Activists mock web filter with ad

A coalition of social activism groups has launched an advertising campaign attacking the federal government's proposed ISP filter.

Social activists GetUp!, with support from groups like Civil Liberties Australia and Save the Children, has rolled out a satirical commercial lampooning the filter plan which it aims to play on commercial flights to Canberra when parliament resumes.

"I think the thing about this internet censorship plan is that it is ridiculous — it just won't work and that's why we went for a parody, to show just how ridiculous this idea is," GetUp! national director Simon Sheikh told ninemsn.

Mr Sheikh said the filter will block out many perfectly legal sites but will do nothing to stop the biggest threat, peer-to-peer networks.

"We think the government's plan is unworkable, unnecessary and unwanted by the Australian public," he said.

"It’s unworkable because the vast majority in fact of unwanted content is spread using peer-to-peer networks and this plan simply won't reach those networks."

He said money invested in any filter would be better spent in other preventative and combative measures.

"We think the way to deal with unwanted content online is actually to invest in educating and empowering parents as well as resourcing the AFP (Australian Federal Police), and that is not what's the command and control mechanism will do," Mr Sheikh said.

"In fact the cost of this scheme in yearly cost is equivalent to 300 AFP officers — that's 300 extra AFP officers we could have on the online beat if we invested our money wisely.

"We're all on the same side here, what we're trying to do is focus on better solutions."

Late today the office of Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, released a statement saying GetUp!'s campaign "misrepresents the Government's position".

"For its last campaign on the issue, GetUp! falsely claimed that any form of filtering would slow internet speeds by 87 percent," the statement said.

"Now it resorts to spurious claims about the future expansion of the list of content that may be filtered.

"The Government regards freedom of speech as very important and the Government's cyber-safety policy is in no way designed to curtail this."

The statement said the Government was currently trialling ISP level filtering — which Telsta and iiNet, two of Australia's three largest internet service providers, both declined to take part in. (Read more: Government urged to abandon Net filter trial)