Censorship and the Internet.

The 2010 decade may well be one of the most pivotal for censorship debate. The
most obvious reason for why that is can be traced to the proliferation of the
Internet, and the effectiveness and utility of censorship with respect to it.
This article was written as I myself had to question my own views on the
Internet and censorship in general and found it raised far more questions than
it did answers. Being a programmer for the free software community, advocate for
free software and electronic free speech, and having an interest in Japanese
language and media, has brought together many interesting issues all related to
censorship. These are musings primarily on censorship itself, although the issue
of mandatory Internet filtering is touched upon.

We have to examine what the whole purpose of censorship is to discover what the
problems facing it will be. The reason censorship exists, not withstanding abuse
of censorship for ulterior motives, is said to be for protection. 

Who, or what exactly is it there to protect?  We can view ourselves as a
potentially harmonious society where censorship is used to stop harm coming to
people within that society, by either 1. Them being harmed by someone creating
that material, 2. Them being exposed to the material, or 3. Them being harmed by
someone else coming into contact with that material.

The first of these is self-evident as being harmful. If the victims of crimes
such as violence, rape, torture, paedophilia and so on are used to generate
media, then clearly someone is being harmed. In the second example, we can
assume that people who cannot digest that material and understand it fully will
not be able to make informed choices on what that material means. The obvious
example is that of people not of intellectual maturity being exposed to material
that they will not be able to fully understand, thereby being intellectually
and/or emotionally scarred by it. This, strictly speaking, is classification as
opposed to censorship although it's basically a variant of censorship. Other
harm from 1, 2 or 3 above can only ever be viewed as "potential" harm where it
may lead to harm in the future. 

The first questions arise with respect to censorship at this point. What is
maturity, and what is potential harm?

It is clear that intellectual maturity is not a binary phenomenon where someone
becomes mature overnight. It should also be evident that not everyone matures at
the same rate, at the same age and to the same extent. The only surrogate marker
we have of intellectual maturity is that of physical maturity and even physical
maturity varies widely where some reach adolescence at 10 years of age while
others do so at 20. So we are forced to arbitrarily define an age where we
believe the vast majority of the population will be mature "enough", although
there is no definition of what maturity itself is, nor do we have any
statistical confidence intervals to say "most of the population is now mature".
By doing so, it means we are likely to encompass most people, yet some will
still be immature. The downside of this is that we end up making it not possible
for people who mature earlier to have access to material that may help further
their development either physically, emotionally, intellectually or just for
entertainment. This is obviously the safer choice, though. 

What is the age then that most of the population is mature? Is it 18 or 21? Is
it actually younger or older? It is interesting to note that our concept of
adolescence as a period of life is a relatively new one, and that in the 19th
century, once a child had reached 10 they were often put to work. This is not an
argument for setting the age to 10. Clearly it is not based on sexual maturity
either. However once a person has reached sexual maturity it is clear they also
participate in sexual acts despite not being of the age of consent. Age of
consent may appear to be a different issue, but if they are engaging in sexual
activity, then lack of information that is in material that may be censored to
them is likely to be harmful. This is mentioned here purely to demonstrate one
of the cons of taking the safer choice, though I'm not stating that this sways
the risk/benefit ratio.

If we take some of the obvious examples of information that is regularly
considered for censorship, we can see how vexing this issue is. The obvious one
is pornography. About 5 minutes after man discovered he could illustrate
something on cave walls, he was drawing pictures of sex. Sex is so pivotal to
our species' evolution and survival that it's no surprise that pornography has
existed in one form or another since the dawn of mankind. Given that sex in its
various forms occurs possibly billions of times each day around the world, it is
hard to imagine that someone is being harmed by the generation of pornography in
media from based on sex acts. Yet, even though sexual intercourse is a regular
part of life, the generation of pornography is often done by participants that
are not necessarily doing it purely for employment reason. Often the
participants are there because of extreme financial reasons to do with terrible
socio-economic status, emigration, sustenance of drug abuse habits and so on.
It's hard not to consider these people as being harmed by pornography, even
though the viewers of the material, if they're intellectually mature, are
unlikely to be harmed by it.

If we are to determine what is to be deemed harmful material when no one is
harmed in the generation of it, nor in the initial viewing of it, then what harm
exactly are we trying to prevent? Our model suggests that if someone is exposed
to material where no-one is initially harmed, then harm comes from the viewer
going on to perpetrate acts depicted in the material itself, thereby leading to
harm. If they do not go on to perform these acts, then no-one gets harmed. 

