Australian Senate OK's Cyber-Censorship 


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PlanetOut Gay & Lesbian Community News

Thursday May 27 11:50 PM ET 


AUS Sen. OKs Cyber-censorship

An Australian CDA has passed in the Senate and is heading for the house, as
lawmakers ignore the concerns of lesbians and gays who foresee the
devastation of an invaluable outreach tool.

The Australian Senate on May 25 approved a Government measure intended to
block offensive material on the Internet, despite myriad objections from a
large number of widely diverse groups including gays and lesbians. The
Senate debate itself took a turn many found offensive as the Government
minister advocating for the bill suggested that lesbian relationships might
not be considered "normal." The bill will next be considered by the House of
Representatives, where it is expected to pass.

The "normality" discussion began when openly gay Tasmanian Green Party
Senator Dr. Bob Brown took Liberal Senator Karen Synon to task for having
complained to the Australian Broadcasting Authority -- the body that will
also be tasked with overseeing the Internet under the Broadcasting Services
Amendment (Online Services) Bill -- about the lesbian relationship portrayed
in a locally produced afternoon television soap opera. To Brown, this
illustrated how with the Internet measure the Government could be looking
"for censorship way beyond explicit sexual portrayal and violence" to
limiting portrayal of the real diversity of relationships in Australia, in a
way that "harked back to the Dark Ages." Brown said that "lesbian
relationships are normal; they are part of the normal spectrum of
relationships in our society."

Rather than respond directly to Brown's point, Communications, Information
Technology and Arts Minister Richard Alston chose to consider the meaning of
"normal." He said that most people would disagree with the idea that a
lesbian relationship is normal. "It might be normal within the context of a
lesbian relationship, but by definition of the fact that those relationships
constitute a very small proportion of total relationships, it seems to me to
be misusing the term 'normal' to describe a minority situation. To take a
sporting analogy, a lot of people kick with the left foot. But if only 10%
of the population kick with the left foot, that doesn't make it the norm."

The Australian Council for Lesbian and Gay Rights said that Alston exhibited
"damaging bigotry" that encouraged others to hostility towards gays and
lesbians, thereby endangering gay and lesbian youth.

Senator John Faulkner, leader of the Labor Opposition, on May 26 called on
Prime Minister John Howard to require an apology from Alston, describing the
remarks as inappropriate, insensitive, distasteful, and ignorant. "In our
[Labor Party] view, it is unbecoming of any member of the Senate, let alone
a senior Government minister, to label sections of the Australian community
as abnormal, as Senator Alston did. And his reference in the chamber
yesterday to left-footers by way of comparison to the gay and lesbian
community should, in our view, be treated with absolute contempt. I hope
Senator [Government leader Robert] Hill will refer the comments that Senator
Alston has made to the prime minister and I hope the prime minister will
force Senator Alston to take the appropriate action."

Instead, Hill insisted that Alston had been misrepresented, intended no
offense and done nothing wrong.

Alston's wordplay was kind compared to his previous blasts against critics
of the legislation, who he said "were making it easier for pedophiles,
drug-pushers, racists and criminals to pollute the Internet"; bomb-makers
were sometimes included in the list. On the other side, the Australian
Computer Society said in committee testimony that the bill would make
Australia "the laughingstock of the world," while the free speech group
Electronic Frontiers Australia said the Internet censorship would be as
oppressive as that in Burma, China, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore and implied
that supporters were undemocratic.

The Government proposal calls on the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA)
to classify verbal and visual material on the Internet much as it does
films, with X-rated material banned from servers in Australia and R-rated
material accessible only to those confirmed as at least 18 years of age.
Ratings will be made primarily in response to complaints received, with the
assistance of a community/industry advisory body. The ABA will be able to
order an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to remove X-rated items within a
day, with daily fines of A$5,500 for individuals and of A$27,500 for
corporations for failure to comply. In cases of pornographic Web sites
created in Australia, it would be the creator and not the ISP who would be
liable for the fine; in fact there are already laws in place to deal with
this situation, although an estimated 90% of pornographic materials in
Australia originate overseas. Although these standards are primarily
intended to apply to Web sites and d! o not apply to e-mail exchanged
between individuals, Alston clarified on May 26 that group mailings of
offensive material will also be targeted. If the bill proceeds as expected,
the measure will go into effect January 1, 2000.

