Last year I wrote a post about how I’d gone with my blogging and tweeting. Given that I’ve been blogging here since 2008 and elsewhere since 2004, I thought I’d share a few insights as someone who operates a very, very niche blog about union campaigning and politics.

Blog

This graph shows monthly readership (each bar represents a month, the first is January and so on). As you can see, I’ve had a topsy turvy year. This is largely due to inconsistent blogging, and the very low month in September represents when I turned off the blog while electioneering. The low December reflects the fact that we’re only half way through this month.

So, what are the top posts for 2011?In order, they are:

1. What union members want from their union’s communications
2. Performance pay for teachers is a terrible idea and here’s why
3. Short book review: The Whites of their Eyes by Jill Lepore
4. Amazing social media campaign: “Iceland Wants to Be Your Friend”
5. Social Media for Unions E-Book
6. Free E-book: Introduction to Email Campaigning for Unions
7. Four effective “calls to action” to use on your union campaign website
8. Best practice use of Facebook for unions
9. The term “queue jumping” encourages people smugglers
10. Eight union websites worth checking out

These posts reflect only and new content. My Social Media for Unions e-book for example was released in December 2010, but continued to gain strong interest throughout most of this year. Similarly, What union members want from their union’s communications was written in February 2010 and Best practice use of Facebook for unions was from 2009, but were viewed many times each week this year. The high ranking of my book review The Whites of their Eyes by Jill Lepore gains number three ranking due to a few links at StumbleUpon.

Last year, a lot of my traffic came from the Federal Election. This year, most of my traffic seems to have come from long-tail search results. I also got a lot of traffic from my email newsletter, which has continued to grow (more on that later).

My top referrers are:

• Google (organic search terms)
• Email (my e-newsletter)
• Direct (people writing in the URL directly)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• StumbleUpon
• Creative Unions

A few other interestings stats. People read an average of 3.7 pages when they visit and spend 2:31 minutes reading. 64.14% of my visitors are first-time visitors, and my bounce rate (the number of people who read just one page) is 3.37%.

Twitter

I can’t show you my entire 2011 Twitter growth, but I can do so for the last three months.

I started 2011 in January with about 510 followers and have grown now to 775, at a rate of about 1 subscriber a day. Again, I can’t pick a specific reason for growth, although I have been actively involved in several of the major Twitter hashtags of 2011, including the Qantas dispute and Occupy Melbourne. Looking around, I suspect that word-of-mouth and recommendations is very important — so when someone with lots more followers (in the thousands or tens of thousands) comments on what you’ve tweeted (or retweets you), you pick up followers.

My Klout has been a bit varied, which I think reflects periods of high activity and engagement, and periods of relative silence (September for example). Changes to the Klout algorithm is the cause of the large increase and fall in Klout.

Email

This year I have made an effort to continue my subscriber growth from the explosive growth from December 2010. The large growth has principally been in January through the release of my Social Media for Unions e-book, which required subscribing to my list to download. Since then, most of the growth has come from people wanting to download one or more of my three e-books. About 37 people subscribe each month, and 3 unsubscribe, so that’s a good growth rate. I’m now sitting just under 1000 subscribers, which for a niche blog about union campaigning and politics, is not too bad. My subscribers are also fairly diverse, with most coming from the USA, Australia, Canada and the UK (in that order).

2011 in a wrap

Last year, I said “content is key”. This year, I’d have to say “add value”. The e-books that I’ve written have been a key source of interest for my readers, subscribers and followers. I’ve focused on trying to provide useful resources that fill gaps for union communicators, focusing on social media, email and online campaigning. I’ve tried to highlight interesting research and promote best practice digital and social media communication techniques for unions. Moreso than 2010, this year has been about trying to provide that assistance to the union movement.

Related posts:

1. Looking back at my Tweeting and Blogging in 2010
2. Go where the members are
3. Social Media for Unions E-Book

I thought I’d share with my readers some of thoughts about my tweeting and blogging from 2010 – a year that saw considerable growth in readership and followers for me.

Blog

2010 was the year of elections, and marked my attempt to blog at least once a week. While I’ve been blogging on and off here (and earlier here and on blogger) since 2004, I’ve never had a regular schedule. I’ve read on blog-advice sites that regular blogging is one of the best ways to get more readers, and that’s certainly my experience.

What are my top blog posts over the last 12 months? In order, they are:

• The #Nocleanfeed campaign, DoS and political nous
• The first Green in the House of Reps?
• My brief review of Civilization 5
• Adam Bandt cures cancer
• What union members want from their union’s communications
• Social Media for Unions E-Book
• No Clean Feed campaign needs to drop their “censorship” obsession
• Hiding behind “cab rank principle” is unethical
• Best practice use of Facebook for unions
• Pro-Greens Party Blogger Jeremy Sear excuses Greens
• The mining-tax scare website is an excellent case study
• Why unions should embrace social media
• Seven online campaigning activities you should already be doing

They range between Federal Election related and union-campaigning and communications related, with the Civilization 5 review rating highly because of SEO. The top post rated highly because of SEO and forum links from Whirlpool. All of the posts benefited from search engine traffic, especially those relating to the Greens Party and Federal Election.

The Federal Election was a major source of traffic for me – not only from interacting with other blogs (such as Crikey blogs or Larvatus Prodeo) – but also from search engines. Until recently, my best day was during the election. The Victorian Election on the other hand drew less traffic, although that could also be because I blogged about it less. And despite drawing less traffic overall, two of my top posts were about the Victorian Election.

Finally, union-related blog posts get consistent visitors – mainly “long tail” visits (that is, a few visitors each day from a variety of sources) rather than loads of visitors on the day the post was published. Referrals and search are important for these posts.

My top referrers for my blog are:

• Google – organic (this is search)
• Direct – (people writing in the blog address directly into their address bar)
• Email – my email subscribers (see more below)
• Facebook – likes, shares and my regular “linking” on my own Status Bar
• Creative Unions – major referral site
• Woothemes Showcase – my blog is showcased on the Woothemes blog
• Twitter – my own tweets and retweets

Some other interesting stats. Most people read an average of 4 pages when they visit. There is a bounce-rate of just over 2% (that means that about 97% of people visit more than one page when they visit my blog). Most people spend just under 3 minutes on my site and around 63% of people who come are “new” visitors (it’s their first visit).

Twitter

Most blogs that write about social media at some point or another write about how get more Twitter followers. As you can see, over the last three months that I’ve seen a steady growth in followers. To be honest, I can’t put my finger on a specific thing that I’ve done over the last three months to warrant this increase. I don’t automatically follow the people who follow me, and I only follow around 75 people, so it’s not because of “follow-spam”.

This year I also started to use Klout – which monitors how influential you are on Twitter and Facebook. As you can see, my Klout score has meandered up and down around the 50-56 mark. The high point was during the Victorian election – probably due to a higher degree of retweets.

What I did  change in 2010 is to make an effort to reply to people who send me “@s” and retweets, and to provide consistent, diverse content – not just links to this blog, but to other interesting content I find on the ‘Net, and personal updates. As someone said to me late last year: “You are a prodigious tweeter.” I certainly tweet a lot.

Email

I’ve recently made a big effort to boost my email subscribers. In addition to adding an annoying pop-up promoting my free e-book, I also introduced the new e-book as the key part of plan to get subscribers. Most people are willing to subscribe to get emails if they think they will get something valuable out of it.

The reaction to my e-book has been positive so far, and there have only been one or two unsubscribes from my list over the last few months – so the once a week email digest of this blog I send obviously isn’t worthless to my subscribers.

So, what did I do to get subscribers? Create worthwhile content and give it away for free after asking that you subscribe to my email list. Simple.

Email makes up around 11% of my referrals, and growing, so I think it’s important. I’ve only really put a big effort into email in the last 3 months, and I think it’s paying off. I’ve also benefited from referrals from a number of pro-union sites that have recommended people download my e-book.

2010 in a wrap

Everyone says that “content is key” – and so do I. If you create good content that people want to read and retweet, then they will, and you will see an increase in readership and follow-rates.

I have made more of an effort in 2010 than I did in 2009 or 2008 (when I started this blog). I’ve focused on articles that give best-practice advice on online campaigning for unions. I’ve also branched out to more political blog posts during election times – or prominent issues like climate change or the #NoCleanFeed campaign.

Related posts:

1. End of Year blogging and tweeting: how I went in 2011
2. A Twitter hashtag worth following in 2010
3. Email is the “killer app” for online campaigning

The #NoCleanFeed movement is not an organised campaign, but rather a loose connection of disparate groups including ISPs and civil liberties organisations.

For a while, I’ve been arguing that the #NoCleanFeed campaign should drop the focus on censorship:

I suggest avoiding commenting on the refused classification – most Australians aren’t going to be sympathetic to an argument that wants to allow free access to Jihadist propaganda, fetish images or advice on euthanasia. The civil liberties line sounds a lot like “geeks are complaining about not being able to download freaky p-rn as fast”.

Instead they should talk about how the filter won’t actually catch, stop or prevent a single pedophile:

Real cyber safety: The filter won’t stop or catch a single pedophile, whereas the $44 million spent on the filter could hire up to 300 new Federal Police who will actively hunt down and stop child s-x offenders.

Today, in what I hope is not an April Fools Day joke, I read that Internode is now going on with the “real cyber safety” line.

But Mark Newton, an engineer with ISP internode, said: “Censorship will not catch a single pedophile, will not cause a single image to disappear from the internet, will not protect a single child.”

(My emphasis.)

This is a good step forward for the #NoCleanFeed campaign, and although they’ve used the “censorship” line, they’re pointing out the inherent flaw in the justification of the filter.

Related posts:

1. Some key message ideas for #NoCleanFeed
2. The #Nocleanfeed campaign, DoS and political nous
3. No Clean Feed campaign needs to drop their "censorship" obsession

The #Nocleanfeed (aka, #OpenInternet) movement won’t succeed in blocking the Australian Government’s filter because its leadership are captured by the dead-end Democrats and fringe libertarians with little political campaigning experience. This capture means that unfortunately the movement is receiving ill-informed political counsel from serial Democrat losers like elitist apparent drug-taker Kathryn Crosby (links to screenshots now that Twitter is password protected) and Geordie Guy.

(Disclosure: I have had public disagreements with both Kathryn and Geordie over the campaign direction. Further disclosure: I am a member of the ALP. Final disclosure: I oppose the internet filter proposed by the Federal Government, and have written about it here.)

Why do I think the #Nocleanfeed campaign won’t succeed? Because they are obsessed with issues that actively marginalise them from the broard-based messaging and campaigning needed to succeed.

I think “comms_consult” summarised the problem quite well here:

From those on the side trying to stop the filter, you basically represent some territory educated net savvy twitter users. You’e lost parents worried about the amount of time their kids proficiently spend on the net. Conservative religious lobbies are making huge gains whipping up fear, online. You said the filter would slow down the net, but their trial said it wouldn’t. You went on telly and said it would be bad for free speech. If free speech means paedophilia, the government said, well we don’t want it. They’ve got this campaign by the balls. Besides, they’re giving you an NBN, which they think you’re ungrateful for.

The campaign against has largely focused internally, and hasn’t done much of anything to win over their opponents or expand the base. The Opposition and the Greens have publicly supported the against position, and yet there is nothing either can do -  and it polls terribly.

Talking to yourself is not how you win campaigns.

The government’s argument is that the internet is a dangerous, unregulated place. It’s arguing that it is not unreasonable to regulate dangerous content online, as it is in every other medium. It is arguing holds that it is doing something to keep people safe on the internet, which otherwise would be at risk.

Their opponents state that the filter will slow down the net, that the filter will stifle free speech and that it will push deviants further underground. They’re arguing that people will simply circumvent the filter.

The other problems is that the #Nocleanfeed campaign is focusing on Internet exceptionalism.

There is no doubt that the classification system in Australian is deeply flawed. It is outdated. The Refused Classification system is ludicrous and wrong-headed.

But that doesn’t mean, and ordinary Australians don’t believe, that the Internet should be exempt from the laws that govern TV, books, DVDs, radios and every other publication or broadcast in Australia.

Alex Schlotzer from the ACTU and Greens Party has a similar concern about the campaign.

To effectively respond it requires a coordinated, concerted and sustained approach; with a plan for real political action. I don’t mean more protests and demonstrations. And I don’t mean sending more protest messages to Kevin Rudd’s Twitter account.

The other problem facing the #Nocleanfeed campaign is that their obsession with censorship has activated an extreme fringe of Internet “hacktivists”. These “Anonymous” cyber-activists have conducted Denial Of Service attacks against Federal Government websites. Their public statements are profoundly disturbing and often misogynistic. Some of the comments of the group are reported by Alex Dickinson at The Punch.

(It should be clearly noted that the Anonymous group are not affiliated with the #Nocleanfeed campaign, and I understand that the #Nocleanfeed campaign has condemned the DoS attacks.)

Recent polling indicates that most Australians, even if they were concerned about the filter, don’t consider filtering pornography and other RC material to be a vote-changing issue.

Comms_consult has some useful advice (which largely accords with my Key Messaging Advice here):

So what needs to be done? Well, there needs to be a strategic view taken of where this battle needs to be fought. And it needs to be on the terms that the opponents are strongest is on – the technical impacts, and through its flow on economic and cultural impacts.

What needs to be said is:

“Something needs to be done to protect vulnerable people on the internet. However this filter is false hope. Families are being misled that this will provide the protection they clearly want online, and this project is an expensive and misleading exercise in futility. Essentially, this filter is not what it seems. It will not protect anyone because it will make the important job of policing the internet harder.”

This is not campaigning with branded avatars and attacks on the Minister’s character. There needs to be a debate about protecting children online and there needs to be options – including education, or whatever but it needs to talk to the public on positions they would be willing to accept.

I hope the #Nocleanfeed campaign starts taking better advice.

Related posts:

1. #NoCleanFeed campaign starts to focus messaging
2. Some key message ideas for #NoCleanFeed
3. No Clean Feed campaign needs to drop their "censorship" obsession

The legion of No Clean Feed activists have developed several campaign sites, one of which is The Great Australian Internet Blackout. Their call to action (in addition to writing to the Government and adding a twibbon to your Twitter profile picture) is to blackout (darken) your website on Australia Day.

Their reasons for doing this are:

1. The filter won’t protect children because it is ineffective;
2. It will cost consumers more and may negatively impact speeds;
3. Australia will be joining a censorship club with Iran, China and Saudi Arabia.

The first two reasons are (more or less) fine with me, as I’ve discussed here. I’d put them differently to how it’s phrased on TGAIB.

The last one, in my view, is wrong-headed. It is this argument (the filter = censorship) that is the least effective:

In my view, the No Clean Feed campaign’s focus on the Internet filter equating to political censorship is foolish. It does not live up to most Australians’ lived experience. Few Australians are affected by the “censorship” inherent in the current refused classification material regime.

Related posts:

1. No Clean Feed and Hoekstrian exaggeration
2. Some key message ideas for #NoCleanFeed
3. No Clean Feed campaign needs to drop their "censorship" obsession

Back in June 2009, US Republican congressman Peter Hoekstra wrote on Twitter:

Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.

This outrageous and ludicrous comparison comparing the adjourning of Congress to the brutally suppressed uprising in Iran, spawned a (short lived) Twitter meme:

In response, Twitter users have been mercilessly heckling Hoekstra en masse, turning his idiotic statement into a full-blown Internet meme. “To Hoekstra” now has its own definition, which is “to whine using grandiose exaggerations and comparisons.”

The Twitter outrage comparing the Commonwealth’s proposed Internet filter with the political censorship regimes of Iran, China or Saudi Arabia, strike me as on par.

Skip – a commenter at Larvatus Prodeo – makes an astute observation about many of the outbursts from the No Clean Feed campaign (here and here):

Related posts:

1. No Clean Feed campaign needs to drop their "censorship" obsession
2. Why I'm not blacking out on Australia Day
3. #NoCleanFeed campaign starts to focus messaging

I’ve written previously about a very successful grassroots campaign – Save VCA – and how it brought together a diverse group of people. A key element to the success of this campaign has been its coordination at an early stage.

There is a very interesting discussion about the No Clean Feed movement by Mark over at Larvatus Prodeo, discussing the limitations of the campaign so far:

It’s a bit of a case study on the limitations, as well as the benefits, of crowdsourced campaigning.

Alex Schlotzer, an ACTU online campaign officer and senior Greens Party member has a good analysis of the No Clean Feed movement to date:

The kind of fundamentals a campaign needs to sort out before launching into the next wave of protest emails; electronic petitions and rallies.

This isn’t about a brand, marketing, customers or what halo strategy should be employed; this is about cold, hard politics. It’s about finding the right kinds of messages and ensuring a focussed, evolving and sustained dialogue with Australians so they either get on board and help make their marginal MPs paranoid and/or they change their vote.  (The first is probably easier to do since an election makes all MPs a little paranoid at the best of times.)

Then there has to be a coordinated effort of engaging and organising concerned Australians through a combination of online and off-line methods. What happens online and off-line should compliment each other.  It is truly amazing that for so-called Internet geeks and social media professionals that what matters politically is totally ignored in favour of the fancy, pretty approach and more banging on (analysis some will call it) about the evils and flaws of Conroy’s Internet censorship regime.  A lot has to be done to make sure that the Government doesn’t use a victory in the next federal election, as fodder (read “mandate”) to push through with something that only serves to further erode and impinge on our civil liberties and human rights.

Who cares which of the 4 (to-date) anti-internet-censorship website looks the best or is the most plugged in to web2.0 or SM, when the basics for any political campaign are forgotten at best and completely ignored at worst.

So before the Australian Interwebs embarks on its next un-coordinated and ill-conceived round of “campaigning” with poorly timed rallies, can there first be a single coordinating group formed, with a single focussed message and a real plan for political action?

I’ve seen today that Electronic Frontiers Australia, the online liberties group, have appointed Peter Black as a campaign manager for the No Clean Feed campaign (which will be getting a name change soon).

Peter Black is a lecturer and lawyer from Queensland. I wish him well, and hope that can turn the NCF movement into a organised, coordinated campaign.

Related posts:

1. The importance of design for political campaigns
2. Six effective print communications tips for union campaigns
3. Joe Trippi on Online Campaigning

The online tech-head community can often be its own worst enemy, with underground geek/hacker site 4Chan targeting Youtube with p-rn today:

For mysterious, probably awkward reasons, the Anonymous (as they are dubbed) hordes are protesting the YouTube banishment of a young Lukeywes1234. The video site nixed little Lukey when 4Chan found his channel and started subscribing en masse. The surge of popularity raised red flags and got his account suspended, and, amid Lukey Tribute Videos, the board has decided to extract revenge. The above image is the disseminated directive, and with the site’s past success enacting denial-of-service attacks, we suggest the YouTube-going public be very cautious.

With the debate around internet filtering spluttering on, and anti-filter campaigners having to defend themselves against accusations that they’re a bunch of pervs and p-rno freaks, this action doesn’t help us here in Australia.

I noticed today that a video of John Prescott from Go Fourth had suggestions of p-rnographic videos at the end. My suggestion: avoid YouTube for the next few days.

Related posts:

1. LabourStart’s video of the year and the state of union videos
2. Explaining cap and trade
3. Thoughts from day 2 of FROCOMM New Media Summit

There is a fair bit of soul searching that seems to be going on in the “No Clean Feed” movement of late, especially following the lack of mass-rallies in support of the campaign following the release of the Federal Government’s report into the Internet filter.

• UPDATE: Read the key messaging ideas for the No Clean Feed campaign.

The debate is turning around how the campaign and its leadership can best express the major flaws of the Government’s filter. Some commentary, led by Crikey pundits like Possum Pollytics and Bernard Keane, had led the No Clean Feed movement to thinking strategically about how to approach the campaign – targeting the Government where it could hurt: electorally. (Unfortunately, as Possum points out, the Internet filter is not, and is unlikely to become, a significant election issue.)

