Banning
Hate on the net won’t work
Editorial,
The Australian, Thursday September 19 2002
Jeremy
Jones, the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, did only
what could have been expected. Fredrick Töben,
an obsessional Holocaust denier sometimes called Australia’s David Irving,
had continued to publish material disputing the existence of gas chambers at
Auschwitz, and other material highly offensive to Jews. Dr Töben’s
Adelaide Institute website was filled with what the council described as
“malicious anti-Jewish propaganda”, such as blaming Jews for Stalin’s
crimes.
Under
the 1995 Racial Hatred Act, “public acts” that are “reasonably likely to
offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” a person or group because of race
or colour, national or ethnic origin, are illegal. There is a very high
proportion of Holocaust survivors in Australia, and no doubt Australia’s
Jewish community was highly intimidated and offended by Dr Töben’s
rantings. So Mr Jones took the case to the Human Rights Commission, then to
the Federal Court.
But
is tinkering with the bizarre internet site where Dr Töben
spouts his incoherent, hateful drivel the best way to respond to such views,
offensive though they are? The Federal Court has ordered Dr Töben
to take the offensive material off his website within seven days, or face
contempt and possible jail. This upholds a 2000 finding by the Human Rights
Commission. Yet, by issuing the woolly order that he “do all acts and things
necessary” to remove the racist material from his website, the Federal Court
has conferred on Dr Töben
the publicity and notoriety he clearly longs for.
Balancing
the need to protect minorities from racial hatred with the right to free
speech in a democracy is fraught with complexity; however, ordering the
removal from a website of hate material is not the only option. Freedom of
expression can be upheld, along with the rights of minorities. The NSW Council
for Civil Liberties has suggested forcing Dr Töben
to publish a detailed disclaimer on his site so that visitors know it contains
lies that offend and intimidate Jews. They suggest he would be so incensed, he
would rather take down his website altogether. The case highlights the
difficulty and subjectivity of policing racial vilification legislation. The
Australian’s columnist Phillip Adams, has been investigated for alleged
racial vilification of Americans. French novelist Michel Houellebecq, an
outspoken libertarian who says Islam is a stupid religion,is on trial for
inciting racial hatred. But the writer likes to offend Jews, Arabs, Chinese
and Americans too.
Fredrick
Töben
is a fringe-dwelling German-born peddler of anti-Semitic lies. It is not
clear, however, that he was directly inciting people to commit racial
violence. It is unfortunate that a man of Dr Töben’s
dubious credentials should be made a martyr for free cyber-speech. But he
should be able to print his nonsense, perhaps with qualifiers, rather than be
forced on to an offshore site, or “underground” offline, where we can’t
refute him. Robust public debate should be allowed, and heavy-handed
censorship avoided at all cost – especially on the internet, which is more
often than not a boon for the kind of free, intelligent expression that can
trump Dr Töben
and his anti-Jewish cronies. An open society is the best chance for tolerance.
Fredrick Töben
replies
*Shut up or put
up! Please detail the lies on our website.
*deleted as per Consent
Order, 27 November 2007
