The state of South Australia has a new election law that went into effect January 6, and its effect was shocking: anonymous political speech on the Internet was simply destroyed.

The law required anyone posting a political comment online during an election period to supply their real name and address or face a fine of up to AUS$1,250. The measure was grossly discriminatory—it applied only to bloggers and commenters, not to online "journals" (newspapers or magazine which are written by Real Journalists).

Politicians had apparently developed a thin skin to anonymous commentary, some of which no doubt did devolve into rank defamation, but Australia already has defamation laws that could be used against truly egregious material. Ending online anonymous speech was an extreme solution, one not appreciated by the targets of the law.

AdelaideNow was one of the main sites caught in the crosshairs. The site provides a forum for discussion of local affairs, and it railed in an editorial this morning about the rule, both for practical and principled reasons.

"It's hard to imagine South Australia's Electoral Commissioner will prowl the Internet day after day during the election campaign policing such a ridiculous law," said the paper. "Realistically and logically, there is no need. All blogs and comments published on AdelaideNow are moderated. Broadcasters monitor and moderate what is broadcast. All also abide by extensive laws that prevent the publication or broadcast of defamatory and other illegal material."

Then came the expected comparison to China; "It is instructive that similar laws were also enacted in China last year, a country which has yet to embrace free speech."

The law was backed by South Australia's Attorney General, Michael Atkinson. Atkinson took the radio yesterday to defend the new rule, saying that anonymity was being used by political opponents to attack him in secret.

Fornarino, the man who doesn't exist

"I'll give you an example: repeatedly in the AdelaideNow website one will see commentary from Aaron Fornarino of West Croydon. That person doesn't exist," Atkinson said on the air. "That name has been created by the Liberal Party in order to run Liberal Party commentary."

This morning, AdelaideNow took great delight in posting a picture of Fornarino posing with a Mac and his young daughter. He's a second-year law student who moved to the area last year and "lives in a flat on Port Rd, about 500m from Mr. Atkinson's electorate office."

The fine art of the "backdown"

The cries of the outraged citizenry have had an effect. While defending the new rules as recently as yesterday, Atkinson suddenly backed off from them today. He sent a statement to AdelaideNow, one remarkable for its candor.

"From the feedback we've received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened. I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively... It may be humiliating for me, but that's politics in a democracy and I'll take my lumps."

South Australia's Premier, Mike Rann, knows his way around the tweet-o-sphere, and he backed up Atkinson's comments with his own Twitter commentary.

"For many young people, and even the not so young, internet is their parliament of ideas and information," said one. Then, immediately after: "AG has listened. So no debate will be stifled. No political censorship of blogs or on-line comments whether named or anon."

So—a victory for people power? Sure. But don't let one bad law obscure the point that anonymous activity really can lead to problems (see malware, creation and distribution of). Case in point: Engadget today took the dramatic step of actually turning off its comments after they became "mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations" over the last few days.

At least they left us with an awesome picture involving lasers and dinosaurs—and at least the government wasn't mandating the action.