Blackberry
12th October 2003, 03:37
The Australian government has been a trailblazer of Internet censorship, secretly enforcing (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/10/1062902087012.html) laws more restrictive than those of notoriously repressive countries such as Singapore (http://www.singapore-window.org/sw02/020513af.htm) and Malaysia. Well that's about to change for the worse if the federal government has it's way to introduce new jailable offences for website operators. This time it looks distinctly like the motives are political, and there are reasons to suspect that activist websites and the independent 'open publishing' news network, IndyMedia may find itself on the butt end of the mallet.
Senator Richard Alston labeled IndyMedia websites as “insidious, anti-democratic, interested in causing violence, mayhem and anarchy” when he tried unsuccessfully to have the sites censored through the Australian Broadcasting Authority last year. Possibly lamenting his failure, Senators Alston and Chris Elison have put out a joint press release, proposing two year jail terms for operators of websites deemed “offensive” or “menacing,” or advocating “violently disrupting international meetings.”
Focus on violence at protests has in the past deflected debate away from the main issues of importance, and allowed politicians and other interested parties to attempt to marginalise protesters. But protester violence seems to be largely a myth, with no reliable evidence ever provided by police or media of its existence at protests like the anti-WEF gathering, S11. Without actual arrests, the legal system has not been co-operative in oppressing political dissent. So, Senators Alston and Elison seem to have proposed a way to use the unfounded hysteria about violence to crack down on dissent and open political discourse.
Senator Alston's idea of democracy, must be a very sanitised one. And it must take a lot of gall for a man from a party which created racist hysteria and lied about children thrown overboard to win an election, to talk about such high ideals.
I think democracy looks a lot more like IndyMedia. IndyMedia websites serve as channels of direct, unedited communication, where media makers and activists can frame their own story in their own words. IndyMedia users report on issues of local and global significance and often express views marginalised or ignored by corporate controlled media. Protesters dispel myths about themselves, and the issues they pu forward by reporting with passionate first hand experience. IndyMedia websites represent an attempt at creating the ideal of the Internet as an accessible and open communication medium. They facilitate online political dialogue and organisation; in a word, democracy - with all the mess and passion.
The Senators' press release (http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_4-2_4008-4_116473,00.html) reads:
It is currently an offence to use a telecommunications service in a way that would be considered by reasonable persons as offensive, or with the result that another person is menaced or harassed.
However, the use of a telecommunications service to carry offensive Internet content is not covered by existing provisions. The new offence will carry a penalty of two years imprisonment, double the punishment for the existing offence.
People using the Internet to advocate or facilitate violent protests, for example by spreading information on methods of violently disrupting international meetings and attacking police officers protecting such gatherings, including those using the Internet to harass or menace others are amongst those who could be prosecuted under the new offences.
Australian Internet content producers are already burdened by state and federal Internet laws described by Electronic Frontiers Australia as “draconian” and more restrictive than those of any other comparably democratic nation. The EFA are lobbying to get existing laws repealed, but the situation appears to be worsening. Besides the newly proposed federal laws, a recent draft of the Cybercrime Code of Practice for Internet Service Providers, released by the Internet Industry Association, seeks to have ISPs record every mouse click Internet users make online, and make it available to police agencies without a warrant. The proposal would be such a massive invasion of privacy, that compliance would probably put ISPs in breach of the existing Telecommunications Act of 1997, and the Privacy Act of 1998. Existing laws which govern the Internet are so severe that there already exists more freedom in the broadcast media.
In the past, John Howard has defended the right to their opinions of Rev. Fred Nile and Pauline Hanson, claiming that Australia has developed more freedom of speech since he came to office. But these two figures hardly represent Howard's ideological adversaries, and no one can claim to be an advocate of freedom of speech unless they believe it applies to views they disagree with, even those views they find “offensive.” Nor can it be limited to the broadcast media, owned by corporations and government and largely sanitised through syndication, self-interest and self-censorship.
