Technology Vs The Law: Overly-Long Techno-Rant!

Image by Łukasz Strachanowski.

When I was in high school, I did not have a mobile phone, nor ready access to the Internet.
When I recalled this fact it freaked me out, as these two things have become ubiquitous in my daily life.
How did I find stuff out? How did I talk to people? Freaky.

Technology is shooting along at speeds that make The Flash look like The Flash in his fat, future body in JLA: Rock of Ages. It's confronting.

But there's one thing that even the unstoppable juggernaut of technological progress cannot overcome - the Australian Law.

Digital radio, like digital television before it, is making its way into Australia. Also like digital television, it's arriving years after the rest of the developed world, and may hobble onto the continent a crippled, tiny echo of its intended self.

Digital radio will allow for CD quality sound, multichannelling and the parallel delivery of text, song information and images.
In other parts of the world digital radio also delivers video, but in Australia, moving pictures have been outlawed to protect the fledgling digital TV platform. It's yet another example of an Australian industry that's foresight allows it to read road signs only when within three centimetres of its nose.

Digital television has massive potential, but sucks. In a move that benefited the owners of Australia's TV networks by feeding them a fine paste made of their shafted audience, multichannelling was prevented and the compulsory date for implementation of digital channels was delayed time and again. Today, capital cities enjoy some digital channels and a smattering of HD content, while regional Australia (that's me!) gets ABC2. One additional channel. Quite a revolution.

The situation moves from irritating to laughable when one considers that all of these decade-late innovations can be circumnavigated by the Internet, which grows more all-encompassing every day. Here in Australia though it quickly circles around the irritating again, as broadband speeds also lag behind the developed world. Not only is the Internet slow, but download limits force customers to utilise only a fraction of the digital smorgasbord - a meal that gets bigger each day.

But wait! The law is riding in again to ensure that even this sub-par experience will be smashed against the rocks for the benefits of a minority.
Unlike digital TV, the minority in question is not the Jack Donaughy rich. The correct answer is the ultra-conservative, right-wing, nutjob-religious, fun-police wowsers.

The Government is angling to censor the Internet via Clean Feed. In the same way that burglary can be prevented by burning down all houses, Clean Feed aims to prevent the online dissemination of child pornography by imposing a mandatory Internet filter on every computer in the country. Following this way of thinking, I may soon be locked in my house forever.

Tests so far suggest Clean Feed will slow the Internet by about 30 per, with the slowdown inversely proportional to the accuracy of the filter. In other words, the more it works, the slower the Internet gets. The filter works by blocking web pages that contain certain phrases and images, but cannot determine context. Due to this, a legion of web pages that are not inappropriate will be blocked.
In fact, if I make the statement "I am not in favour of child pornography" - one I am intensely comfortable in making - there is a chance this blog will be blocked.
It's weird, as such a filter runs counter to the Government's other policies - such as the creation of a fibre-to-the-node network and a general desire to create equality.

But they're pushing ahead - and expanding the filter to encompass anything illegal, unsavoury or yellow - seemingly to appease a small yet vocal group of people who think free speech is ok as long as what is being said is nice.

Oh well, at least I can watch the newly-released movie version of Australia, confident in the knowledge that we have in fact come a long way, even if I'm still listening to the same radio as Nicole Kidman's character.

And I can move my forehead.


Zing!