The Question of Internet Filtering: Negotiating Discourses of 'moral Panic' and 'risk' in the Australian and British Policy Debates

The implementation of internet filtering systems is becoming an increasingly established means of regulating the internet in many countries. The availability of pornography involving child sexual abuse is understandably an emotive concern, which makes public opinion in liberal democratic countries more accepting of internet filtering of such content. However, the exposure of children to inappropriate online content and their increasingly autonomous activities online produce further societal anxieties. In the cases of Australia and the United Kingdom, the objectives of child protection and crime prevention inspired proposals for online filtering, but these schemes proved controversial because of concerns about their potential to (intentionally or unintentionally) prohibit a wider range of materials if they were ever to be implemented. The Australian proposal, which was set aside in 2012 after a complex five year long debate, would have applied filtering to block a range of materials deemed ‘harmful’, ‘offensive’ or ‘objectionable’ (both illegal and legal). More recently, the UK government has made calls for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide a ‘default on’ filter to address anxieties about internet pornography and this has provoked renewed debate. These debates have involved many experts from the internet industry, filtering vendors, academic researchers, child advocacy NGOs, civil liberties groups and adult industry representatives arguing for and against the idea that the state can (or should) engage in the regulation of internet content. Drawing on comparisons from both the Australian and British examples, this paper explores how the rhetoric of ‘moral panic’ and ‘risk’ are variously used as discursive strategies in recurring policy debates about filtering pornography on the internet.