Western governments have often talked of the promise of democracy through the Internet. The Clinton administration made appeals to the Chinese government to open it's borders to the Internet. “To constrict [the Internet] would almost defeat its purpose,” said William Daley, speaking at a Shanghai University in 1998, “To limit its reach would be to deny China the social, intellectual, and commercial connections which are demanded in today's global village.” That, of course, was before Seattle at the anti-WTO protests in 1999, a protest which famously used the internet as an organisational medium, and also the birthplace of IndyMedia.
Indymedia
IndyMedia was born out of a need for a radically new way to create and distribute news, in a protest environment where one of the protest targets were the very multinational corporate monoliths controlling the traditional news media. From a single website grown out of a fortuitous meeting between Sydney programmer Matthew Arnison and US media activists, grew an expanding network of 150 local websites, and numerous paper publications, across six continents dedicated to a few basic principles under the IndyMedia name.
“Everyone is a witness. Everyone is a journalist,” is a slogan throughout the network celebrating one of Indymedia's principles of 'open publishing'.
Open publishing is a process of creating news that is transparent and accessible to the readers. With a simplicity similar to sending an email, readers can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories publicly available. They can see editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved and help make editorial decisions by joining one of the the collectives of volunteers who run each site.
IndyMedia websites break down the producer / consumer divide in news production. Indymedia sites “are extensions of the traditional understandings of the internet as a space of sharing and interaction, of online forums of democratic engagement, self-organisation, and the opening of the public sphere.” The sites also seek to end the 'compassion fatigue' and hopelessness which both traditional activist and mainstream media can contribute too. Besides news items, the sites list contacts for activist groups, and details of upcoming events, which each serve to help readers find ways of addressing the many problems the news articles present.
Open publishing is both what makes the sites unique and sometimes problematic. Most free-speech dogmatists in the network have eventually opted for compromise. But significantly, a publicly accessible editorial policy governs what is considered acceptable news content. 'Censored' articles are usually removed to a separate 'hidden' section of the website, allowing readers of the site to monitor the decisions of the editorial collective. The collectives write feature articles for the center column of the sites, which usually seek to summarise to the best articles from the open newswire.
The IndyMedia formula is one of mixed blessings, but it's quite a popular one. The Melbourne website for instance attracts up to 270,000 unique 'visits' a month, and is linked to by at least 1000 distinct other websites at any one time.
The Melbourne website is used to cover issues such as border policy, public space, the nuclear waste dump, water policy, medicare, and the politics of oil and war. The site has been used by anonymous whistleblowers to break news of police corruption, the Public Tenants Union, and the hypocrasy of Archbishop George Pell; stories which not until afterwards, or never at all, appeared in the corporate press.
In the past IndyMedia websites have facilitated lively debates regarding the legitimacy of violent protest, and it's many definitions. Members of the collective don't necessarily endorse violent protest. They may or may not believe there are instances where it is legitimate. However, true to the principle of using dialogue before censorship, they almost universally believe debate on the topic is legitimate, if at times repetitive or stubborn.
Sometimes there are provocateurs, not necessarily sinister ones, sometimes simple devil's advocates. There are also obsessive posters, and single issue ravers. Readers of the site get used to picking through the stories to find the most worthwhile, or they pick up on articles they disagree with and enter into debate on the site by posting comments. But the websites have been selectively quoted from by police, politicians and the media, sometimes to create an impression of impending violent protest, or absurd beliefs, usually as if comments on the website represent a particular movement. Given this approach and the open publishing model there is little to stop the media, or security agencies creating their own news, by self-publishing provocative opinions and quoting them back.
It could not be easy to inspire mass actions of actual violence over the Internet. It may be possible to manifest an anger in a reader with tales of brutality and injustice, but far more difficult to create the collective fervour of a violent mass uprising through the informative, but ultimately somewhat distancing medium of the net. The net can serve mostly only to channel feelings already present.
