote online
makes the Internet the foundation on which many countries live, work and socialise.
Whilst the Internet offers us all these services and opportunities, the free access to
information which once was of the standout elements of its inception and creation is now
becoming the battleground of the future with calls for increased censorship and Internet
ltering.
Australia of course is not immune to this debate and as a part of the global
information society has had to deal with a number of ethical issues in relation to the
Internet and its usage; particularly, the distribution of illegal and anti-social material. In
Australia (between 2010-2011) the percentage of households with access to the Internet
at home was 79 per cent (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011); this clearly
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
JICES
13,2
82
Received 22 August 2014
Revised 22 August 2014
Accepted 13 November 2014
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.13 No. 2, 2015
pp.82-97
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-08-2014-0037
demonstrates the strong popularity of the Internet in Australia. Historically, the initial
focus of the Internet was the distribution of information in a static manner, but over time
and through the development of technology, the Internet has now developed into Web
2.0 (DiMicco and Millen, 2007). The Web is no longer a collection of static pages of
HTML that describe something in the world; increasingly, the Web is the world.
Everything and everyone in the world casts an “information shadow”, an aura of data
which, when captured and processed intelligently, offers extraordinary opportunity and
mind-bending implications (O’Reilly and Battelle, 2009). In recent years, the emergence
of Web 2.0 and related sites, such as Facebook have had a major impact upon the
Internet (Shuen, 2008).
The paper will establish the current global environment in regards to the use and
application of Internet ltering, it will review and analyse the proposals put forward by
the Australian Federal Government and provide the results of a thematic analysis of
public submissions to demonstrate the comparison between the Government’s proposed
desires and the beliefs of the public in regards to Internet content control.
2. Literature review
This section will reect upon current literature in relation to Internet ltering and
censorship across the world as well as providing a background to this issue in the
Australasian region.
2.1 Internet ltering and censorship
Throughout history, there has always been censorship albeit in different forms and of
different concentrations. This censorship has often been controlled by governments (or
governing bodies) who have tried to control the ow of information, whether in be in
newspaper, books, TV or radio (Cohen, 2012). The introduction of the Internet brought
new challenges for those wishing to censor information; a single individual able to put
their point of view to a global audience was a dramatic shift of power and an individual
could then theoretically bypass controls to stop that sharing of information and the
governments’ controls. There are a number of telecommunications organisations,
Internet and search engine providers that comply with the requests of countries’
governments to censor and lter Internet content; these requests are from the
governments who apply clear pressure on the private providers. Refusal is often
complex, as some of the countries who wish to apply these lters are the biggest markets
for these providers, e.g. China. In 2010, Google admitted they had been applying China’s
Internet censorship policy for a number of years and announced that they would no
longer be doing so. These content blocking and ltering systems use “black lists” which
contain information about the different domain names and uniform resource locator’s
(URL’s) which the country wishes to restrict access to (BBC, 2010). This trend is not only
limited to countries such as China but it is becoming more common in westernised areas
such as Australia and the United Kingdom (UK).
The UK Government in 2013 took the step of introducing a self-regulatory agreement
with some of the UK’s biggest Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The ISP’s that were
involved in this scheme covered 95 per cent of all households in the UK, and at the time,
the ltering system was tagged as being “family-friendly” (Taylor, 2013). The UK model
involved ISPs applying lters to block access to inappropriate pornography and to
increase co-operation with ISP’s. As part of the initiative, two search providers, Google
83
Controls to
Internet
content in
Australia

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT