Internet Industry Association

Transcript of Mozelle Thompson, Policy Consultant, Facebook, ABC-TV 4 Corners extended interview with Quentin McDermott 

Q: Mozelle, first of all can I ask you to describe some of the work that you have done with the Australian government over the years and the Internet Industry Association here?

Sure, I think Australia is a wonderful place, I’ve worked with the Australian government on issues for example child safety, on issues dealing with internet growth, consumer protection fraud and competition issues.  

Most recently I’ve also worked with government 2.0 Working Group who came out with a report recently about how the government needs to be more in touch with social technologies to be more in connection with the users, their constituents.  I think that’s where things are going and I was happy to see that.  

Q: What’s your view of the proposal for a Mandatory Internet filter?  

You know, first of all I think everyone on the online space wants to have a safe environment for young people.  I don’t know anybody that disagrees with that.  

I also think that companies, especially American companies like Facebook or Google or whoever who are operating here are recognising the importance of each locality, to pay attention to what is specific to their constituents  that might be necessary to protect their interests.  

But I guess I have some concerns about this proposal for three reasons: I don’t think it works, I think there is a pretty substantial international consensus, that there is no magic bullet.  

There is no technology that is going to allow a company to pre-filter essentially everything that is put on a particular website - especially if it is a high volume website, especially if it is a site with a lot of user generated content.

Just take a look at the numbers a site like Facebook. On a given day will get tens of billions of page views.  So, to think that there is some magic electronic program, that is going to go through all of that content, not just weed out, what I call illegal content things, that are clearly, things that people think are illegal like child pornography but even inappropriate content which could run the gamut, it’s a more subjective question - it would be very difficult to do. 

So I think that’s one.   The second is it distracts people from other things that need to be done in order to make the Internet safer. That includes a real partnership with business and government and the population so that they can engage in community policing.  

Because that’s what’s been the most effective so far when communities and users can report things that they think are inappropriate, or scary, or creeps them out and websites can know about it and take them down.  I think to do otherwise  would lead the public into a false sense of security.  

The third thing, people may not recognise as much is that you wind up talking about pre filtering something. It has a cost too.  It has a social cost and an economic cost.  The social cost may be the fact that there is a chilling effect on expression.  

The other side of it too is the economic cost: everybody wants to invest in new technologies and they want to think about innovative ways to use new information if they are thinking that Australia is a place to invest only if you want to go through a government screen first, some of that investment will go elsewhere.  

And I think that, I have a lot of confidence and a lot of experience with the technology industry here, they need support, not pre filtering. I think that’s a challenge for this government and I understand what they are trying to do, maybe this particular solution is one that I don’t think fits.  

Q: Can I pick up on a couple of points, first of all, your second point about community action, can you please explain to me a little bit more detail how that works.  

I can tell you by example what Facebook does.  Facebook is organised not by people who are meeting strangers but usually friends of friends, people who are there are interacting with people who they know.  They know when there is somebody who does not belong.  They know when there is material that violates the statement of rights and responsibilities, essentially the user contract.  

Maybe it’s hate speech. Maybe it’s threatening violence. They can report that fairly easily and Facebook takes it seriously and will take it down. It’s worked cooperatively with the Attorney-General and law enforcement for at least two or three years. 

So where there is a report of really serious problems they contact law enforcement in order to address the problem. I think that part of that community compact is that community gets to know what’s out there and know what creeps them out.  

Q: So do you think our kids know more than us, are they smarter than we think?  Do they actually display more common sense than we would like to credit them with?

Those are two slightly different questions.  I have been incredibly impressed that our young people are much more savvy than we were about how to use technology. But the other side is wisdom because they may think that they are in control of something that they are not in control of.  

That’s something that we are supposed to help our children, that we’re supposed to talk to them about and teach them about.  I don’t think that there’s a magic bullet that allows us to do that.  It means talking and interacting with them.  

Q: You talked about the community sharing information.  The government’s proposal of course is for a black list, which will be secret.   Should there be a black list, and should a static solution like that the best solution?  