Violent Protesters
The potential for political oppression under the proposed laws, seems particularly frightening when considering the seeming lies and distortions used to by authorities create a mythology about “violent protests” in Australia. Despite many claims to the contrary by politicians, police and media, it can be stated that no significant organised violence has ever taken place at any recent “anti-globalisation” protest in Australia, nor has any evidence ever been produced for any violence by protesters at any one of these events. Although it has become historically labeled by corporate media as the “violent S11 protests” or the “S11 riots,” not a single charge was ever laid by police on protesters for a violent offence during protests at the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne in 2000.
The biased and mis-reporting of the event, including some pre-emptive scaremongering about “urine filled balloons” by police, newspapers and radio shock jocks two weeks beforehand, were well documented by retired Victorian State Historian, Bernard Barrett in a document which formed the basis of a complaint to the Press Council.
Conclusion
Criminalising legitimate forms of communication, can only contribute to deepening cycles of oppression and protest.
While Senator Alston and Ellison seem to be proposing a way to use the legal system to oppress political dissent based on the perception of violence, and open discussion regarding it, it is unlikely they are concerned at the moment by the possibility of real protester violence, since the mythology serves to deflect political debate.
The people who make up the so called anti-[corporate]-globalisation movements come from a wide range of political perspectives and social backgrounds, and offer a vibrant and diverse range of values and solutions. They come together because they all perceive danger in ever increasing corporate control, free market fundamentalism, unsustainable consumption, and the huge global inequalities brought on by debt and other economic pressures. Many of the local solutions to the problems the protesters see are already being practiced, such as permaculture farming, sustainable building, local trading networks, fair trade systems, democratic and non-hierarchical organising, and independent information networks like IndyMedia. But it's unlikely you will hear much about these solutions, or the larger systematic problems, except through independent media.
Senator Alston himself serves compounds these problems and serves corporate interests by pushing for ever deregulated cross media ownership laws, simultaneously attacking the ABC. Australia already has extraordinarily concentrated media ownership. Attempts to criminalise sites like IndyMedia are a political attack on the entire Internet, the one remaining medium where real alternatives arise.
==========
This can become very serious for me. I am currently one of the webmasters of an anarchist website (http://www.anarchist-action.org), which also has open source publishing. It's also hosted on the same server as Melbourne Indymedia.
Senator Richard Alston labeled IndyMedia websites as “insidious, anti-democratic, interested in causing violence, mayhem and anarchy” when he tried unsuccessfully to have the sites censored through the Australian Broadcasting Authority last year. Possibly lamenting his failure, Senators Alston and Chris Elison have put out a joint press release, proposing two year jail terms for operators of websites deemed “offensive” or “menacing,” or advocating “violently disrupting international meetings.”
Focus on violence at protests has in the past deflected debate away from the main issues of importance, and allowed politicians and other interested parties to attempt to marginalise protesters. But protester violence seems to be largely a myth, with no reliable evidence ever provided by police or media of its existence at protests like the anti-WEF gathering, S11. Without actual arrests, the legal system has not been co-operative in oppressing political dissent. So, Senators Alston and Elison seem to have proposed a way to use the unfounded hysteria about violence to crack down on dissent and open political discourse.
Senator Alston's idea of democracy, must be a very sanitised one. And it must take a lot of gall for a man from a party which created racist hysteria and lied about children thrown overboard to win an election, to talk about such high ideals.
I think democracy looks a lot more like IndyMedia. IndyMedia websites serve as channels of direct, unedited communication, where media makers and activists can frame their own story in their own words. IndyMedia users report on issues of local and global significance and often express views marginalised or ignored by corporate controlled media. Protesters dispel myths about themselves, and the issues they pu forward by reporting with passionate first hand experience. IndyMedia websites represent an attempt at creating the ideal of the Internet as an accessible and open communication medium. They facilitate online political dialogue and organisation; in a word, democracy - with all the mess and passion.
