Internet filtering system needs support from Papua New Guinea Government

Robroy Chicki principal adviser for mass media who is spearheading the way forward for internet filtering

By FIDELIS SUKINA

The Papua New Guinea office of censorship has embarked on an internet filtering system which will help counter the access of indecent material that is being accessed by the public.

The filtering system is aimed at minimizing the flow of illicit materials on-line including pornography & online child-sex exploitation, monitoring other cybercrimes including: internet money laundering, drug trafficking and human trafficking. As well as identifying scams.

Robroy Chicki who is the principal adviser for mass media and the lead researcher in establishing the internet filtering system of the country said  it was an idea that was visionary by the office  but  lacked the funding and support by the government also the reality of lack of man power was an issue as well.

“We do not have the capacity and the resources to run the internet filtering system  it needs high political attention we have  a minimal budget and only 25 personnel  compared to 7.5 million  Papua New Guineans”.

“The funding is really low we are campaigning for the government to see the importance but the impact they see is not that important, to find the right system there is a lot to do, we also have to do consulting and get feedback from the public there is room for opinion”.Mr Chicki said

Chief Censor Mr Steven Mala said that it was obvious that accessing indecent material from the internet was evident within society and it was undeniable

“We based the idea of the internet filtering system on the fact that the accessibility of Pornography is here and we cannot deny that”.

“Everybody is thinking we are trying to suppress their rights we are not and the media must understand this and disseminate the right information to the public, this is about minimizing indecent material”.

“There is a huge volume of indecent material being accessed from all the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) if we had access on the volume being accessed you would see, ISPs are making money from this and they can’t give me that information it is evident in communities in cities and towns and to me that is enough evidence to have a filtering system”. Mr Mala said

Mala added that he was in Vanuatu on a forum on Child online protection and talked with the person who designed New Zealand’s internet filtering system and got a positive response.

“When I was in Vanuatu attending a forum on child online protection I spoke personally to the person who did the filtering system in New Zealand and he said it can be done.”  “I did it for New Zealand and I can do it for PNG”.  Mala said