The recently elected Labor government in our blessed country is proceeding relentlessly in their quest to implement an isp-level net filter with trials soon to be conducted in Tasmania. Once again common sense goes out the window and we have a government ramming a solution down our throats that only the sectional religious interests actually want. But I’m not too worried. Why? Because the government is setting itself up for an immense embarrasment. And it’s forcing out into the open something that the rest of the country has been happy to keep under the rug. And what is this something? Well, it turns out - shock horror - a lot of us really, really like porn.

But let’s give the government a fair go and review their argument. For them it stems from a desire to protect innocent children from accessing objectionable material. Well - none of us can object to their aim. We all want to protect children. So as to prevent the discussion from being completely silly - let’s just grant for sake of argument that the action of preventing a child from seeing some content to be found on the internet as a means of protecting that child. On what grounds then could we object?

Well, before we can even frame a response, the minister for communication Stephen Conroy has us conveniently pigeon holed:

“Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road. If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree.”

It seems our generous attempt to prevent an over-simplification of a complex issue is probably by-the-by if THIS is what we’re dealing with. So since we must wade through the mud of idiocracy - let’s getting to work explaining just what is ridiculous about this quote just in case we have a few readers who find it reasonable.

It’s ridiculous because it frames the issue to be about something it’s not: child pornography. There are already laws against child pornography. It’s illegal just about everywhere to operate a child pornography site. People who do are investigated - and arrested. As in all cases no law enforcement technique is perfect, but considerable resources are thrown at the problem. Now a net filter is NOT about child pornography, for when they find such sites they are very quickly shut down and the act of adding them to a filter is then completely redundant. And don’t think they don’t have these sorts of resources - in July of last year they moved against a sydicate spread across seventy seven different nations. They didn’t just shut the site down - based in Russia - they went after all the people of some two thousand plus ip addresses tracked to the site. This isn’t like the Pirate Bay where criminal proceedings take years to get going. As soon as it is identified in the case of child pornography, law enforcement has the legal powers and the international co-operation to shut the site down. So our net filter isn’t about child pornography at all.

At best, it’s about protecting kids from pornographic and violent content, as well as the risk posed by chat room and social networking. And once again - let’s try and avoid a pointless discussion concerning whether this material really does constitute a threat to the well-being of children. Let’s just grant this for sake of argument. The question is this: given that there are many different levels of explicit material, ranging from the tame to the hardcore:

Who gets to decide what content is objectionable? The government or us?

Our previous Liberal government (for once actually living up to their namesake) deemed that the choice was for us to make. They provided free access to a number of different filtering programs -each with different features, allowing parents to block access to different kinds of material. The remnants of this soon to be eliminated program can be found: here.

The Labor government believes that it is for them to decide what is objectionable. Evidence for their position goes beyond the decision to implement the filter itself, but the fact that the Liberal plan was seen to be a failure. Quoting from SMH:

The filter scheme was a central feature of the Howard Government’s $189 million NetAlert program launched last August to address the perceived threat of online sexual predators and unsavoury content to young internet users. A multimillion dollar advertising blitz followed, including a booklet delivered to every household across the nation.

It was expected 2.5 million households would take up the free porn-blocking filters within 12 months but only 144,088 filter products have been downloaded or ordered on CD-ROM since August last year.

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has estimated about 29,000 of these accessed filter products were still being used - less than 2 per cent of the set target.

“The program has clearly failed, despite over $15 million being spent in advertising to support it,” Mr Conroy said.

So the logic is this: the government gave us the option to voluntarily accept what they think is right for us. The fact that we didn’t make the desired choice is not taken as evidence that we feel capable of educating our own children about the perils of the internet - but instead taken as evidence that we should have the choice forced upon us.

Of course, as much as they desire it. They can’t go all the way in their decision. We can opt-out if we choose. But we have to write to our isp to do it. And here’s the thing - for the sake of your own pride as a government, why on earth would you make it opt out as opposed to opt-in? I assume the logic is that Australians are going to be too embarrased to ask to opt-in to watch porn. But this is the Australian male we’re talking about. Not just Australian men - men in general. We love porn. We watch it all the time. In an age where the porn industry is actually moving forward in its own de-commodification (i.e. the rise of free porn on web 2.0 sites), the Australian government is seeking to re-instate its value as a commodity by disrupting supply.

It will not be tolerated. Many men around today still remember their adolescent days when they were too ashamed to have to pay in person for porn magazines. When a mate showed up at school with one - it was like seeing a gold nugget. We won’t go back to that. We will not let it happen. Now that we’ve had the taste of limitless access to simulated carnal satisfaction we simply will not tolerate a reversal.

Men will opt-out en-masse. Women too - if a study in 2003 by media academic Catherine Lumby is accurate. If embarrased, we’ll cite freedom of speech with a defiant chin held high. But we’ll all know what it’s really about.

Now an opt-in failure can be explained away by passivity and laziness. It’s not that we love watching porn - we just aren’t active enough to protect our kids etc. A mass decision by Australian households to opt-out of the net filter, however, will be like a giant, open air, hands raised vote for pornography. It will be out in the open once and for all, that we like, love, can’t-get-enough-of, porn. It will be as if we had a national referendum.

The labor government is unwittingly conducting a national porn referendum. And I can’t wait to see the egg on their faces that will result.