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 This section of my web site deals with various forms of censorship. It includes various papers I have written or presented in relation to censorship as well as submissions I have made to government and industry bodies.

 I have many more ideas and papers in progress and if you are interested in providing feedback on them email me - randyte@hunterlink.net.au . I'm also interested in hearing from anyone who is interested in joint papers for academic journals or conferences, or any paid (freelance or full-time) writing work.

• OPUS is the student publication of the University of Newcastle (Australia). Read my articles for opus on 'Censoring the Net' Part 1 & Part 2 (due soon).

• February 2001. Read an interview with Irene Graham which I did for LF Times. Irene is the Executive Director of EFA, an online civil liberties group.

• In 2000 I began writing (and getting paid for) articles for LF Times a free-market / libertarian web site. Censorship related articles in 2000 included a discussion on internet gambling, as well as a piece on the first six months of Internet censorship in Australia.

• 'Shooting the Messenger' ( .pdf - Requires Acrobat!) - This refereed paper published by the Centre for Independent Studies examines Australia's internet censorship laws. The bibliography for this publication is available separately from here. This paper was released in February 2000, a month after the net censorship law came in to effect. It was written late 1999.

• Sample Letters to the Editorabout the censorship of print publications.  

• In September 1999 I made a submission to the Internet Industry Association in relation to the internet censorship (what they call "content regulation") modules of their code of conduct.

• In April 1999 I made a submission to the Senate Select Committee on IT. Please note, this was submitted before the censorship legislation was

• In March, 1999, the Australian government announced it had plans for oppressive net censorship laws. Read my response

• In February 1999 I presented a paper on internet censorship at the 'Advanced Liberty and Society' seminar conducted by the Centre for Independent Studies . You can view the summary paper here and download the overheads I used here.

• In 1998, I had an article on internet censorship published in the journal Policy. The publishers of Policy maintain a web site archive of articles so you can simply click here to read the article.

• My submission to the 1997 Senate Committee on Community Standards enquiry into online services. Click here.

• My submission in response to the 1997 DoCA censorship proposals -Click here.

• This page is an analysis of the responses received by DoCA in relation to the above mentioned censorship proposals.

Organisations and sites of interest.

• Web Page for Electronic Frontiers Australia. - EFA is an Australian based watchdog protecting online freedoms.

• Web Page for EFF - The premier internet freedom organisation

• Irene Grahams Web Site - One of, if not the most comprehensive web sites discussing censorship in Australia.

• Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification - responsible for Censorship of Australian movies and print publications.

Why is this page black?

Well, it all dates back to the attempts by the US government to impose censorship on the net through the Communications Decency Act back in 1996. As a form of protest, Internet users who were opposed to censorship turned their pages black in protest. The idea was also used in Australia at one point, though in Australia pages were turned a very dark blue, to distinguish them from the US 'black' pages. The idea seems to have caught on and turning pages a particular colour has subsequently been used to promote or protest a number of other issues.

Unfortunately it is probably far far less effective these days, than when it was first used. So many pages now are provided by corporations and other organisations who wouldn't want to compromise the 'look' of their pages to protest against censorship. This means the chance of someone stumbling across a protest page, or several protest pages (the original idea was to try balck out large portion of the web) are fairly low, and so the effect has been diminished.

So why is this page still black? Because the campaign against censorship (online and offline) goes on, and as a tribute to the brilliant insight and hard work of all those involved in the early anti-censorship battles online.

By the way, you can help take the first step to ending censorship by mousing over the censored out part of the picture below !