Untangling The Net: The Scope of Content Caught By Mandatory Internet Filtering was prepared by leading Australian media public policy specialists and members of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Professors Catharine Lumby, Lelia Green, and John Hartley.
The report findings suggest that mandatory internet filtering will put Australia at odds with other Western liberal democracies who have opted almost unanimously for self or co-regulation. While mandatory internet filtering is conventionally framed as a tool to prevent child pornography access, the Government's policy will catch a far broader scope of content.
The authors also said that it is time to review Australia's complex and inconsistent media content regulation system to take account of the online era.
Director of the Journalism and Media Research Centre at UNSW, Professor Catharine Lumby said, "The internet is not a medium: it is an entirely new media environment. We need to rethink our flawed and complex system of media content regulation to respond to this new era."