How do we define what harm is though? In the obvious cases of violent crimes,
rape, torture, etc. it is clear what the harm is. However it is clear that our
interpretation of harm changes fluidly over time and across borders. Once upon a
time it was considered legal and normal to beat your partner, treat black people
as slaves and women were not considered equal. In some cultures that's still the
case. It was also considered illegal to wear skimpy clothing for it would shock
the public, though now we manage to have places where being naked is fine. Our
concepts of legality are generated to reflect the moral values of the time and
place rather than any absolute ideal, and they evolve to match the current moral
values. Whether they're based on social opinion, fascist or socialist ideals, or
strictly on some religious basis, they are clearly different across borders and
set in that time and place. Consequently, the censorship laws parallel the
legality of that time and place. It is important to note that it's these very
differences also that lead to conflict, to the extent of war. Conversely it's
interesting to surmise that perhaps the moral values can be placed there by
defining what is immoral and then those values being retrofitted to the
community. Thus, if the government tells us they will block material because
it's bad, immorally bad - because the law says so- then the moral landscape
shifts as a result of the legislation.

If material is deemed to produce any perpetrators of harm - that would otherwise
have not perpetrated - then it is considered worth censoring. i.e. whether it
generates new perpetrators or not. This is fundamentally one of the most
difficult issues. 

I'm not going to try and review all the evidence for and against change in
behaviour based on exposure to certain material.  There does appear to be
evidence stating that people's behaviour and values change upon exposure to
violent material and so on, but the link between exposure to material and
generating criminals has not been clearly established. If someone views violent
material and then starts thinking that he would love to kill that person who has
been causing him endless grief, but never does, does the thought alone make him
a criminal? George Orwell coined the phrase 'thought crime' and it applies
perfectly well here. If someone views media which makes him think about the act,
but never acts on it, is he just committing thought crime? 

This is where the Internet comes into the equation. Never before has there been
a communication medium that connects the entire world in real time across
borders, languages, religions, cultures, traditions, and of course, legality and
censorship. It is a time when all information is potentially becoming available
to anyone. This makes the material that is unsuitable to some countries
instantly available to them. The issue of censorship for the country in question
instantly becomes unmanageable. The reason is clear. In 2009, Google, which is
known to be the largest and most comprehensive search engine in the world,
listed its one trillionth web site. The method by which it categorises data is
based purely on mathematical algorithms to determine popularity of data and
makes no attempt to determine what the primary purpose of the content is and
index it accordingly. Regardless of what means each country uses, it becomes
impossible to ensure that what is considered refused classification for that
country will be guaranteed to be categorised as being so. The speed with which
the Internet expands, and changes, is happening faster than any one
organisation, government or otherwise, is able to keep track of and index.
Furthermore, the data is constantly moving around in terms of both numerical IP
(Internet Protocol) address and Universal Resource Locator (URL) name.

This is all now coming to a head when governments around the world are
considering what the Internet means to them, and how their view of censorship is
to be applied to such a medium.  Being an Australian, I am currently watching
the debate surrounding the application of a mandatory Internet filter to block
"refused classification" material on the Internet which would normally be
refused publication and distribution in Australia.

Recently, a poll conducted by The Age Newspaper online in Melbourne, Australia
sought to determine what percentage of readers online supported the mandatory
filtering of the Internet to protect us from being potentially exposed to
material that is refused classification. The people who voted on the poll were
regular online readers of The Age who felt strongly enough to vote on the issue.
This alone meant we were polling a relatively biased cross-section of the
population who regularly reads information online and feels strongly enough to
make their opinion known. Even taking this bias into consideration, it is
surprising that an incredibly small minority of just 3% supported the mandatory
filtering of the Internet. Yet the very next day, a heavily publicised article
about a Japanese game called "Rapelay" was used as a springboard for the very
same question in a different form "Do you support mandatory Internet filters to
block material such as sites offering downloads of the game RapeLay?". Rapelay
is a Japanese game from a few years ago that is a rape simulation game whereby
the protagonist is supposed to try and rape various animated female characters
to perform "obscene" acts as per their will. Despite the fact that it was
essentially the same question, the percentage supporting the filtering rose to
12%. Note that this still means the vast majority opposed it.

Rapelay is an interesting variable in the censorship equation. Despite the fact
that it was used as a poster-child for the type of material that would be
blocked by the Internet filter, it is a game that was sold purely for Japanese
audiences, only available in Japan (without any means to purchase it outside
Japan), and restricted to 18+ audiences.  This was an example of material which
is available according to the local censorship laws, but would not pass
classification in other countries. Japan was used as an example of a country
that provides material that other nations' current time and place moral values
would find abhorrent and therefore illegal. 

