Censoring Internet Pornography in Australia: A Call for a Civil Rights Approach to Address Pornographic Harms‪.‬

The internet makes pornography readily available, with the majority of Australians having internet access in their homes and businesses. (1) Whilst pornography in general contributes to women's unequal position in society through the use of gendered hierarchies of dominance and submission (2), much internet pornography is also violent in nature with many web sites depicting rape, torture and sexual abuse in a sexual context. The internet brings these violent depictions, which encourage and promote sexual violence, into women's homes like never before. The amendment of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Cth) in 1999 to regulate internet content (3), does little to address these harms because its focus is to protect Australians from moral harm. In other words, the Australian legislation operates to protect Australians by censoring material that may harm or corrupt the viewer's moral fibre. Importantly, it does little to address the role pornography plays in promoting and encouraging violence against women, and does not empower women to take action against their abusers and against pornographers who promote the abuse. An approach that does directly address these harms is the civil rights ordinance formulated in the United States by feminist writer Andrea Dworkin and Law Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon which took the form of an amendment to existing sex discrimination legislation. This approach could be adopted in Australia as an amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth).