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Australia

Australia Formally Censors Christchurch Attack Videos (theguardian.com) 318

"Australian internet service providers have been ordered to block eight websites hosting video of the Christchurch terrorist attacks," according to the Guardian.

Slashdot reader aberglas shares their report: In March, shortly after the Christchurch massacre, Australian telecommunications companies and internet providers began proactively blocking websites hosting the video of the Christchurch shooter murdering more than 50 people or the shooter's manifesto. A total of 43 websites based on a list provided by Vodafone New Zealand were blocked. The government praised the internet providers despite the action being in a legally grey area by blocking the sites from access in Australia for people not using virtual private networks (VPNs) or other workarounds.

To avoid legal complications the prime minister, Scott Morrison, asked the e-safety commissioner and the internet providers to develop a protocol for the e-safety commissioner to order the websites to block access to the offending sites. The order issued on Sunday covers just eight websites, after several stopped hosting the material, or ceased operating, such as 8chan. The order means the e-safety commissioner will be responsible for monitoring the sites. If they remove the material they can be unblocked. The blocks will be reviewed every six months.

"The remaining rogue websites need only to remove the illegal content to have the block against them lifted," the e-safety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said.

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Australia Formally Censors Christchurch Attack Videos

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  • by Etcetera ( 14711 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @08:47PM (#59172576) Homepage

    The internet may have become a cesspool of privacy-lacking, browser fingerprinting, targeted advertising, and centralized, oligopolic control over most non-direct-billing forms of monetization and online distribution, but one thing it's still good at is routing around most actual government censorship blocks... for now.

  • by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @08:50PM (#59172580)

    They'll be censoring the (rugby) League games next

  • Can't let people in New Zealand and Australia realize that mass murders aren't unique to the USA. That might expose just how much of a failure their laws against gun ownership are doing in protecting them.

    If pictures are worth a thousand words then video must be worth millions. What better way to show how gun laws in New Zealand failed than to see 50 innocent lives ended.

    Texas had laws against having firearms in places of worship. Turns out that it takes only one insane person with a rifle executing unarmed people in a small town church to make people think again about the wisdom of these prohibitions. This was highlighted further when a good Samaritan from the community used a rifle, one of those "evil black rifles" even, to stop the executions.

    This blocking of an inconvenient truth is the modern equivalent of book burning. Someone help me with the source of this bit of wisdom as well as the original wording. It goes something like, "Those that start with burning books end with burning men."

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 )
      The reason New Zealand's gun laws didn't protect them is because they didn't exist until *after* the attack. But by all means keep spouting nonsense.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by evought ( 709897 )

        The reason New Zealand's gun laws didn't protect them is because they didn't exist until *after* the attack. But by all means keep spouting nonsense.

        One specific law did not exist prior to the recent attack. Prior to the attack, new Zealand's restrictions were not as severe as Australia, but all gun owners were required to be licensed, a special license required for restricted weapons, including handguns, and all applicants needed to show specific and acceptable cause in order for the application to be accepted. Acceptable cause is nowhere rigorously defined-- it is up to the discretion of the local jurisdiction-- but self-defense is defined as not an [police.govt.nz]

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          what a load of shit. acceptable cause could be just about anything from, I like to shoot on my friends farm to I occasional want to visit a shooting range. The laws were practically non existant. Sure if you said "self protection", it would be one of the few causes you may get rejected for.
        • Apparently "intention to mass murder a bunch of people in a mosque" is a valid justification then. So that is what they are trying to hide!

      • The reason New Zealand's gun laws didn't protect them is because they didn't exist until *after* the attack. But by all means keep spouting nonsense.

        Please explain which laws were enacted and how they would have prevented this mass murder.

        In the USA there have been documented cases of an attempted mass murder being stopped by armed volunteer security in a place of worship. These tend to not make the news because a failed murder attempt doesn't make the news like a successful murder attempt. Also, the people that want to ban the private ownership of the tools of self defense aren't going to bring up cases where such tools were successful in protecting innocent lives.

        Here's the failure I see in the debate on the right of self defense, the failure to focus on the murderer instead of the tool. If the rate of private firearm ownership had any correlation to murder rates then Venezuela and Luxembourg would be equally safe. Turns out Venezuela is among the most dangerous and Luxembourg is exceedingly safe.

