Australian Internet Censorship

[Rob]

OK, so as some of you may have heard, an alleged copy of the "Top secret" (well, I guess that’s a little disputed now) ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) website blacklist was released today on wikileaks.org (a website frequently used by anonymous whistleblowers to release confidential information to the free world), and as it would appear, has subsequently been added to the list, (none of my methods of getting around on the net yield me with their homepage, so they may just be getting hammered be people who want the list, but most likely they have been blocked out).

The ACMA Blacklist is completely run by the ACMA – a Department of the Australian Federal Government, and is said to be in place to prevent access to things like child pornography, and other such disgusting things, and I support the ACMA in doing this. But, to what point do we allow the government to filter our access to a system which is supposed to give users the liberty of 'freedom' of speech. Another interesting thing is that a report in Melbourne newspaper 'The Age’ claims that there were two Australian websites on the list, one of which was a dentist and the other a tuck shop, interesting to see the reason for their appearance on the list. This should really make you wonder what other false positives have crawled onto the list.

It should also be noted that you can never really tell if something is on the list, as it just times out like if it did not exist in the first place (it's not like you get a page telling you it’s blocked, it’s just plain nonexistent). Also, you don’t know if what you’re seeing is the authentic either, as pages may just be swapped as they run through to your computer from the ACMA filters...

Of course, the ACMA in its infinite wisdom has almost instantly released a statement which claims that the list, although containing vulgar websites some of which were on the blacklist, is not an accurate representation of the ACMA blacklist. The ACMA defend that their blacklist contains approximately 1060 websites, not the 3000 or so the wikileaks website was alleged to have contain.

The one thing I still can't get my head around is why did wikileaks get blocked in Australia for publishing a list of websites which can't be accessed from any computer inside the country anyway? My thoughts for a counter argument would be something like "so the bad people in other countries can't look at the websites". (Thought: why didn’t the ACMA just deny the list completely and then make up 1000 completely fake websites and say that that was their list – no one in Australia could verify it anyway).

If the list were public, it could help other countries to also filter out the extremes of the vulgarity which plague the internet. HOWEVER, then it could (and most certainly would) be scrutinized by anyone and everyone, and the Government don't always take kindly to being told what to do BY THE PEOPLE WHO ELECT THEM!

For more information about this visit [url="http://wikileaks.org.nz/"]http://wikileaks.org.nz/[/url] (all the other mirrors I tried were... unresponsive). If you get through, good for you, if you get the message I did about Australia blocking wikileaks, then perhaps it’s time that you stood up and thought about how far you think the government should be able to go on matters like these.

What kind of a world are we living in? I guess it goes back to not trusting the government of your country to make decisions, but the people of you country to make sure the government don't make the wrong ones, and this clearly, is a wrong one.

As you can no doubt tell now, I am an advocate for freedom on the internet, and do not like the ACMA’s decision. Really what I believe The AMCA is doing is being a childish bully and throwing their weight around to force other people [wikileaks] to do what they want, and when people resist the bullying, they fall down in a crying heap and block them out. Honestly, if you’re doing something shifty [like having a ‘top secret’ block list] and get caught, accept fault, take the punishment and LEARN from the mistake like responsible adults, not deny everything, pretend it didn’t happen and keep doing it like two year olds.

I am now absolutely sure that this post will be filtered, modified or deleted by the moderators of this website. Unfortunately that’s the very sad direction that this world is moving into – Political correctness and censorship. Soon the whole world will be full of ‘large’ people, ‘rainbow’ coloured sheep, and most disturbingly *******************************.

-Rob

SHA256: e44f5fd2766f58c2b6e96be2796441d6f3449add5766aca50c66c1e2ef28f5b7

[moneyfaery]

[quote name='Rob' post='40981' date='Mar 19 2009, 06:53 AM']I am now absolutely sure that this post will be filtered, modified or deleted by the moderators of this website.[/quote]
Don't worry, Rob. Mods here rarely delete posts. At most, the thread will be locked if it gets off topic.

To the topic at hand - interesting. I'm not an avid follower of Wikileaks but I'm pretty sure I've read a few 'leaked' articles before.

What's that long chain of characters at the bottom of your post, btw?

[Ruan Chun Xian]

[quote]Wikileaks censored by Australian Government

This domain previously contained a redirect to the Wikileaks website. However, as of the 16th March 2009, some pages on the Wikileaks website were classified as "prohibited content" making it illegal for sites hosted in Australia to link to them.

On the 19th March 2009, Wikileaks published a leaked list of websites prohibited by the Australian Government.

Australia joins China and the United Arab Emirates as countries who currently censor the Wikileaks website.

For more information about this you can visit the following sites:

* ACMA list of prohibited and potentially prohibited overseas hosted content, Australian Communications and Media Authority
* Leaked Government blacklist confirms worst fears, Electronic Frontiers Association
* Leaked Australian blacklist reveals banned sites, Sydney Morning Herald
* Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day, Sydney Morning Herald
* ISP Filtering Live Pilot - Questions and answers, Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
* Google's cache of the Wikileaks homepage (slow)[/quote]
I live in Sydney, what do you know?

Maybe this is because I'm used to censorship and I come from a country where...well, a lot of things are censored (not China) but honestly, did you really think they DIDN'T censor you before this leak? Do you think even America (oh the land of the free) have completely 100% uncensored internet? I'm not saying either way whether it's right or wrong, I'm just wondering.

[Rob]

Just posting an update, Wikileaks has been re-allowed back onto Australian internet (I can access it at the present), and the Australian censorship page is completely accessible (including lists).

It has been noted on wikileaks that the list has been severely pruned since wikileaks was blocked; almost half the list has been pruned off. It should also be noted that the two lists (before and after) came from the same supplier.

I would almost be certain that the ACMA has 'tagged' the lists to find the leak by removing or adding unique (normally nonexistent) websites to or from the list.
For example, if you were to give A ISP a list with uniquewebsitea.net and B ISP a list with uniquewebsitec.org and a list was published with uniquewebsitea.net surfaced, you know that the leak originated from A ISP.

@Irene - Yeah, I didn’t think that it would be censored here, but you never know. It's good to know that there are still some corners of the net were people can talk without fears of censorship.

@Ruan Chun Xian - I always knew that my internet was being filtered, if not by my ISP then by the government. It would be foolish to think anything other than EVERY packet of internet traffic that goes anywhere is filtered (most likely for security purposes, although the definition of security can sometimes blur). America would have to be one of the MOST censored countries in the world with regards to communications.

[Abu]

I can't understand why A. You're so oblivious to actual workings of the government and B. You're referring to 'wikileaks' as the bible. All countries censor, period.

The United States censors, there was some news a few months ago that said that the cover of 'Times' magazine is different in the US than other countries.

Another point, do you think any country would want to have sites open that openly damns their country and their government? Just a thought. The government works secretly, and if they don't want you to know something, you'll never know. So yeah, stop acting surprised that the Aussie government has censored something, because the truth is, they probably have done before.

Maybe it's hard for you to digest that, and it's easier for me because I've lived in 4 countries that have censored sites, and 3 of those countries have at some point blocked youtube.

[Ruan Chun Xian]

[quote]@Ruan Chun Xian - I always knew that my internet was being filtered, if not by my ISP then by the government. It would be foolish to think anything other than EVERY packet of internet traffic that goes anywhere is filtered (most likely for security purposes, although the definition of security can sometimes blur). America would have to be one of the MOST censored countries in the world with regards to communications.[/quote]
If you knew this...then why are you so outraged just because now there's a list?

[deissi]

[quote name='Aboo' post='41091' date='Mar 20 2009, 02:04 PM']Another point, do you think any country would want to have sites open that openly damns their country and their government? Just a thought. The government works secretly, and if they don't want you to know something, you'll never know. So yeah, stop acting surprised that the Aussie government has censored something, because the truth is, they probably have done before.[/quote]
This is something extremely hard for me to digest. I don't see my country, or any EU country for that matter, censoring sites with political content. The kiddieporn I get, but censoring political stuff is thankfully still unheard of here.