The censor in the machine
Internet growth statistics are mind numbing: hundreds of millions of
users, millions of web sites, and a flood of new content entering the sea
of the internet every day. This is a significant problem for the Australian
government, which champions censorship of the internet. It is impossible
for any person or organisation to examine every new web site, page by page.
Nevertheless, there are many “filter” products sold that claim to be
able to pick out any suspect sites. “Suspect” in this case means failing
have the approval of the US censorship lobby: conservative Christian groups,
opportunist politicians and people with nothing better to get upset about
(the products generally come from the US).
(In this discussion I am leaving aside the issue of crime carried out
via the internet. For example, someone posting evidence of violent crime
or child pornography would almost certainly be breaching national criminal
laws. The cases I am considering are those where supporters of censorship
are trying to implement rules that are generally not law in their own country.)
There is a large and flourishing community of people who vigorously
champion free speech on the internet. A few weeks ago the Digital Freedom
Network (<http://www.dfn.org>) posted
the results of a competition to identify the most ridiculous results of
internet filters.
First prize went to a student from Carroll High School in the US. One
of the simplest ways for a filter to work is to prevent access to an internet
site that contains words related to drugs, sex, violence and hatred. A
notable victim of such filters is news. In the case uncovered by the US
student, the drug-sensitive guardians of internet wholesomeness decided
that words such as “high” were offensive. This meant that students could
not find anything to do with high schools, including their own school site.
In addition to blocking sites, the filters may block words or parts
of words, so in one case “class” became “cl***”.
Hillary Anne seems a pretty innocuous name, but that shows how naive
you are. Filters are smarter than you — they found the race-hate word “Aryan”
sneakily hidden there. The name Heather is a no-no too, containing the
phrase “eat her”.
Netnanny, Surfwatch, Cybersitter, N2H2 and Wisechoice are among the
filter programs that will prevent you if you try to visit the site of Dick
Armey, majority leader of the US House of Representatives and a staunch
defender of filters (did he really think that his first name could be mentioned
in public?).
Live in a place like Sussex and of course you are asking for trouble.
Words like “adult”, “teen”, “couples”, “mate” obviously suggest pornography.
And you might not have noticed the three and four letter profanities in
“cucumber” and “analysis”.
Once you know how the filters work, it is simple to corrupt them. For
example, Bennett Haselton from the anti-censorship site Peacefire sent
the following sentence through Cybersitter: “Gary Bauer is a staunch anti-homosexual
conservative who sees the gay movement as absolutely pure fascism and thinks
movies of men with men are the greatest terror.”
With the offensive words removed, it emerged as: “Gary Bauer is a staunch
anti-conservative who sees the gay movement as absolutely pure and thinks
movies of men with men are the greatest”.
BY GREG HARRIS