The irony in this is that Japan has more restricted censorship laws with respect
to what can be visualised in that all depictions of genitalia, visual or even
auditory, must be censored. This means that all visualisations of genitalia are
blurred, even in cartoon form, and the equivalent words for penis and vagina are
censored in written form and bleeped out in audio. In fact, animation on free to
air television even goes to the extent of blurring depictions of underwear. This
censorship is there for historical reasons to do with restrictions placed on
their media after their World War II loss by the United States of America and
Japan's subsequent reluctance to try to change their laws. So in Japan we have a
country which is able to depict acts which are considered abhorrent by the rest
of the world, but does not allow explicit pornography in the form the Western
world is used to. Japan, however, has one of the fastest broadband
infrastructures in the world, and they make no effort to block access to the
almost infinite supply of uncensored pornography from the rest of the world.

What is it about Rapelay, then, that made people change their relative vote for
the Internet filter? Our legal system uses a system of "relative badness" to
determine the magnitude of punishment for offences. When a person is found
guilty of an offence, they are convicted of their crime and applied a punishment
proportional to how "bad" current moral social values place on their crime. The
punishment for rape related crimes is less than that for premeditated murder.
Possessing material that is refused classification is a crime in most countries,
and there was recently a case of a person being convicted of possessing
paedophilic pornography who had an animated cartoon of popular television
characters Bart and Lisa Simpson engaging in sexual acts. These characters are
animated to represent children under 10 years of age. Even though there were no
people harmed in the generation of the animation, none were harmed by this
person watching them, nor was anyone harmed after the fact, he was convicted as
being guilty. The judge's verdict was that there was potential for real victims
in the crime. Similar cases have occurred in Canada and the UK.

The law attempts to make a distinction on artificial characters if the
characters can reasonably be assumed to be children. If a person was to take a
pen and draw two stick figure people engaging in a sexual act, one that
represents an adult and the other clearly a child, in a 10 second illustration,
does this make that person the generator and possessor of paedophile porn, and a
paedophile? Should that person then be prosecuted as such, be imprisoned for a
sentence and then branded for life based on that offence? How much more detail
should the stick drawing have before that material is then obscene enough that
we have children on the page and then generating and possessing that material
makes you a paedophile and will make you more likely to commit an offence by
"generating" an offender?

Comparing this to violent material, we see violence in many, many forms daily on
television, cinema, animation, computer games and other art forms. The
perpetrators are both criminals and heroes and the victims are either innocent
victims or "the enemy" in whatever form that may take. The various art forms go
to great extents to make the depictions as realistic as possible to make the
actors involved appear real. Yet this is not considered illegal, abhorrent, or
even bad. It is usually considered entertaining by the vast majority of people.
What is the disconnection between these two crimes, rape and murder, that makes
one abhorrent in media, yet the other entertaining? There appears to be an
acceptance of some violence as being a necessary part of life, be that to defend
one's country or to save other people or otherwise. Yet we are still able to
depict and watch violence by people in premeditated circumstances involving
horrific torture, abuse and bloodshed, even though it may not be "glorified" in
the sense that they are the heroes. Our culture has evolved a hypocritical
bipolar view of depicted violence compared to other crimes such as rape, even
though our legal system judges them all to be of the same degree of "badness".
Furthermore, the victims, or families of victims, of any of the above crimes
would not find themselves able to forgive murder or extreme violence any more
willingly than rape. That can be seen by the relative perceived "badness" in the
sentences handed out by the judicial system.

Perhaps we cannot meaningfully connect with representations of violent death
because we're still unable to reconcile the facts of death and non-existence
with life. Easier to believe in an after-life than permanent extinction.
Ironically upon viewing representations of mass slaughter it's easier to be glib
and think "But we all die anyway" without it really meaning anything.
Paradoxically women are often wanting to reiterate that rape is an act of
violence. That it is, but when it comes to representation of the act in popular
culture, their cause may be little aided by the association.

The importance of the Internet in the development of a modern nation into the
21st century and beyond cannot be underestimated it seems. The Internet was
initially developed for proliferation of information between academic
institutions, specifically universities, across the world. Once it was opened up
to public use, its application branched out in unexpected as well as predictable
directions involving proliferation of information, as well as commercial
ventures, and "presence" for all public corporations, commercial enterprises,
government bodies, not-for-profit ventures and so on. It is increasingly obvious
that virtually all useful information will eventually be available online in one
form or another. The distribution of the data is dependent on infrastructure
which is constantly evolving to cope with the increase in both demand, and by
proxy, supply. Placing any extra link in the communication chain between the
provider and the obtainer of the data will put some kind of performance
restriction into the process. Testing the existing infrastructure and
determining that filtering will place no burden on the system is near-sighted.
The bandwidth requirements and provision of today's Internet will not even bear
any resemblance to the likely incredible increase in bandwidth of the future
Internet. Any system placed into the chain of information now will impact on the
provision of future communications. 

