Australian Censorship Law Overturned by Internet Users
February 4th, 2010 by adminOn 6th January 2010 a new law was put into operation in the state of South Australia. The new law required all persons posting a political comment during an election period to disclose their full name and address on the comment or blog post. Those who commented or blogged anonymously or whom supplied a false name and address would be subject to an immediate fine of $1,250. This law applied to online bloggers and commenter’s only, and did not apply to online newspapers or magazines because political comment made on these comments and blogs had been written by professional journalists.
This restrictive law was instantly classed as discriminatory to internet users who were compelled to provide their personal information and effectively destroyed the premise of freedom of speech and a right to anonymity and privacy.
This law was supported by South Australia’s Attorney General Michael Atkinson, who continued to defend the law as he believed that such anonymity by internet users was being abused by political opponents to launch political attack against him.
After a campaign was launched by bloggers of South Australia to restore the right to anonymity and to undo the restrictive laws supported by the majority of MPs and political parties in the state, Atkinson eventually caved and has promised to repeal law when the elections have finished.
The internet uprising by users has undoubtedly caused this restrictive and censoring law to be overturned. Such a law would likely be deemed inproportionate in the UK.
Recently in the United States a court ruled that a clause contained within a website’s privacy policy could not justify revealing an anonymous commenter’s identity, as the right to anonymity could not be waived, despite the content of the commenter’s post containing defamatory content.
