Censorship in the Anglosphere: the UK and Australia

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Deep Links section:

The growing global censorship of the Internet often goes unseen in the English-speaking Net, because so much of it takes place in other countries, and in other languages. But that doesn't mean that there aren't contemporary threats to Internet free speech in the English-speaking world.

In the United Kingdom, two prominent blogs went dark this week after publishing accusations regarding the Uzbek billionaire, Alisher Usmanov. Lawyers representing Usmanov contacted the blogs' webhost, Fasthosts, and after threats to sue under Britain's expansive libel laws, the blogs were removed. The sites included Tim Ireland's popular "Bloggerheads" site, and site of Craig Murray, the ex-Ambassador for Uzbekistan. Murray's hosting provider even intervened to take down individual entries and alter the text of Murray's blog to avoid further legal action. As Murray charitably noted on the now deleted site:

... One of the edits to this log my webhost made at Schillings' [Usmanov's lawyers] behest was to say that my claim was "regarded as false by many people". I have altered that edit, because there is no justification for such a claim. I have yet to see evidence of anybody, not one solitary person, arguing that I am wrong about Usmanov, other than his lawyers. Who are these "Many people", and why are they peculiarly silent?

I am very sympathetic to my webhost having to change things for Schillings, but not to the extent of altering things to become defamatory of me!!!

It's a chilling reminder that censorship doesn't just mean that entire sites can be removed from the Net, or that self-censorship will become rife. It even means that other, commercial third parties - whom you pay for service - might alter the very words credited to you online.

Few subjects of criticism have as enthusiastic lawyers as Usmanov. But in Australia this week, the government introduced a bill that would let the Australian government intervene in the Internet speech of all its citizens, on the flimsiest of pretexts.

The Communications Legislation Amendment (Crime or Terrorism Related Internet Content) Bill would, as Electronic Frontiers Australia says, give the Australian police powers to ban access to Internet content which "they have reasons to believe":

• encourages, incites, or induces the commission of a Commonwealth offence; or
• was published in part to facilitate the commission of such an offence; or
• that it is likely to have the effect of facilitating the commission of such an offence.

In other words, entire sites can be banned in Australia for the merest suspicion of potentially assisting a crime. Such a low threshold for censorship, combined by the repeated calls by Australian politicians of all stripes for a centralized, federal filtering of the net, poses a real threat to speech and access to the Net in Australia. It's good to see groups like Electronic Frontiers Australia stand up to it.

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