The attorneys-general, who met last week in Adelaide to discuss the introduction of an R18+ classification of computer games, also turned their thoughts to the regulation of ‘race-hate’ sites on the internet.
SCAG have commissioned a report on the viability of authorising the ACMA, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, to combat race-hate sites by ordering internet service providers to take them down.
At present, ACMA polices websites that breach copyright, promote terrorism or publish extreme pornography, but not racial vilification. For ACMA to be able to intervene, a new definition of the “refused classification” category used by the federal Government’s, OFLC, the Office of Film and Literature Classification Board, to deal with violent pornography and similar material would need to be developed.
Students might like to firstly research just how both the OFLC and the ACMA regulate media in Australia.
Secondly, students might consider the arguments for and against regulating racial vilification in Australia using the OFLC and ACMA.
Are their better ways of dealing with racial vilification than censorship?
Would extending ACMA’s powers in this way end up stifling political debate and democracy in Australia?
Are there other problems with using censorship? Dale Clapperton, from the online civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia, claims one problem with banning such sites was that “it inevitably turns them into martyrs and gives more attention to the type of material you are trying to suppress”.
“The best cure for ‘bad’ speech is more speech,” Mr Clapperton said.
On the other side, the proposed system could be used to take down websites such as the one operated by the Australia First party, which was involved in the civil unrest at Cronulla in December 2005. An article on the group’s website, by someone who signed in as “Joni”, compares Muslims to mould. “Just when you think it’s safe to appreciate your cheese in your own environment again you see it’s back. Now darker, deeper, growing, invading, insidious.”
Should we be taking down websites that publish words like this? Should the whole site be taken down?
Its very hard to prosecute people who engage in racial vilification on the internet. Often, no full name or address is given, many comments are posted anonymously. Because of this, the Attorney General’s are thinking about using the tool of media regulation in the form of censorship to combat the problem.
You might like to have a debate in your classroom … Is censorship the right way to deal with racial vilification? Is censorship too blunt an instrument, used at too great a cost to political debate in a democratic society?
The Australia First party, whether you agree with their views or not, are a registered Australian political party. Using your ‘mould’ posting as an example, let’s rephrase the question as this: should an executive agency of the Commonwealth government have discretionary power to ‘take down’* the website of a minor Australian political party?
The closest thing that we have to freedom of speech in Australia is an implied freedom of speech on political and governmental issues. The courts haven’t (yet, and maybe never will) read that implied freedom as protecting only reasonably phrased, politically correct, racially non-discriminatory, and otherwise non-offensive political debate.
Whether we like it or not, race is a very live issue in Australian politics at the moment. This year alone, we’ve seen the apology from the Commonwealth government, further controversy over the NT intervention, arguments over monetary compensation arising from the apology, news stories about the ‘white flight’ from regional areas, etc. And that’s before we get into the long-standing debate about immigration, refugees, the demonization of asylum-seekers by the previous regime, etc.
If somebody expresses the viewpoint that, for example, we ought to stop accepting refugees from certain countries because they are reported by the media as engaging in unlawful activity at a much higher rate than the rest of the population, or they are resettling in clusters which become ghettos, is that ‘race hate’, or are they expressing their opinion on a political/governmental issue as is their right in a liberal democracy?
It’s hard to have some debates involving race without one side being susceptible to being labelled as racist by the other side. Legislating that the ‘racist’ side can’t speak their mind because it offends the ‘non-racist’ side is undemocratic.
Defending people’s right to speak isn’t the same as defending what they say.
* To the extent that such a ‘take down’ would be effective – the website would almost certainly move to an overseas hosting provider and continue as before, except now they’ll have cause to rant about conspiracies against them, and mock the ineffectiveness of the new laws at suppressing them. The futility of such actions would hold the law up to ridicule and, I submit, is another reason against legislating in this direction.
By: Dale Clapperton on April 1, 2008
at 7:15 am