ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent

Posted on Mar 18, 2019 by Caleb Chen
voat censored

Several websites including Voat, ZeroHedge, Archive.is, LiveLeak, and others have been blocked in Australia and New Zealand in direct contravention to civil liberties that citizens are supposed to have. The biggest of these internet providers, Telstra, has published a blog post defending their censorship action – even acknowledging that free speech has been sacrificed by company decision:

“We appreciate that it is necessary to ensure free speech is carefully balanced against protecting the community – but with these sites continuing to host disturbing content we feel it is the right thing to do to block them.”

In fact, some of the blocked sites have been unfairly lambasted in mainstream media as “refusing” to take down offending material. Let’s be clear, each and every one of the blocked websites operates lawfully – that includes removing illegal material when requested. These internet service providers (ISPs) in Australia and New Zealand have taken it upon themselves to play judge, jury, and executioner in their condemnation of these websites and their visitors just for exercising free speech.

In New Zealand, mobile internet service providers take it upon themselves to enact censorship

Starting over the weekend, Spark NZ, Vodafone NZ, and Vocus NZ were the three New Zealand ISPs that have taken it upon themselves to block these sites. On their part, the ISPs and smartphone network providers are claiming that these are only temporary blocks. Temporary blocks that have lasted multiple days – more than long enough to change people’s’ browsing habits. Even the perpetrators of this censorship are aware how unprecedented it is. Geoff Thorn, a chief executive at New Zealand Telecommunications Forum (TCF), commented to CIO:

“This is an unprecedented move by the telecommunications industry, but one that they all agree is necessary.”

CIO additionally confirmed that the ISPs are working together to ban the same sites.

In Australia, censorship also happens at the whim of the internet providers

Unsurprisingly, the over-reactive censorship has even started spreading around the world. Starting Monday the 18th, Telstra and Vodafone in Australia have also implemented these blocks network wide – that means even the many Australians using Vodafone reseller networks are affected by Vodafone’s censorship decisions. Of course, Facebook is not one of the sites that has been blocked.

https://twitter.com/James23235689/status/1107657943678279680

Vodafone has even confirmed that they were told to place the blocks, and they will remove the blocks when they are “advised” that the illegal content has been removed.

Censoring free speech is never “the right thing to do”

The internet providers in Australia and New Zealand are sliding down an incredibly slippery slope against free speech. Previously, in Australia and other parts of the world like Russia and Philippines, ISPs would not censor access to websites unless clearly told to by the government. The precedent that internet providers can decide when to start blocking sites seemingly arbitrarily has now both been set and abused… All in the name of “doing the right thing.”

Simply put: It’s not the right thing to do. Free speech is an absolute concept and by that virtue alone – this is not the right thing to do.

A full list of blocked websites can be found below:

Please let us know in the comments below if any blocked websites are missing from this list.

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67 Comments

  1. Mike

    Caleb,

    You *do* understand that disseminating the video of 50+ people being shot to death in a hate crime is, in fact, illegal down under? That people are currently being prosecuted for it? That the AUS and NZ people are perfectly within their rights to decide that they’re OK with their government enforcing their own community standards? That the telecos and ISPs have a pretty good understanding of these issues?

    Australians don’t generally have the same sort of acrimonious relationship with their government as Americans do with theirs. For example, after the Port Arthur massacre, the Australian government implemented a gun buyback program – and most of the population agreed that it sounded like a good idea, and did, in fact, hand in most guns for disposal. Similarly for the censorship thing: you can’t put objectionable content on prime time TV (which is government-administered censorship), and there’s no reason why that community shouldn’t decide to apply those same standards to readily available internet content.

    I’m aware you’ll probably find it incomprehensible that anyone could trust their government (my American wife certainly does). But in most western countries, citizens have far less reason to fear their government than do citizens of the US.

    5 years ago
  2. Matt Robertson

    Aren’t we s’posed to be living in a free county.The government only wants us to hear and see what they want us to see. The traditional media is full of Fake news. It is every free person’s right to know what is happening in this world and as long as they are adults should be able to see all the good and bad that goes on in the world around us.

    5 years ago
  3. Real list

    Here’s a list of over 40 blocked sites:
    https://twitter.com/dulhunty/status/1108540449797488640
    and it doesn’t include some of the domains I see on this page. So the number of blocked sites is probably approaching 100 at this point.

    >actively hosting footage
    is of course pure libel for 90% of the sites. They criticized, or had posters who criticized, the NZ government. The blogs ZeroHedge and LULZ.com are good examples of this.

    5 years ago
  4. Jas

    Funnyjunk.com has been blocked on and off the last few weeks

    5 years ago
  5. anonish

    /****************************************/
    d.tube is missing from the list
    /****************************************/

    Surprisingly not notabug.io (a reddit clone build on gun db like d.tube)

    5 years ago