The storm of controversy continues as the renegade whistle blowing organization, Wikileaks revealed a list of websites, which are claimed to be on the Australian Communications and Media Authority, of AMCA’s, blacklist.

Conroy from the ACMA says “There are several addresses on the published renegade list that have never appeared on the official blacklist.” ACMA was considering handing the situation over to the Australian Federal Police.

Wikileaks has retaliated by telling the Australia n Chief Censor communications minister, Stephen Conroy to reel his neck in after the gaffe-prone politician threatened a police investigation. If the list is implemented as Communications Minister Stephen Conroy advocates, it would make Australia one of the strictest regulators of the Internet, among democratic countries. However, there are several Internet providers conducting trials with the filter until June.

The debate has risen over the proposal to put a filter on all Australians using the net. The government says it is an attempt to stamp out child pornography and sexual violence. However, it is well known that if you want to use these types of sites, there are lots of other ways to access them, through peer-to-peer networks or chat rooms. These cannot be covered by the filter.

The published black list contains around 2,400 Internet addresses, as of August 6th, 2008, but the ACMA claims the official blacklist contains only 1000 addresses. The Government has plans to extend the blacklist to 10,000 sites or more.

The published list includes a dental office, online poker parlours, a school cafeteria consultancy firm, a kennel and some YouTube links. There is a euthanasia site, fringe religions and even Christian sites, as well as the website of a tour operator, including several pages from Wikileaks.

The manager of Dental Distinction in Queensland, Australia, said “Their site was hacked into more than a year ago and visitors were temporarily redirected to an adult Web site.” The office quickly switched to a different Internet provider and has had no problems since.

Tuckshop and Canteen Management Consultants, also in Queensland, has never had any problems, but is said to be on the list. When the owner, Jocelyn Ashcroft contacted the ACMA they assured her she was not on the list. “Since the list is secret, how can you be sure ACMA is telling us the truth?”

Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, which supports the filtering system, says “The questions the controversy has risen over the published list has done nothing to change his opinion.”

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks says “Secret censorship systems are invariably corrupted.” The Thailand censorship list contains more than 120 sites classified as criticizing the royal family.

This ticket was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 7:11 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this ticket through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Controversy Rages Over Australian Blacklist”

1. Veneto nationalism » Wikileaks Says:
   May 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 pm

   [...] Controversy Rages Over Australian Blacklist [...]

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