With Australia coming under fire for not taking appropriate action against racism, the government says it may strengthen its laws on tackling the issue online, by giving authorities more power to act against offenders.
Attorney General Robert McClelland has been in communication with the Australian Human Rights Commission to take a "sweeping review of arrangements for dealing with racist material on the internet".
The move comes as the number of Indian student enrolments drop in parts of the country.
In recent years, authorities claim they're often powerless to act in cyberspace, which is reportedly responsible for almost one in five racial vilification complaints.
"While freedom of expression is one of the most fundamental rights, this is not at the expense of the rights of people, while using the internet, to be treated with equality, dignity and respect", the attorney-general told Fairfax media.
Following the recent attacks on Indian students in Victoria and the emergence of a number of racial vilification sites on Facebook, SBS investigates whether or not racism was a growing trend in Australia.
Anti racist campaigner Alex Gollan spoke with SBS about how he often monitors the sites and reports them to Facebook administrators.
"We've had at least 60 groups that I know of acted upon by Facebook, plenty of people have been denied service by Facebook, but unfortunately the groups just re-open…. It's an endless cycle", he tells SBS.
Mr McClelland also indicated that the government was exploring initiatives that might be taken in relation to content on the internet which may breach the Racial Discrimination Act.
There were also hints the Act could be amended to make it easier to apply criminal sanctions.
This could result in the Human Rights Commission being given the power to order internet service providers (ISP) to remove racist content.
However civil libertarians are now concerned the government's tougher stance when it comes to online racism could create a divide and have unintended consequences.
Liberty Victoria President Michael Pearce believes policing racism in cyberspace is too difficult.
He says the government should invest its time and resources into community education and improving community relations.
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