overview
flows
erotica
global
Aust law
elsewhere
agencies
advocacy
texts
free speech
filters
postal
journalism
books
comics
art
photos
performance
film & video
games
radio
television
education
street life
advertising
unplugged
workplace
prisons
landmarks
related
Guides:
Privacy
Secrecy
related
Profiles:
Law
Aust & NZ
Censorship
Human
Rights
Aust
Constitution
& Cyberspace
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overview
This guide explores censorship, regulation of offensive
material and free speech in the digital environment.
It is complemented by a separate guide on Secrecy,
including discussion of official secrets legislation,
commercial confidentiality regimes, freedom of information,
archives and whistleblowing.
contents of this guide
This guide covers -
- information
flows - a discussion
of blasphemy, pornography, official secrets and other
issues
- online
erotica - how much
offensive material is online, is it growing, can it
be managed?
- global
frameworks - international agreements and national
responsibilities in the age of the global information
infrastructure
- Australian
legislation - Commonwealth
and state/territory legislation, codes of practice,
enforcement measures such as hotlines, and major government/industry
initiatives
- elsewhere
- overseas national and international legal frameworks
for online censorship
- agencies
- a map of the Australian and overseas government agencies
- advocacy
- making sense of business and community groups
- texts
- selections from the online and offline literature
about censorship in cyberspace
- freedoms
- free speech online and related policy challenges in
national and international information infrastructures
- filters,
walls and tunnels - mechanisms for controlling reception
rather than distribution of content (with an evaluation
of filters, age-verification schemes and other content
management tools) and for evading national firewalls
- postal
- interdiction of letters and other postal items
- journalism
- censorship of news, in particular newspapers and journals
- books
- censorship of books offers a perspective on the regulation
of online content
- comics
- censorship of comics and anime
- art
- censorship of painting, sculpture and other visual
arts
- photos
- censorship of photography
- performance
- censorship of theatre and music
- film
- censorship of film and video
- electronic
games - censorship
of video, console and networked games
- radio
- censorship of radio
- television
- censorship of radio
- education
- censorship in universities, secondary and junior schools
- street
life - 'speech in the street', demonstrations, graffiti
and 'blue laws' about Sunday trading
- advertising
- restrictions on advertising as a form of censorship
- unplugged
- taking nations offline
- workplace
- censorship and free speech in the workplace
- prisons
- censorship in custodial institutions
- landmarks
- some censorship and free speech landmarks
This
site also features a detailed profile
examining the shape of censorship in Australia and New
Zealand from the 1780s onwards, providing a point of reference
for understanding online content regulatory mechanisms,
issues and advocacy groups.
Questions of jurisdiction, privacy and other issues
are explored in the guides on Governance
and Privacy.
our position
Our position? Managing access to content is problematical
- in principle and practice - whether offline or online.
The stridency of advocates for particular positions doesn't
assist consideration of one of the most contentious issues
in the regulation of cyberspace.
We urge caution in considering some of the easy answers
recurrently peddled by advocates on the left and right. John
Gilmore's glib dictum
that "the internet interprets censorship as damage
and routes around it" ignores substantial issues.
It may have been valid when the net was the realm of right
thinking wizards. As Jack Goldsmith & Tim Wu note
in Who Controls The Internet? - Illusions Of A Borderless
World (New York: Oxford Uni Press 2006) it is particularly
unconvincing now the web has become a mass communication
infrastructure.
Irrespective of criticisms by info-libertarians, the net
is subject to regulation. Our expectation is that at the
global, national and local levels such regulation will
become more comprehensive and more nuanced.
It also clear that many of the technological quick fixes
don't work. Some of the legislative approaches in
Australia and overseas (such as the national filter proposals
in Australia) are ill-conceived and oversold. That is
important because those approaches cramp the growth of
the information economy, expose the unwary to abuse and
bring law into disrepute.
next page
(information flows)
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