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Governments should not censor the internet

A chain and padlock across a computer keyboard.

11 May 2010

Architects of the internet have championed its promise as an instrument of liberty – a free-wheeling republic in which the ordinary person can bypass the gatekeepers of power and influence.

Beneath the shiny towers of liberty electronic sewers run thick with child pornography, terrorist propaganda, racial hatred, crazy conspiracies and other products of the grimy denizens of the internet’s underworld.

Some governments think that they should protect us from what they deem to be harmful to the common weal.

Can we not be trusted to care for ourselves? And if not, then will censorship inevitably shut out the light along with the dark?

Discuss this topic

Speakers

For

  • Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based independent freelance journalist, author and blogger. He is author of a of book on the Israel/Palestine conflict, My Israel Question, and is a board member of Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies. He is an Honorary Associate at Macquarie University’s Department of Politics and International Relations, and is the co-founder of advocacy group independent Australian Jewish Voices. He contributed to Amnesty International's 2008 about Chinese internet repression and the Beijing Olympic Games. He is author of The Blogging Revolution, a revelatory account of bloggers around the globe who live and write under repressive regimes - many of them risking their lives in doing so.
  • Ross LaJeunesse is Head of Public Policy and Government Affairs for Google Inc. in Asia. He oversees the company’s relationships with governments and policymakers throughout the Asia Pacific region, and advises Google on data security, internet privacy, free speech and numerous other issues affecting the company’s operations and products. Before joining Google, LaJeunesse served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  • David Marr has spent the last 35 years reporting for Fairfax, broadcasting for the ABC and writing books. He came to journalism after first training as a lawyer. He then joined the Sydney Morning Herald where he continues to write on politics, the law, media and the arts. David Marr presented Media Watch from 2002-2004. Last year, Marr published The Henson Case, a forensic analysis of the most bitter art controversy of the last fifty years.

Against

  • Elizabeth Handsley is Professor and Associate Dean of Law at Flinders University in Adelaide. She is a specialist in media law as it affects children. She is vice-president of the Australian Council on Children and the Media, and is a Co-Convenor of the Harvard-Australia Symposium on Media Use and Children's Well Being. She has also published on contempt, defamation and sedition law. Elizabeth has two daughters aged 16 and 11.
  • Kaiser Kuo is a Beijing-based columnist, and commentator on technology and politics. He currently serves as consultant for international business, and does media relations for Youku.com, China's leading Internet video site. He is a musician and was co-founder of China's most successful heavy metal band, Tang Dynasty. He is a frequent guest on China Central Television, and speaks frequently on topics related to the Chinese internet. Kaiser graduated in Polictical Science from the University of California, Berkeley (1988), and has an MA in East Asian Studies from the University of Arizona (1992). He is presently writing a book about the impact of the internet on US-China relations.

  • Alastair MacGibbon is founder of the Internet Safety Institute and Managing Partner of internet consultancy the Surete Group. Prior to that, Alastair headed Trust & Safety at eBay Australia and later eBay Asia Pacific. He was the founding Director of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre (AHTCC), a law enforcement unit hosted by the Australian Federal Police to coordinate Australia’s efforts to combating serious crime involving technology. He was a Federal Agent with the Australian Federal Police for fifteen years.

Chair:

Dr Simon Longstaff is Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre. Simon spent five years studying and working as a member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Having won scholarships to study at Cambridge, he read for the degrees of Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy. He was inaugural President of The Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics and is a Director of a number of companies. He is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Foreign Policy Association, based in New York. Simon has been Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre since shortly after it was founded.