Many in the movement, including the folk at Electronic Frontiers Australia (a cyber rights group) have decided that they should focus on the “censorship” angle. That is, they should point out that the Internet filter is a slippery slope (or the thin end of the wedge) towards online political censorship:

Focus on the fundamental problem with the Government’s plan – they are going to open the door to banning political content! Every conversation should quickly drift you, “yeah, but they are gonna ban political stuff like euthanasia and abortion and who the hell knows what else – you might disagree with it, but we don’t need to ban that stuff?”

There are several groups going down this line: Reporters Without Borders for example says Australia risks joining the “censorship club”:

If Australia were to introduce systematic online content filtering, with a relatively broad definition of the content targeted, it would be joining an Internet censors club that includes such countries as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Other groups go down this line, comparing Australia’s Internet filter with those used by totalitarian, third world regimes.

Many also make the point that the Internet filter opens the door to online political censorship, as ACMA (the Australian Communications and Media Authority – the authority tasked with keeping the blacklist) can decide unilaterally what sites are blocked. The logic is that the site blacklist is kept secret, and that a future Commonwealth Government could direct ACMA to blacklist sites that discuss “politically sensitive” issues, like abortion, euthanasia or drug use – or even other “objectionable” political views.

Drop the censorship line

In my view, the No Clean Feed campaign’s focus on the Internet filter equating to political censorship is foolish. It does not live up to most Australians’ lived experience. Few Australians are affected by the “censorship” inherent in the current refused classification material regime.

Josh Mehlman at the ABC’s Drum discusses why the campaign so far is largely an “echo chamber”:

Filter opponents appear to believe Twitter, online petitions, protests and letter-writing campaigns will be enough.

However, 10,000 people blacking out their avatars, retweeting blog posts and furiously agreeing with each other on Twitter merely adds to the cacophony of the echo chamber; it has no effect in the real world.

The closed circle of the Australian Twitterati and their friends in the technology and political media might well believe everyone is against the internet filter since everyone they know is talking about it.

(Of course, he’s good at criticism, but provides no concrete suggestions, other than “the campaign should be better”.)

For all the reasons that the movement has castigated itself over (wrongly) focusing on the language of “clean feed”, Internet speeds or similar, the language of “censorship” is similarly the wrong track.

Most Australians don’t care about censorship. If they did, complaints about our existing censorship regime (the classification system) would be higher. I’ve written about this here: Filtering out the muck and the filth:

The Australian Government already censors most material that Australians are (legally) allowed to read, watch or listen to.

…

The problem with the #nocleanfeed crowd is that they’re clamouring over the civil liberties arguments, the “Aunt Gladys”, wowser arguments, and freedom of expression arguments, only when it threatens their download speeds.

The Internet filter proposes to apply the same classification standard that exists for every other publication type in Australia, to the Internet. We already have the Government telling us what we can and can’t watch, read or listen to on TV, DVDs, radio or with books and other print publications and art.

All the kerfuffle over civil liberties, when Bill Henson’s photos were seized for being “child p-rnography”, was largely confined to the “latte-set” – inner city trendies and arts boffins. What the Henson episode showed was that most Australians were unconcerned that a famous Australian artist was accused of being a p-rnographer – more so when it was discovered that he visited primary schools to look for models.

The same can be said of the Howard Government’s introduction of sedition laws. Although there was a hue and cry about them from civil liberties groups and online action organisations like Get Up, the on-the-ground response from the electorate was completely absent.

So long as the Government says that the list of refused classification materials includes weird p-rn and fetish material, Jihadi propaganda and other unsavoury material, the censorship line won’t work.

Australians don’t think they live in a country like China, Iran or Saudi Arabia. Even with an Internet filter, Australia won’t be like those regimes, even if it has the technology and tools to become like them.

The real, lived experience of most Australians won’t see them lose a single right or liberty. Most Australians will think that it is a small thing to lose – access to fetish p-rn, euthanasia manuals and Jihadist manifestos – for “cyber safety”. Even if the filter doesn’t work.

