Internet Censorship and Government

Legislation

Jennifer Liu Lily Ji

27/09/2011

1. Summary

2. Analysis

3. Conclusion

4. Questions

Contents:

GREAT FIREWALL OF AUSTRALIA

INFORMATION SHOULD BE FREE?

“ACCESS CONTROLLED”-Australia and New Zealand Overview

• Offensive Content

• Hate Speech

• Copyright

• Defamation

• Surveillance

1. Summary

2. Analysis - International Comparison- Australia Aspect• Government legislation• Media Climate

3. Conclusions

4. Questions

Contents:

U.S.A

India

China

Australia

International Comparison

• Federal Lawso Communications Decency Acto Children's Internet Protection Act

• Censorship by institutions o Schoolso Librarieso Telecommunication Companies

o Wikileaks

U.S.A

India

• “Partially Free”

o Information Technology Act (ITA)

o Government blocking requests

o Watch out what you say on the Internet

BANNED

People’s Republic of China

BANNED

People’s Republic of China

• Government Regulations on Pornographic, offensive content, violent and etc.

• Internet Police

• Comments, Blog and forums

Australia

• Government legislationo Broadcasting Services Act 1992o Copyright Legislation Amendment Bill 2004

• National Broadband Networko Internet Censorship

RC rated material Politically sensitive USA against Australia’s filter plan

“It will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds…

-Stephen Conroy,

Minister of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy

Australian Media Climate

• More conservative

Example: Neda Agha-Soltan’s death

• Culture relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn0lwGk4u9o

Conclusion

• Government legislations to censor the internet apply to all countries

• The level of internet censorship reflects the degree of democracy of that country.

• Australia’s censorship is stricter than most of the other western countries.

Questions1. To what extent do you believe “information should be free”?

2. As a future journalist, will you obey the government’s regulation of not reporting some certain news, or will you insist to reveal the truth to the public?

3. The inherently independent and viral nature of twitter makes it almost impossible to regulate, and because individuals are involved instead of media houses, they cannot be influenced or swayed so easily. That’s why whether it likes this or not, the government will have to learn to live in the new realigned world where individual opinion makers have a lot of power, and their tweets are being seen by hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

What do you think about it with regard to the internet censorship and the influence of social network such as Twitter and Facebook?