The idea of a filter is a static response - like there's a magic bullet, there's a machine that will go through all this content. Unfortunately what's going to be important for safety - ongoing safety - is dynamic responses, ones that include all the partners, users, parents, educators, government and industry, to think about how they respond to what I call an always ongoing arms race.

For a long time on the internet, working with governments there’s always been a notice and take down process. If there are known paedophile sites, for example,  Facebook works with child safety organisations  and with law enforcement to know what those sites are and to block them out.  

But those sites change all the time. Those sites change and people who are engaged in wrong doing are pretty clever.  Pre-screening doesn’t help that.  It’s really someone noticing it, seeing it and then notifying people so that they can take action. Because those things move really fast.  

So I think a black list has some benefit if it’s clearly illegal content.  But when you talk about inappropriate content and there’s no transparency to the process, the problem is that the public doesn’t know what it is that not seeing. They don’t know who’s making a judgement. They don’t know that there could be for example a whole class of innovation or applications or other things that will just not come here. And I think that would be unfortunate.  

Q: Could a mandatory internet filter be introduced in the United States?  Could that ever happen there?  

I think it would be very difficult to do.  For technological reasons, for that reason alone.  But  I think that in the US we have a First Amendment that gives people the right to speech. 

But I think there are certain categories of speech that are not an unfettered right.  There are some types of speech that are clearly illegal and I think most businesses are willing to understand that and accommodate that.  But I don’t think that there is a filter, look, if there was a filter to do all of these things, all of this things that people might feel inappropriate it would have been done a long time ago.  

The country that probably doing it more than anybody else are probably our neighbours in China and I don’t think anybody wants to go in that direction.  

Q: Do you think that this proposal gives comfort to countries like China?

Well, I think you have to raise the question.  I’m a little concerned when the Chinese state newspaper actually publishes an article that talks favourably about the Australia proposal because obviously people outside of Australia are viewing this in a way that maybe Australians are not viewing it.  But more intrusive and they see a threat.  

Look, as I said, the solutions here are layered solutions. They are not just one set of filters.  If there is any filter that should take place, it should be in your house.  So that a parent can decide, “I don’t want to see this, and I do want to see that”.  I don’t think that there is any government or company can substitute your judgement for what will happen in your house.  

Q: Have you conveyed your views to the Minister?  

I have, on a few occasions and think there is a growing consensus amongst technology companies and others in this country, about their concerns about this proposal itself.  I think it’s worth further discussion not only with the Minister and the government but also with the Australian people.   

Q: Well, the government seems to be saying that the internet is just another means of publishing content in the way that films and books are is that right and should it be treated in the same way?  

That’s a place where I really disagree. 

I think that the internet and internet providers now are providing platforms that the content that is provided on YouTube, people put on YouTube. And a lot of content on Facebook, that comes from users and the remarkable part about it for everybody in the world, really the game changer is that it reduces the barriers to entry, that it’s free and that everybody can talk about issues that are important to them. 

While some government may feel challenged about that, they should actually feel very proud that their users are empowered that in a 24-hour basis users can raise millions of dollars for Haitian relief.  That people in Melbourne who are concerned about racism against the Indian community could organise 33,000 people in a matter of days, vindaloo against violence.  I find that absolutely amazing and empowering.  

Q: Do you think this proposal is helping to isolate Australia in the international community?

Well there's a lot of talk outside of Australia and I know that the US government has raised concerns about this.

Q: If a mandatory internet filter is introduced in Australia, and maybe other countries following, what is you worst fear about where it could lead?

From a personal level, I guess I would be concerned about Balkanization.  That there is a series of countries that have bottlenecks on a free internet or a free flow of information.  That would be disturbing for me.  I think that not only does it cloud the availability of information but it also deprives those countries of real opportunities to show the positive things that they are doing to the rest of the world.  I think that would be a disappointment.  

A filtering proposal is an interesting proposal but I think there are more creative answers to solve the problem of safer internet.