It’s certainly a political, moral and ethical hot potato; the Rudd government plans to introduce internet censorship in Australia over the next 12 months. What will this mean for drug information and discussion websites and the role they play in harm reduction?

You may not have heard about the internet filter; if not, you can read an ITM feature on it here, but generally speaking the government has been trialling ISP-level blocking of websites from a ‘blacklist’. A basic list would be used to filter content for all Australians and would include websites hosting material that has been ‘refused classification’ by censors. An optional, more extensive list could also be applied for households who want their children’s internet access to be more filtered.

The government argues that the internet should be treated like other types of media (eg. television, film, literature). These media types are censored for inappropriate content and content that incites criminal activity. The policy has been sold as an effective way of protecting children from inappropriate content, and aims to continue the fight against child pornography. However many different groups of the community have expressed concern over the policy (see the nocleanfeed campaign for more info). Those against the filter argue that the blacklist would be kept secret, making it impossible to assess the nature of what the government chooses to block.

For instance, a leaked blacklist showed that only one third of sites were related to child pornography. Furthermore, filtering only http websites – while peer-to-peer networks, encrypted websites and virtual private networks remain unfiltered – is unlikely to be an effective deterrent to people sharing ‘inappropriate content’ through those means. Australian also has some of the slowest internet speeds in the developed world, and the introduction of filtering is only likely to make that even worse.

What does this all mean for people in Australia who use drugs and choose to look to the internet for information? You may have taken a look at the many drug websites and forums available online, and a recent report noted that harm reduction websites that hosted detailed instructions on methods of using drugs would be likely blocked, due to those instructions ‘inciting criminal behaviour’. The problem is that instructions about safer use are aimed at people who are already using a drug and want to decrease the potential harms of their use.

If this legislation is passed it’s not clear what drug users who utilise the internet for detailed drug information will do. Those in the know may use proxy servers to bypass the ‘Australian firewall’ and other technologies (secure servers, private networks, peer-to-peer) to distribute information. But without doubt, information that is currently in the public domain will move into private spheres. This move will make the information harder to find, harder to monitor and harder to critique. Do you think this law, if passed, would affect you and your friends? If yes, what should we do about it?