Following the drastic action of the passing of a bill outlawing pro-ana websites in the French National Assembly, a number of pro-ana websites and blogs were driven underground in a bid to avoid detection and possibly prosecution from authorities. Crawford (2003) argues that such censorship is "not so much a new means of control as an old means applied to a new medium", challenging the traditional view of the Internet as possessing an "inbuilt immunity from censorship and control" (p 150 ). While the debate over the plausibility and ethics of internet censorship as a whole continues to rage, the ramifications for Australia are particularly concerning given the current government’s proclivities. Despite the shelving of the mandatory ISP filter, Federal Labor MP Anna Burke has explicitly called for the banning of “pro-ana” sites, claiming that "Australian girls and women should not be subjected to such dangerous material on the internet”. The Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders, Jean-Francois Julliard, specifically addressed the proposition of banning pro-ana sites amongst the "blacklist of already banned websites…that threatens freedom of expression” in an open letter to the Prime Minister. The threat of the Australian government driving Australian-based pro-ana sites out of the self-moderating mainstream and into illegal enclaves controlled by purveyors of dangerously unregulated information would put many of our society’s most vulnerable at great risk. Banning these sites merely hides a visible symptom of a much deeper societal problem, eschewing the possibility of engagement and treatment in favour of a dangerous politically motivated pseudo-solution of 'out of sight, out of mind'.
References:
Crawford, K. 2003, 'Control-Shift: Censorship and the Internet'. In Remote Control, Cambridge University Press: Melbourne, pp 149-157
Senator Conroy on the Perceived Benefits of Censorship
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