Focusing on censorship has a “silver bullet” for the No Clean Feed campaign is misguided.

In my view, stronger arguments can be made that:

1. The filter won’t catch, find or stop a single child s-x offender;
2. The filter will harm Australia’s productivity and economic prosperity, especially in the areas of education and medicine; and
3. The money spent on the filter would be more effectively spent on the Australian Federal Police, who will actually find, stop and catch pedophiles.

I will be updating my proposed Key Messages in the next few days, focusing more on concerns from parents, and giving some more concrete advice for lobbying Members of Parliament.

Related posts:

1. No Clean Feed and Hoekstrian exaggeration
2. #NoCleanFeed campaign starts to focus messaging
3. Why I'm not blacking out on Australia Day

A new report shows that the Federal Police will be short $20-31.3 million, and the shortfall may come at the expense of “other priority areas”:

Mr Beale said his audit found that existing funding for the 500 new officers – announced in the Rudd government’s first budget in May last year – currently fell short by $31.3 million over the five-year plan.

The 268-page report also warned that from 2013-14 – a year after the last of the 500 recruits are sworn in by the AFP – there will be a $20m-a-year funding shortfall, which “will need to be drawn from the existing base funding of the AFP at the expense of other priority areas”.

“One potential priority area could be these close operational support areas, meaning that these skills and resources, which were not increased in proportion with the additional 500 sworn investigators, could potentially actually be reduced to meet the funding shortfall on the sworn investigators salaries,” he said.

This just goes to show that the Government should spend the money slated for the $44 million internet content filter on funding the Federal Police – who will actually catch criminals and child s-x offenders.

• Read a fact sheet about why the Government should scrap the filter and hire up to 300 new Federal Police.

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The No Clean Feed campaign has exploded on Twitter, received extensive coverage on the tech blogs, several independent campaign sites, and has spawned its own “Glenn Beck” style domain registry controversy.

Unfortunately, much of the commentary, especially from “Pirate Party” officials, is shrill and near-hysterical in its pitch. Simply put, the majority of Australians, even if they don’t support the filter, aren’t going to buy into the idea that Australia is becoming a fascist-state or going down the Iran/China/North Korea totalitarian route.

Furthermore, it’s my view that most Australians do not believe that slow Internet equates to censorship. The things on the “Refused Classification” list include movies that feature either real s-x acts, violent s-x acts or depict underage s-x (e.g. Baise Moi or Ken Park). They also include Jihadist literature, fetish p-rn, and books on euthanasia. None of these things are “family friendly”. (I’ve written about my views on the classification system in this post.)

In discussion with some friends, I’ve prepared some key message ideas that are alternatives to the ones getting air play at the moment.

My contention is that the No Clean Feed campaign needs to not just oppose the filter, but propose an alternative.

The Government has clearly laid the ground on which the media debate is being had. Every time they get questioned about the filter, they frame the debate as one about “cyber safety” for families. In that context, it is near impossible to defend open access to fetish material, jihadi literature or movies with violent s-x scenes. I suggest avoiding commenting on the refused classification – most Australians aren’t going to be sympathetic to an argument that wants to allow free access to Jihadist propaganda, fetish images or advice on euthanasia. The civil liberties line sounds a lot like “geeks are complaining about not being able to download freaky p-rn as fast”.

The two areas that I think are strong arguments against the filter are:

Economics and productivity: The filter will destroy the productivity gains sought in the $43 billion National Broadband Network; and

Real cyber safety: The filter won’t stop or catch a single pedophile, whereas the $44 million spent on the filter could hire up to 300 new Federal Police who will actively hunt down and stop child s-x offenders.

To this end, I’ve prepared some key messages based around these two key themes.

• Download the key messages here (pdf).
• Download 1 page fact sheet (pdf).

Related posts:

1. #NoCleanFeed campaign starts to focus messaging
2. The #Nocleanfeed campaign, DoS and political nous
3. Filtering out the muck and the filth

The last few days have seen a real explosion of commentary and discussion, from mainstream news outlets, to the Opposition Organ and countless blogs, about the Federal Government’s proposal to have mandatory internet filtering.