As usual, the devil is in the details. One large fuzzy area is that the
Australian Internet Industry Association is expected to develop a code of
practice for self-regulation, to determine what "reasonable steps" maybe
taken. Although that code must be endorsed by the ABA, the Association's
executive director Peter Coroneos said it was even possible that the
industry would decide there were no "reasonable steps" at all, which may be
why the organization has taken a position that it "can live with" the bill.
Many have already said that it's not technologically feasible to carry out
the kind of censorship prescribed by the bill. Another problem which has
been noted is that the bill does not extend any additional resources to the
ABA to support its expanded duties.

Also as usual in these debates, the limitations of filtering programs were
evidenced. One filtering program which Alston and some other politicians had
grown enthusiastic about, was shown to screen out the National Party home
page, as well all the user Web sites on Ozemail, America Online, and
Geocities, and most of the ISP's in the country. None of the filters were
able to function effectively on foreign language sites. Meanwhile, it was
discovered that only 20% of consumers use filtering programs available to
them. Those actually regularly accessing pornography appear to run a steady
4% of consumers.

Paul Canning developed an extensive statement on behalf of The Australian
Council for Lesbian and Gay Rights (ACLGR), including a denunciation of
filters and a description of how the measure would lead to a "creeping
censorship" which would unfairly target gay and lesbian sites. That
statement is available in full at
http://www.rainbow.net.au/~canning/senate-submission-fd.doc.

Although denied the opportunity to testify in committee hearings, the ACLGR
had strong public statements to make in opposition to the bill, which the
group described as "a bigot's charter." ACLGR co-convenor Rodney Croome
said, "This law provides the legal foundation for a swath of complaints
against lesbian and gay Web sites to be lodged with the regulatory
authority. Every small-minded and homophobic bigot in the country will be
able to haul a whole range of gay and lesbian organizations before the
authorities and force us to justify our presence on the Internet." Croome
had also charged that, "The interests of lesbian and gay people have been
and continue to be dismissed as an acceptable 'trade off' to satisfy
concerns about the protection of minors from viewing material considered
offensive."

ACLGR Co-convenor Jennifer Wilson said the law would violate the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by withdrawing the
right of minorities to cultural representation. She said, "thanks to this
new law, young gays and lesbians will find it that much harder to access
positive information about, and representations of, their sexuality. This
not only puts their lives at risk, but contravenes our nation's human rights
obligations."

ACLGR does believe that some steps should be taken to shield minors from
offensive material, but recommends a voluntary labeling system for Web sites
as the means to achieve it. The key points the group has tried to
communicate to lawmakers are that: 1) filter products must be regulated, be
required to issue accurate information to purchasers including their banned
lists, and that they be required to make efforts to unblock sites which do
not constitute banned sites under this bill without requiring prior
notification; 2) access to educational sites (such as sex education and
same-sex attraction support) by teenagers be ensured; 3) so-called 'R' rated
sites not require Age Verification Systems (which would devastate gay and
lesbian Australian sites); 4) arbitrary deletion or blocking of gay sites by
ISPs and content providers be unlawful or against industry codes; 5) any
'community' bodies set up by the ABA have lesbian and gay representation.

Australian gays and lesbians have worked hard to build community through the
Internet, with considerable success. Just this month a new network called
Outlink was launched by the Australian Youth Foundation specifically to
provide support for lesbigay youth in rural areas, as a means of preventing
drug abuse, homelessness and suicide.

The Internet censorship measure was opposed not only by gays and lesbians,
industry groups, and by free speech and other civil rights groups, but also
by librarians, scientists, consumer groups, and even Young Media Australia,
which is a monitoring group representing mothers' groups and the Catholic
Women's League. A legislative aide said that some 50 submissions had been
received the weekend of the bill's introduction, with 49 of them opposing
the bill.
 
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