Many years ago, I read Gloria Steinem’s Moving Beyond Words, and my favourite essay from that collection was “What if Freud were Phyllis” (excerpt here). When I read that, I remember laughing at some of the reversals of gender roles and then realising the reality. It was a bit of a wake-up call about some unconscious beliefs I held and how deeply our acceptance of things is.
But it occurred to me that we could be doing similarly to the current rhetoric of Cyber-safety. What if we reversed some of the language of the debate and proposed it as a measure for protecting adults. I’m not as talented as Ms Steinem, but I’ve had a small hack at Labor’s Policy (PDF). All I have done is reverse the Child and Adult distinction. This is what page 5 of the policy would state under these conditions:
Labor’s Fresh ideas for cyber-safety
Labor is committed to protecting Australian adults online.
In recent years computers and the internet have opened up a world of possibilities for Australian adults. However, they have also opened our adults up to dangers that did not previously exist such as cyber-bullying, e-security issues and computer addiction.
While the Government has implemented its Protecting Australian Families Online program, it is simply not good enough. The message isn’t getting out there, the PC filters can be bypassed and Australian adults are at risk.
This will be remedied by Labor’s Cyber-safety Policy.
Mandatory ISP Filtering
A Rudd Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a ‘clean feed’ internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by adults, such as public libraries.
Labor’s ISP policy will prevent Australian adults from accessing any content that has been identified as prohibited by ACMA, including sites such as those containing adult pornography and X-rated material.
Labor will also ensure that the ACMA black list is more comprehensive. It will do so, for example, by liaising with international agencies such as Interpol, Europol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Adult Exploitation and Online Protection (AEOP) Centre and ISPs to ensure that adequate online protection is provided to Australian adults and families.
If you can support this rendering of the cyber-safety policy, then by all means, support the policy. However, when I read this version, I do not see protection. I see control – control of information and control of beliefs. It worries me deeply. In all the rhetoric about protecting children, it seems that adults are being rendered childlike. There’s an infantalisation of almost everyone (except of course, polliticians and members of the ACL). From where did this protectionism come? The skills we need to develop for navigating the ‘new frontiers’ will never emerge if the frontier is fenced off. Walled gardens do not work.
Say NO to the Clean Feed and Stop Internet Censorship!
Other Resources:
Bookmarks for NoCleanFeed (currently about 1000)
Bookmarks for Australia and Censorship (currently about 2000)
Tags:
censorship, nocleanfeed, politics