        Go ahead, show me how firearm ownership prohibitions make a safer nation.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by youngone ( 975102 )

          In the USA there have been documented cases of an attempted mass murder being stopped by armed volunteer security in a place of worship.

          Citation Required.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by blindseer ( 891256 )

            Citation Required.

            Citations provided.
            https://crimeresearch.org/2019... [crimeresearch.org]
            https://www.conservapedia.com/... [conservapedia.com]
            https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]

            I can keep going if you like. There's plenty to be found with a quick search of the internet with your favored search engine.

            Of course all the examples given didn't happen at a place of worship, consider those just a bonus to cover other places where people peacefully assemble.

            • Every time someone suggests it's a good thing that a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun, I'm reminded of the lyrics from Misery by Soul Asylum:

              We could build a factory and make misery
              We'll create the cure; we made the disease

              It's a failing of your society when you have to use the problem you've created, to fight the problem you've created. There's also the inescapable fact that a good guy with a gun having to shoot the bad guy, is still a shooting. I'd call that a hollow victory.

              • It's a failing of your society when you have to use the problem you've created, to fight the problem you've created.

                I'm not sure I understand your point. You see the problem as the guns? And those same guns being used as the solution? This is likely where our thoughts on where the problem lies differs. I see the problem as criminal behavior, not the guns. History has shown a non-existent correlation to gun ownership and rates of murder, rape, suicide, or other harms people inflict on themselves or others.

                There's also the inescapable fact that a good guy with a gun having to shoot the bad guy, is still a shooting. I'd call that a hollow victory.

                What would you prefer? A madman able to inflict harm on others unopposed?

                In a discussion on gun control with a co-worker I challenged him to find a successful attack on a school with an assailant armed with a firearm. As I recall what he presented was an attack on a seminary library, in Israel, where the attacker came with the intent to shoot to kill as many people there attending a bible study group. There were 3 or 4 people dead by the hand of the man armed with a machine gun, and was quickly shot dead by students armed with handguns. Again, this is if I recall correctly. Before people get upset about armed "students" remember that this was a seminary, a college for those studying to be priests and ministers. These were all adults that had served as conscripts in the military before enrolling in seminary.

                Certainly this was a tragic event and the deaths of those involved is, to put it mildly, far from ideal. What I found in looking into this further was that this was far from a successful attack as this could have been far worse if there was no "good guy with a gun" in the library. This happened many years ago and there was not since a repeat of this kind of attack. There have been attacks on schools, so it's not like people didn't try. What didn't happen again was anyone being so bold as to enter a school with both a firearm and an intent to kill. What they did try were some attempts at bombings, tossing grenades, driving trucks into schoolyards, and perhaps other tactics I am not aware of. The response was always a hurried sheltering of any children and the armed adult instructors and staff defending the children from any attackers they could see.

                Those with the intent to murder will find out one way or another where the armed "good guys" are and go to places where they are not. They plan their attacks to go to places where they know people will be disarmed. Places such like churches in Texas a few years ago. Or movie theaters with prohibitions on armed customers. Or schools in much of the USA.

                If you want to stop these murders by the insane with firearms then make it known to them that they will not likely succeed in murdering others before they reach their own end. This is done by protecting our children with "good guys with a gun".

                We will put armed guards on trucks carrying money, but we won't put armed guards on school buses carrying our children. I guess that proves what we value most.

              • Every time someone suggests it's a good thing that a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun, I'm reminded of the lyrics from Misery by Soul Asylum:

                We could build a factory and make misery We'll create the cure; we made the disease

                It's a failing of your society when you have to use the problem you've created, to fight the problem you've created. There's also the inescapable fact that a good guy with a gun having to shoot the bad guy, is still a shooting. I'd call that a hollow victory.

                Never mind the fact that relying upon untrained people running around with guns deciding who to shoot is every bit as scary a mass shooters in view of the fact that trained police officers pumped a citizen full of lead after mistaking his cellphone for a gun and a twelve year old boy for carrying a plastic toy gun. There was a time when the cop would have just gently talked that 12 year old kid into handing the thing over, now they shoot first and ask questions later.