The debate so far is fairly stark, and can be characterised as:

Pro filter: “The filter will stop deviants from accessing child p-rnography and protect our children from innocently stumbling across p-rn. This is a small price to pay for slightly increased speeds. There may be some banning of legitimate sites to begin with, but those are teething problems, and the software will get better over time.”

Anti-filter: “The filter is a breach of our human rights, because it bans access to legal material that has been “refused classification”. Any attempts to stop adults from accessing this material amounts to censorship. And besides, it won’t stop pedophiles from watching child p-rnography because they use peer-to-peer networks, rather than the Internet.”

For the record, I’m anti-filter.

The main reason that I’m anti-filter is that I can’t overcome the cognitive dissonance of this Government spending $43 billion on the National Broadband Network to get Australia’s internet speeds up to a reasonable industrialised world standard, only to throttle the speeds back with a mandatory filter. (I am also aware that most/all ISP throttle speeds currently.) There are sound economic arguments to make about increasing Australia’s internet speeds (productivity improvements alone) – most of them are contained in the justification of building the NBN.

I’m less concerned about the civil liberties aspect of the filter (other than to the extent that I’m opposed to Australia’s outmoded classification system). The Australian Government already censors most material that Australians are (legally) allowed to read, watch or listen to.

Do I agree with the classification system as it stands? No. Do I think the internet is so “special” that it deserves to be the only publication medium outside of Australia’s classification system? No.

If we are going to have a debate about the category of “Refused Classification” materials, then let’s have that debate. Don’t let’s get bogged down with talking about mandatory internet filtering.

I believe that adults should be allowed to buy computer games that in other countries would be classified R18+, but which are refused classification in Australia because we only go up to M15+ (although I’ve no interest in playing games like Aliens v. Predator or similar gore-games). I believe that Australians should be allowed to read jihadist books like Join the Caravan. I believe that adults should be allowed to read or watch books or videos about how to commit euthanasia. I don’t think any of these things are related substantially to the proposed filter.

The problem with the #nocleanfeed crowd is that they’re clamouring over the civil liberties arguments, the “Aunt Gladys”, wowser arguments, and freedom of expression arguments, only when it threatens their download speeds.

Where was all the outrage when Ruddock banned Join the Caravan and Defence of the Muslim Lands back in 2006 (I was at Melbourne University in 2006, and I don’t recall seeing many people at the protests)? Where was the outrage when Ken Park was banned? Where was the outrage from these people when the Howard Government introduced sedition laws or “anti-terrorism” legislation that restricted our civil liberties in real ways?

If the debate is about the filter not stopping child p-rnographers, then let’s have that debate. If it’s about classification, then let’s debate classifications. If it’s about people not trusting this Government or a future Government not to use the filter to block political content (a la Iran/China/Nth Korea/etc), let’s debate that. If it’s about speeds, let’s talk about speeds.

It seems to me that the No Clean Feed campaign and its supporters are trying to throw everything and the kitchen sink, and in so doing, cloud the argument.

The pro-filter advocates have a very simple line. “It will prevent freaks and sickos from hurting our kids”. Simple, easy to understand, and not confused with a thousand issues. Kids. Sickos. Protect.

UPDATE I:

There’s talk around the traps that the No Clean Feed campaign could be significant electorally in 2010. Anti-filter Possum Pollytics crunches the numbers here.

In my view, bigger issues (like jobs, interest rates, climate change, leadership, the economy) are going to outweigh the filter as an election issue. There’s almost no way that the filter will affect any election, anywhere in Australia, since we’re talking about a hand full of people (a few hundred) whose impact will be countered by other minor issue groups.

UPDATE II:

The big ISPs have their say:

They believe the filter to block all material refused a classification will slow broadband speeds, including the services delivered by the much vaunted NBN.

Related posts:

1. Why I'm not blacking out on Australia Day
2. Some key message ideas for #NoCleanFeed
3. No Clean Feed campaign needs to drop their "censorship" obsession