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In America, we have rights; The Bills of Rights provides the American people their "god given rights". Included in this is the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press; meaning theoretically we can say and or write whatever it is we want to. I am not sure if this is the case in Australia, but in American as much as they tell us we can say and express our feelings however we want, we can absolutely not. There are many limitations to what one can say and put on the internet for others to say. So in reality no we do not have the freedom of speech and press.
There are very clear and fine lines that limit what one can say, specifically on the internet. For the most part there is good reason for this. For instance people cannot put information or say things that are directed at a group of individuals, and disrespect that in a racism or prejudice manner. Nor can people put up child pornography, even if they believe that it is okay. In recent months, Australia in particular, has been cracking down on this more then ever with the so called "Clean Feed". The Clean Feed is a essentially a government implemented filter for the internet. "This means legally mandating Internet Service Providers (‘ISPs’) such as Optus, Telstra and iiNet to implement technical means to filter out a prescribed list of websites. Sites containing images of child abuse, in particular child pornography, will be the initial focus of the list." (Maurushat, pg. 3)
So as it can be seen there really cannot say whatever we want on the internet...unless we want to deal with the repercussions of doing so.
References: Maurusha, Alana, and Renee Watt. "Clean Feed: Australia’s Internet Filtering Proposa." University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series, 2009. Web. <http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=unswwps&sei-redir=1#search=%22Clean%20Feed%20australia%22>.
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