Australia has given its first g'down, mate! order for Internet porn housed on a Web site based in the country, under a new online content law which has civil libertarians fearful it means a grave abrogation of free speech.
The Australian Broadcasting Authority gave the order Monday, and the unidentified Web host complied, though the material's parent adult Web site (also unidentified, according to Wired) remains online. The new law allows the government to order offline material which could be classified as either X or RC (Refused Classification) if they had been included in motion pictures.
The Online Services Act went into effect on New Year's Day, empowering the ABA to order content removal from domestic Web servers. It's one of the most ambitious efforts by a democratic government anywhere, Wired says, to control Web content within its borders. Australia wants to keep "potentially damaging material - primarily sexual," the magazine says, from reaching "impressionable young children" or those who find it offensive unwittingly.
Australia has always argued online content should not be completely free of controls when other media such as film are not. But online rights advocates, Wired says, condemn the new law as setting a precedent undermining free speech and stepping toward removal of online content access decisions from individuals where it belongs.
If online content is deemed an R rating, the host must put it to an adult verification process before letting Web surfers see the material, but it may not have to be taken down pending a decision, the magazine says.
ABA special projects manager Stephen Nugent tells Wired the Monday move was a response to a specific complaint the broadcast authority considered worthy of referral to the Office of Film and Literature Classification, and gave the host an interim takedown order last Friday pending the OFLC determination.
Nugent wouldn't disclose the content host or the complainer for privacy reasons, but he tells Wired the offending material belonged to a larger adult site which still operates. He wouldn't say how much material was pulled down but he did say it amounted to "several pages."
A second OFLC referral and interim takedown order is now being done for another Web site, Nugent tells the magazine. The order is expected soon, he says.
The ABA has received less than ten complaints since the new law took effect, and Nugent says at least one has been rejected.
Electronic Frontiers Australia plans to make a Freedom of Information request about the Monday takedown. EFA Vice Chairman Greg Taylor tells Wired they want to learn more about the criteria used in rating online content. He says if ABA is considering still images under a film ratings system, and Australian film ratings are generally more restrictive than for print, this could mean graphic images cleared for print could be banned from the Net, according to Wired.
