Published in News

Aussie and Kiwi ISPs block websites

by on25 March 2019


Stop hosting the New Zealand mass shooting

Aussie and Kiwi ISPs are starting to block access to sicko sites who insist on hosting the shoot-em-up style footage of the Christchurch mosque terrorist attack.

For those who came in late, a neo-nazi, Trump-loving, Australian terrorist ran an internet live feed as he shot up two mosques and killed 50 unarmed men, women and children. Some sites including 4chan and 8chan continued to host the video long after youtube pulled it. While the sites claimed it was all about free speech it was actually about the reactionary fantasies of some of its users.

Now internet service providers in Australia have temporarily blocked access to dozens of websites, including 4chan and 8chan, that hosted a video of last week's New Zealand mass shooting. New Zealand ISPs have also been blocking websites that host the video.

ISP Vodafone said that blocking requests generally come from courts or law enforcement agencies but that this time ISPs acted on their own. "This was an extreme case which we think requires an extraordinary response," Vodafone Australia said in a statement, according to an Australian Associated Press (AAP) article yesterday.

Telstra and Optus also blocked the sites in Australia. Besides 4chan and 8chan, ISP-level blocking affected the social network Voat, the blog Zerohedge, video hosting site LiveLeak, and others. "The ban on 4chan was lifted a few hours later," AAP wrote.

"The ISPs' decision to block access to websites was controversial as they acted to censor content without instruction from either the Australian Communications and Media Authority or the eSafety Commissioner, and most smaller service providers have decided to keep access open," The Australian Financial Review wrote.

The website blocking is temporary and expected to be lifted when a video of the attack is removed, according to Guardian Australia. Facebook and Twitter weren't blocked, "because they are taking active steps of their own to remove the material from their pages." Facebook has removed at least 1.5 million videos of the attack from its website.

New Zealand ISPs took a similar approach. "The country's main Internet service providers, Spark, Vodafone, Vocus and 2degrees, are blocking any website which has footage of the Friday 15 March Christchurch mosque shootings," CIO New Zealand wrote on Sunday.

The ISPs "agreed to work together to identify and block access at [the] DNS level to such online locations.

New Zealand Telecommunications Forum Chief Executive Geoff Thorn said: "This is an unprecedented move by the telecommunications industry, but one that they all agree is necessary. The industry is working together to ensure this harmful content can't be viewed by New Zealanders."

New Zealand authorities have been arresting people who share a video of the shooting.

The American press finds this barbaric. One moaned that it is all because New Zealand does not have free speech or net neutrality rules. However, a look at New Zealand’s legal system might show why. In New Zealand, the shooting footage is part of the evidence in a criminal investigation, and the distribution of the video could prevent a fair trial taking place. That system is a hell of a lot better than the US "trial by media" system in which the prosecution and the defence are allowed to disclose the evidence on television before the trail.

 

Last modified on 25 March 2019
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