I’ve written about this stealthy attempt at censorship before, which the GroundUp website has kindly published.
I think there’s a more general discussion that needs to be held.

The ISPA provides, through it’s code of conduct, a process for its members to take action against “Unlawful content and activity”. “There is no general obligation on any ISPA member to monitor services provided to customers, but a member is obliged to take appropriate action where it becomes aware of any unlawful content or conduct.”

According to the current ISPA code of conduct, absolutely anyone may request a takedown of content they deem to be ‘unlawful’.
All you need to do is to provide the following details at the ISPA:

• Your full name; Your address; Your telephone number; Your email address;
• The name of the service provider against whom you are making the complaint
• A clear and unambiguous identification of the unlawful material or activity
• A description of the right that you believe has been infringed by the material or activity concerned
• The remedial action you wish the service provider to take
• A statement that the information in your complaint is, to your knowledge, true and correct and that you are acting in good faith.

Note the difference between the word “unlawful” and the sentence “A description of the right that you believe has been infringed by the material or activity concerned”.
These are vastly different concepts.

Taken at face value, this essentially allows anyone to register a take-down request for anything they might feel offended-by. If you believe that your self-determined right to not be offended has been infringed – then nothing stops you from registering a take-down request. “OMG this Atheist has blasphemed and criticised my beliefs – a violation of my right to freedom of religion”.
That would be a ridiculous assertion – not only is blasphemy not a violation of human right and criticism of religious belief fails to be an infringement of rights – but following through and suppressing valid and reasonable criticism tramples the right to free speech.

So what does the ISPA do with such a ridiculous complaint? It makes no judgement as to whether the complaint is valid or reasonable. After verifying the site contains the information complained-of and that the site is published using the services of one of its members – it merely passes on the complaint to the member ISP demanding action.

What does the member ISP do? In the CAMcheck instance, Hetzner applied no thinking or judgement that the complaint was valid, or that it actually infringed on any rights, or that it was indeed “unlawful”. The ISP merely passes on the takedown request to the consumer. The response from Hetzner is clear “As a hosting company, Hetzner does not adjudicate whether the content is offensive or not. Our role is simply to enforce the take-down request. . . . For you to re-enable the content in question, our suggestion would be to obtain a court judgement instructing Hetzner to allow the content in our hosting environment.”

In other words: merely because someone is offended by something – issuing a takedown request can force a website publisher to censor valid and reasonable criticism.
And this is simply because neither the ISPA, not the ISPs are willing to apply their minds to the validity of the request itself.

This is objectionable. The ISPA and its members have allowed themselves to become the tools of those wanting censorship.