The Senators' press release (http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_4-2_4008-4_116473,00.html) reads:
It is currently an offence to use a telecommunications service in a way that would be considered by reasonable persons as offensive, or with the result that another person is menaced or harassed.
However, the use of a telecommunications service to carry offensive Internet content is not covered by existing provisions. The new offence will carry a penalty of two years imprisonment, double the punishment for the existing offence.
People using the Internet to advocate or facilitate violent protests, for example by spreading information on methods of violently disrupting international meetings and attacking police officers protecting such gatherings, including those using the Internet to harass or menace others are amongst those who could be prosecuted under the new offences.
Australian Internet content producers are already burdened by state and federal Internet laws described by Electronic Frontiers Australia as “draconian” and more restrictive than those of any other comparably democratic nation. The EFA are lobbying to get existing laws repealed, but the situation appears to be worsening. Besides the newly proposed federal laws, a recent draft of the Cybercrime Code of Practice for Internet Service Providers, released by the Internet Industry Association, seeks to have ISPs record every mouse click Internet users make online, and make it available to police agencies without a warrant. The proposal would be such a massive invasion of privacy, that compliance would probably put ISPs in breach of the existing Telecommunications Act of 1997, and the Privacy Act of 1998. Existing laws which govern the Internet are so severe that there already exists more freedom in the broadcast media.
In the past, John Howard has defended the right to their opinions of Rev. Fred Nile and Pauline Hanson, claiming that Australia has developed more freedom of speech since he came to office. But these two figures hardly represent Howard's ideological adversaries, and no one can claim to be an advocate of freedom of speech unless they believe it applies to views they disagree with, even those views they find “offensive.” Nor can it be limited to the broadcast media, owned by corporations and government and largely sanitised through syndication, self-interest and self-censorship.
Western governments have often talked of the promise of democracy through the Internet. The Clinton administration made appeals to the Chinese government to open it's borders to the Internet. “To constrict [the Internet] would almost defeat its purpose,” said William Daley, speaking at a Shanghai University in 1998, “To limit its reach would be to deny China the social, intellectual, and commercial connections which are demanded in today's global village.” That, of course, was before Seattle at the anti-WTO protests in 1999, a protest which famously used the internet as an organisational medium, and also the birthplace of IndyMedia.
Indymedia
IndyMedia was born out of a need for a radically new way to create and distribute news, in a protest environment where one of the protest targets were the very multinational corporate monoliths controlling the traditional news media. From a single website grown out of a fortuitous meeting between Sydney programmer Matthew Arnison and US media activists, grew an expanding network of 150 local websites, and numerous paper publications, across six continents dedicated to a few basic principles under the IndyMedia name.
“Everyone is a witness. Everyone is a journalist,” is a slogan throughout the network celebrating one of Indymedia's principles of 'open publishing'.
Open publishing is a process of creating news that is transparent and accessible to the readers. With a simplicity similar to sending an email, readers can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories publicly available. They can see editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved and help make editorial decisions by joining one of the the collectives of volunteers who run each site.
IndyMedia websites break down the producer / consumer divide in news production. Indymedia sites “are extensions of the traditional understandings of the internet as a space of sharing and interaction, of online forums of democratic engagement, self-organisation, and the opening of the public sphere.” The sites also seek to end the 'compassion fatigue' and hopelessness which both traditional activist and mainstream media can contribute too. Besides news items, the sites list contacts for activist groups, and details of upcoming events, which each serve to help readers find ways of addressing the many problems the news articles present.
Open publishing is both what makes the sites unique and sometimes problematic. Most free-speech dogmatists in the network have eventually opted for compromise. But significantly, a publicly accessible editorial policy governs what is considered acceptable news content. 'Censored' articles are usually removed to a separate 'hidden' section of the website, allowing readers of the site to monitor the decisions of the editorial collective. The collectives write feature articles for the center column of the sites, which usually seek to summarise to the best articles from the open newswire.
