Regulating to Limit Access to Child Pornography on the Internet: a multiple-case study

This investigation addresses the regulation of access to child pornography available on the Internet to evaluate the implications of hybrid regulation for free speech, privacy and democracy in the online environment. It aims to investigate these implications in relation to current regulatory measures designed to limit access to child pornography available on the Internet. As such, it establishes evaluative criteria divided into three broad categories: (1) free speech - involving the issues of unchecked private censorship and scope creep; (2) privacy protection - involving the issues of increased unchecked and more invasive surveillance powers given to law enforcement authorities; and (3) general principles of good regulation and democratic values - involving issues around the lack of transparency, accountability, legitimacy, proper oversight, and citizen involvement as well as inefficiency and ineffectiveness of regulatory intervention. Australia, Brazil and the United Kingdom were chosen as case studies because they had generally similar anti-child-pornography laws, both domestically and in terms of their commitments under international treaties, they were considered democratic countries subject to democratic controls of content, and access to data was relatively unproblematic in these jurisdictions. This provided a common ground for comparison. More importantly, they were chosen as case studies because despite so different constitutional frameworks and varied regulatory scope and mechanics, they all settled on similar approaches to child pornography. regulation. This provided an opportunity to explore different aspects and variations of hybrid regulation, and also to address its broader implications for free speech, privacy and democracy on the Internet. There are a number of contributions made here. First, this research proposes evaluative criteria for anti-online child pornography regulations. Second, it suggests a scheme of safeguards to minimise negative regulatory consequences in relation to free speech, privacy and democracy in the online environment. It discusses the broad lessons and the economics of online child pornography regulation, the use of decentred and polycentric theories of regulation, and explores the adjudication of apparent illegality of online material by private actors, showing what regulatory and governance theorists as well as criminologist may learn from this research.