4CHAN BANNED IN AUSTRALIA

this is an article i found regarding a contemporary issue in Australia.

4CHAN BANNED IN AUSTRALIA

In Australia the ACMA has a "blacklist". It contains a list of websites that "probably" contain illegal content. Although it is perfectly legal for anyone in Australia to access those pages, (as long as they don't commit a crime in doing so, such as downloading child pornography), it is however illegal for an Australian website to link to a blacklisted webpage. The ACMA hasn't received much attention in the past because the list only appeared to contain sites that were clearly child pornography.

Now, the problem is that it appears the proposed Internet filter will block any page on the blacklist (I must emphasise that no internet filter exists at this stage). This has raised a lot of questions, such as who decides what goes on the blacklist, and what content can be deemed illegal.

Over the last few days, a bunch of anti-censorship activists have been trying to test the boundaries of the legislation. One activist found an anti-abortion website that contained explicit pictures of aborted foetuses. The activist submitted the website to the ACMA, and was informed that the site probably contained illegal content and had been added to the blacklist. At this stage, a whole bunch of activists started linking to the anti-abortion website on as many Australian forums as possible, trying to test whether the government would enforce the law. Yesterday, it became known that whirlpool.net.au had received a request from ACMA to remove the link.

I think everyone can realise how fucking brilliant this is. The Internet filtering plan seems to have been a ploy by the Labor government to win favour with Stephen Fielding, a socially conservative Christian Evangelical senator. However, there is now no way he could support an Internet filter if it meant that it would block Australians from accessing an anti-abortion website. Any chance of an Internet filter in Australia is now dead in the water. I wouldn't be surprised if the Labor government was somehow involved in this, as a quick way of killing off an unpopular policy without getting offside with Fielding.

edit: I should also mention that the wikileaks Danish banned sites page was also submitted to the ACMA by an anti-filter activist.

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/85rry/4chan_banned_in_australia_australian_government/

That was way too long. Is the ACMA like a national firewall a la china? Or just a list of sites it's illegal to link to?

From what i understand, its a government organization that wants to use censorship on the internet. Basically very similar to movie ratings. Anything illegal that is on any website they wish to block from the Australian public. From drugs, bomb making, burnouts and certain types of adult content comprising of properly more than half the content on the internet.

At the moment I hope its just a bunch of old dick heads that know nothing about the internet and how it works making big wishes. Because how are you meant to police the whole Internets forums? what about facebook? youtube? photobucket? Wikipedia even. all these sites have a public input.

However if it goes ahead i think it will bring about a new bread of hacker which would be very interesting to see.

so just who is this Stephen Fielding person, and why is the government so worked up to please him? And I still don't see how 4chan fits into this, do you have a list of banned websites that confirm this?

retarded laws are everywhere. Over here, the consumer's rights minister is is proposing to parliament that it should be legal for the police to raid people's houses and arrest anyone found carrying pirated material, and to ban downloading and the whole like.

Now I have to figure out a new hiding place for my pirated programs, including my OSx86 disc, and games that were way out of my budget if I bought them legally.

From what i understand that Steven guy is an independent. And basically what ever side of parliament he sits on wins power over government, so basically both governments are being very very nice to him and he is exploiting that.

Meh, so the child molesters figure out how to use TOR. Not a huge deal.

4chan banned? Finally, that place is an abomination. Good thing a country finally decided to act.

next they close all gambling then political activity websites then hbh. long live the emperor!

I wonder how many Australian /b/tards there are anyway

f1lth wrote: I wonder how many Australian /b/tards there are anyway

4chan != /b/ internet != American (just guessing here)

I've also heard rumors that the government is blacklisting sites that keep tabs on dodgy policies and politiions and where they are getting their founding.

I understand that the majority of internets come from americano, but you must understand that Australia is just as much a western nation and you guys based your new health reform on ours who knows, they might do the same for this new internet policy. With an 'look they are doing it attitude'. And COM its not just 4CHAN, its any site that 'MAY contain illegal content.'

The-Scarecrow wrote: And COM its not just 4CHAN, its any site that 'MAY contain illegal content.' Whatever, as long as they are doing the right thing. Doesn't matter if other bad sites get blocked along with 4chan.

COM wrote: [quote]The-Scarecrow wrote: And COM its not just 4CHAN, its any site that 'MAY contain illegal content.' Whatever, as long as they are doing the right thing. Doesn't matter if other bad sites get blocked along with 4chan.[/quote]

Well, "doing the right thing" can be a really flexible phrase when it comes to the government.

COM wrote: Whatever, as long as they are doing the right thing.

Which is what, exactly?

stealth- wrote: [quote]COM wrote: [quote]The-Scarecrow wrote: And COM its not just 4CHAN, its any site that 'MAY contain illegal content.' Whatever, as long as they are doing the right thing. Doesn't matter if other bad sites get blocked along with 4chan.[/quote]

Well, "doing the right thing" can be a really flexible phrase when it comes to the government.[/quote] They know what they're doing and they're just trying to help.

spyware wrote: [quote]COM wrote: Whatever, as long as they are doing the right thing.

Which is what, exactly?[/quote] Keeping filth off the internet and away from all the good people and catching the sick f*cks.

Well, COM, I see your point, as long as the ban is against obviously "sick" things like child pornography and the likes, it's really not going to cause negative effects. What I'm concerned about, though, is that a lot of sites can fit under the "may contain illegal content" header, this site included.

What can originally start out as blocking child pornography can spread to less questionable topics and eventually to political stances the government disagrees with and before you know it you've got another great firewall of china.

While I highly doubt it would get that far, "small steps" is the way it would be done if a government was to try and put that in place, so reluctance to accept the blocking proposal does make sense, to me.

I've just found out that the owner of the site wiki leaks posted the secret blacklist. His site is now on the black list, the content on his site completely falls outside the crteria for black listing. Also as he flew into Sydney and his passport was confiscated because it was 'looking worn'.

The goverment is starting to step out of it's boundrys. I don't think COM understands that CP is already illegal. This filter does nothing on that battle front, shutting down limewire would be undistandable in that respect not banning urls left right and center.

The-Scarecrow +1

everyone knows where to get a whore and that it is not legal, but it exists and the goverment doesn't ban mini skirts and sex I wonder what people can do against these regulations. We have encryption, tor and so on and can disobey rules but it's not normal

Problem, hypocrites?

hypocrites have no problems, ordinary people do

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hypocrite