The IndyMedia formula is one of mixed blessings, but it's quite a popular one. The Melbourne website for instance attracts up to 270,000 unique 'visits' a month, and is linked to by at least 1000 distinct other websites at any one time.
The Melbourne website is used to cover issues such as border policy, public space, the nuclear waste dump, water policy, medicare, and the politics of oil and war. The site has been used by anonymous whistleblowers to break news of police corruption, the Public Tenants Union, and the hypocrasy of Archbishop George Pell; stories which not until afterwards, or never at all, appeared in the corporate press.
In the past IndyMedia websites have facilitated lively debates regarding the legitimacy of violent protest, and it's many definitions. Members of the collective don't necessarily endorse violent protest. They may or may not believe there are instances where it is legitimate. However, true to the principle of using dialogue before censorship, they almost universally believe debate on the topic is legitimate, if at times repetitive or stubborn.
Sometimes there are provocateurs, not necessarily sinister ones, sometimes simple devil's advocates. There are also obsessive posters, and single issue ravers. Readers of the site get used to picking through the stories to find the most worthwhile, or they pick up on articles they disagree with and enter into debate on the site by posting comments. But the websites have been selectively quoted from by police, politicians and the media, sometimes to create an impression of impending violent protest, or absurd beliefs, usually as if comments on the website represent a particular movement. Given this approach and the open publishing model there is little to stop the media, or security agencies creating their own news, by self-publishing provocative opinions and quoting them back.
It could not be easy to inspire mass actions of actual violence over the Internet. It may be possible to manifest an anger in a reader with tales of brutality and injustice, but far more difficult to create the collective fervour of a violent mass uprising through the informative, but ultimately somewhat distancing medium of the net. The net can serve mostly only to channel feelings already present.
Violent Protesters
The potential for political oppression under the proposed laws, seems particularly frightening when considering the seeming lies and distortions used to by authorities create a mythology about “violent protests” in Australia. Despite many claims to the contrary by politicians, police and media, it can be stated that no significant organised violence has ever taken place at any recent “anti-globalisation” protest in Australia, nor has any evidence ever been produced for any violence by protesters at any one of these events. Although it has become historically labeled by corporate media as the “violent S11 protests” or the “S11 riots,” not a single charge was ever laid by police on protesters for a violent offence during protests at the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne in 2000.
The biased and mis-reporting of the event, including some pre-emptive scaremongering about “urine filled balloons” by police, newspapers and radio shock jocks two weeks beforehand, were well documented by retired Victorian State Historian, Bernard Barrett in a document which formed the basis of a complaint to the Press Council.
Conclusion
Criminalising legitimate forms of communication, can only contribute to deepening cycles of oppression and protest.
While Senator Alston and Ellison seem to be proposing a way to use the legal system to oppress political dissent based on the perception of violence, and open discussion regarding it, it is unlikely they are concerned at the moment by the possibility of real protester violence, since the mythology serves to deflect political debate.
The people who make up the so called anti-[corporate]-globalisation movements come from a wide range of political perspectives and social backgrounds, and offer a vibrant and diverse range of values and solutions. They come together because they all perceive danger in ever increasing corporate control, free market fundamentalism, unsustainable consumption, and the huge global inequalities brought on by debt and other economic pressures. Many of the local solutions to the problems the protesters see are already being practiced, such as permaculture farming, sustainable building, local trading networks, fair trade systems, democratic and non-hierarchical organising, and independent information networks like IndyMedia. But it's unlikely you will hear much about these solutions, or the larger systematic problems, except through independent media.
Senator Alston himself serves compounds these problems and serves corporate interests by pushing for ever deregulated cross media ownership laws, simultaneously attacking the ABC. Australia already has extraordinarily concentrated media ownership. Attempts to criminalise sites like IndyMedia are a political attack on the entire Internet, the one remaining medium where real alternatives arise.
==========
This can become very serious for me. I am currently one of the webmasters of an anarchist website (http://www.anarchist-action.org), which also has open source publishing. It's also hosted on the same server as Melbourne Indymedia.