overview
concepts
Australia
UK
Canada
US
Europe
elsewhere
cases
online
blacklists
mutiny
landmarks
related
Guides:
Publishing
Free speech & censorship
Hatespeech
& politics
Governance
Security
& InfoCrime
related
Profiles:
Blogging
Email
& Chat
Bombmaking
Echelon
Surveillance
|
online
This page considers treatment of online sedition, including
postings in newsgroups, personal blogs and sites maintained
by advocacy organisations.
It covers -
introduction
The preceding pages of this note have indicated that concern
about seditious expression has embraced speech, print,
graphic arts (including comics and posters), film and
radio/television broadcasts. The characterisation of 'sedition'
- and responses to it - vary from state to state and by
epoch, with most jurisdictions exhibiting cycles of anxiety,
repression and relaxation regarding supposed/substantive
external and internal threats.
In Australia for example there have recurrent calls for
special sedition legislation and prosecutions regarding
successive menaces such as fenians (1860s-1921), anarchists
(1890s-1925) and communists (1917-1950s). For many people
such action now has a distinctly antiquarian flavour.
Other states have actively sought to restrict what many
Australians would consider to be legitimate - or merely
harmless - criticism, with little differentiation between
those who advocate the violent overthrow of the regime
and those who question a lack of choice in political representation.
Responses to online seditious activity in liberal democratic
states such as Australia are complicated by perceptions
that the net embodies free
speech and is (or should be) freer than offline.
They are also complicated by perceptions that government
agencies - or surrogates such as ISPs - cannot effectively
police online publishing and messaging (expectations that
we have questioned elsewhere on this site). Rationales
for that belief are that -
- the
net is "too big and too fluid" for meaningful
identification and prosecution of offences
- authorities
are 'illiterate' (eg lack the requisite IT skills or
are not conversant with languages such as Arabic, Sinhalese
or Serbian)
- authorities
prefer to concentrate on "traditional technologies",
whether because of personal/institutional affinity or
because traditional methods produce better results
- technologies
enable true anonymity or effective pseudonymity
Most
states have chosen to treat online activity as part of
broader sedition enactments, offences in an existing criminal
code or provisions in telecommunications law. The net
thus has not been quarantined from restrictions on offline
activity such as attempting to personally suborn police/troops
or authoring, printing and distributing leaflets calling
for the destruction of government buildings, the death
of judges and disruption of community services such as
water and electricity.
The proposed 2005 federal legislation in Australia for
example features offences regarding people who "incite
violence against the community", complementing restrictions
under the federal Crimes Act and broadcasting and telecommunications
legislation.
In France the national government has referred to legislation
regarding "inciting harm to people and property over
the internet" in detaining bloggers
on suspicion of encouraging people to take part in the
2005 Paris riots. One blogger used the unfortunate nom
de plume 'sarkodead', a reference to Interior Minister
Nicholas Sarkozy - who had unsurprisingly disparaged the
rioters.
next page (blacklists)
|
|
Ketupa