CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘RSF’ Category

Conroy slams internet enemies report

March 15, 2010
www.manlylodge.com.au

AAP

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has hit back at a new report listing Australia as a potential internet enemy.

Press freedom advocacy group Reporters without Borders released their Enemies of the Internet report last Friday, to coincide with World Day Against Cyber Censorship.

It found Australia should be kept ‘under surveillance’ for signs that internet freedom may soon be curbed.

The federal government wants all internet service providers to ban refused classification material hosted on overseas servers.

Senator Conroy said listing Australia as a country that may be an ‘enemy of the internet’ – alongside South Korea, Turkey and Russia – showed Reporters without Borders were seriously mislead about what Labor wanted to do.

‘What we have indicated we will block is refused classification content,’ he told parliament on Monday.

‘Material that is not currently available in a newsagent, in a bookstore, on a DVD, at the movies or on television.

‘Material like child pornography, pro-rape websites, pro-bestiality websites and material of that nature.’

Senator Conroy disputed that he ever dismissed critics of his plan as advocates of child pornography.

He said the material cited by Reporters Without Borders had been supplied by the group Electronic Frontiers Australia who had been challenged publicly to produce a quote where that was said.

‘I challenge each and every one of you to come up with such a quote, because it does not exist,’ he said.

‘Electronic Frontiers Australia have one of the most disgraceful misinformation campaigns and have misled Australians.’

© 2010 AAP

Report names 'enemies of the Internet'(CNET)
A report by Reporters Without Borders, which fights for freedom of the press across the world, has cited several nations for their attempts to restrict freedom on the Net. The list of Internet enemies includes what Reporters Without Borders calls ‘the worst violators of freedom of expression on the Net.’ Those nations are Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. Turkey and Russia are also currently on Reporters Without Borders ‘Under Surveillance’ list. In Russia, the Kremlin has arrested and prosecuted bloggers and censored Web sites that it considers extremist. In Turkey, Web sites that discuss the army, the Kurds and Armenians, and other topics considered taboo are blocked. Further, two democratic countries are on the ‘Under Surveillance’ watch list: Australia, which has been trying to push through an Internet filtering system, and South Korea, which sets up laws that are imposing too many restrictions on Internet users.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)