The Internet is also not a system confined to the World Wide Web HTTP protocol
that most people are familiar with when typing in an address into their web
browser. Stratifying data purely on the basis of static information served on
this protocol alone, when it is a constantly growing, ever morphing system
borders on the futile. Furthermore, given the inaccuracy with which any
categorising is done, and the magnitude of information available, it is
impossible to even accurately obtain a single snapshot in time of the Internet
and selectively block out material that is refused classification for each
country. Likening the data on the Internet to fixed media such as books and film
and treating it as such is a fallacy. Most illegal activity on the Internet is
not even conducted in the standard WWW space that most people are familiar with,
and is usually performed across decentralised peer to peer networks, often using
encryption that is virtually impossible to break. Communication with other
people is usually the only means by which illicit activity is tracked on the
Internet rather than by the data itself. Therefore, attempting to block data to
the populace at large which would have not received classification in the
country it is being viewed in will not block the vast majority of illegal media
proliferation. Even if the data was available in the WWW space, there are an
almost infinite number of ways of obtaining the data bypassing any existing
filter. The only possible application of an Internet filter would be to block
the casual Internet viewer from accidentally "stumbling across" such data.
Virtually all Internet visits online are performed in a search followed by link
basis. As most data of this nature is fairly fixed and peer reviewed, the extent
of the linking system is finite and contained to that of known data. Unless a
person is actively seeking such data, the probability of stumbling across
illegal data is close to zero.

Who then can be protected by such a system is not just a mystery, it is
completely dumbfounding to the informed observer. If we are cynical enough to
assume that most political measures are done to maintain a political party's
position in power, then one can only wonder how exactly application of said
Internet filter would be helpful to their cause. Given the government in a
democracy is there to reflect and act upon the opinions of the public majority,
and the public have voted against such a filter, what gain is there to be had?
The repeated argument provided is that although they know it won't be perfect,
it is better than nothing. There is enough informed opinion available to consult
with that proves this wrong. Experts agree unanimously, it is worse than
nothing. Not only will it not prevent anyone from "stumbling across" refused
classification (since it is impossible to do so), but it will not prevent those
seeking RC material from obtaining it through their most common means.
Furthermore, even if someone was trying to obtain access to the RC material
through the regular WWW channels, it will be extremely easy to circumvent the
filter.

In terms of protecting "innocents" such as children from such data, local
protection (in each person's home) will be more comprehensive and not impact on
the infrastructure at large. This technology for the home has been available for
as long as the Internet has been open to the public. Furthermore, no automated
system will ever be as effective as a carer simply being present when a child is
browsing the Internet.

Our lessons from history are that the less the public at large are involved in
the decision making of the running of a country, the more open it is to abuse by
those in power. When censorship is part of that decision making, the potential
for it becoming a propaganda machine by directing information is ever present.
It is hypocritical to criticise the Chinese government for openly building such
a system when one built without public scrutiny gives the Australian government
basically the same power. We would be the only democracy on earth that has such
a restrictive filter applied. A system built on the ideals of a secret list of
websites, blocking only hundreds of specific WWW addresses from a selection of
trillions, which is mandatory in the provision of Internet within a country, is
going to have no useful impact on the blockade of refused classification
material to those who wish to obtain it, yet will provide massive potential for
abuse by the government in a non-publicly reviewed process as well as hold back
communication growth. It is also clear that once a form of censorship is put
into place, it takes a long time and is very difficult to remove it after the
fact, should opinion change. The insistence of the government to push on with
the plan despite incredibly little support for the idea from the public makes
one wonder what other forces are at work that we're not aware of.

It is time for us to try and objectively critically appraise our censorship
system to see why our value systems vary across borders and find when we have
unintentionally developed hypocritical values. There is no doubt that the vast
majority of the moral values across borders are distinguished by their
similarities more so than their differences. Our ability to communicate across
these borders is going to be the most important part of true globalisation for
our race as a whole in the next century, and we must overcome the barriers to
that communication by trying to compromise on our moral, legal and
classification systems to improve our communication instead of using those
differences to start further unrest. The true test of whether someone believes
in free speech is not whether they're willing to promote what they think should
be considered legal, but whether they're willing to tolerate someone else
communicating an opinion they disagree with on any level. Only upon exposure to
different opinions will true debate be possible without risking falling back on
premises that we've never even considered questioning.