              • When police, good guys with guns, show up in 32 second s and you can still have 9 dead and 27 wounded, good guys with guns stopping bad guys with guns cases to be a valid argument against gun control

                • So, since the bad guys use illegal firearms, you'd prefer a higher body count? Because chatting the bad guys down doesn't work.
              • A helluva lot less hollow that the bad guy continuing to shoot innocent people. Hint: No one "created" the problem of violent people. It's a condition that has been with us from the start.

                Your complaint boils down to, the world is a rough place and you wish it wasn't.
            • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
              There's one small thingie here - none of the "prevented" mass shooting included AR-15 guns. In all cases the assailant had a regular handgun.
            • That's why "arming teachers" still isn't a thing. Because deep down, even the most conservative red-state politician knows it would be a shit show.
            • by Kiuas ( 1084567 )

              Certainly people in the US use guns successfully to defend themselves.

              However, at the same time the amount and homicides [wikipedia.org] and mass shootings in the US is higher than the average in the western world. In the case of mass shootings, the US is in a class of its own.

              If a highly armed populace would be something that'd be effective at stopping (mass) shootings, the US would be at the bottom of the list for these incidents, but it's not, it's at the top. This is why no other western state is currently moving towa


            • Citations provided.
              https://www.conservapedia.com/ [conservapedia.com]...

              Dude you provided a link t conservapedia for a citation! That is literally the funniest thing I've read on the internet all day, no joke.

              • Thank you for playing the game of "I can't refute the data at the link, so I'll mock the link." I noticed that you didn't provide the *same* link, you chopped it to just the home page.
        • Here's the failure I see in the debate on the right of self defense, the failure to focus on the murderer instead of the tool.

          You are absolutely right. We need to focus on the tool. If we legislate so that guns are banned and self-defense should be with a wooden spoon that will put everybody on an even footing.

          Furthermore, everyone can arm themselves (low costs of wooden spoons) AND from a sustainable source (wood).

          If somebody need go on a rampage, they could quickly be taken down by those members of the public with concealed spoons as, quite clearly, nobody would need a permit to conceal a spoon.

          Finally, wooden spoons ca

        • There is some statistics in the USA about how many murders were committed using guns, and how many "justified killings" by civilians. Assuming that a gun owner stopping a wannabe killer using a gun would come up under "justified killings", those "justified killings" are outnumbered one to hundred.

          So no, guns don't save lives anywhere near often enough to guns taking innocent lives to justify gun ownership.
        • Please explain which laws were enacted

          Similar laws to Australia.

          and how they would have prevented this mass murder.

          See list of mass murders since introducing the laws in Australia.

      • Isn't murder illegal in New Zealand?

    • Fantasy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Falconhell ( 1289630 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @10:19PM (#59172714) Journal

      Our guns laws in Australia have been extremely successful and are approved of by the vast bulk of the population. Every time there is yet another mass shooting, we shake out heads in sadness at the utter waste of life. It seems impossible to communicate to gun fans in the US that we like very much never having to own or even see a gun on the streets, other than in the hands of the police. And yet I get told often by US gun fans that our laws don’t work, and we want more guns, it’s simply untrue.
      Our laws haven’t failed us in any way. I am very happy to see this video blocked, and find the idea that having such footage is in any way free speech of any value repulsive, and those that think it is mentally ill.
      I’m free because I’m unarmed, I am unarmed because Im free.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by youngone ( 975102 )
        I'm a New Zealander and I have no problem at all with the new gun laws.
        I currently don't own any guns, but the next time I do need one (for vermin control most likely) I will apply for a gun license, and buy a gun, just like any other law-abiding person can.
        I won't be able to buy an assault rifle, but why would I? I don't want to assault anybody.
        That is perfectly sane gun regulations.
        I am free because I'm armed is just another dim-bulb Fox News talking point.
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Rockoon ( 1252108 )
          all semi-automatics are "assault" rifles

          Are you aware of this? Your post doesnt seem to show your awareness of this fact, but does state that you dont own any guns. People that dont know shit about guns are always saying "assault rifle" without a damn clue, and you just did it, too, which you proved when you had the bright idea to confess that you think "assault rifles" are specially made weapons for "assaulting" people.
          • You are the one with no idea. An assault rifle is a select fire rifle using an intermediate cartridge. No more, no less.

            • by rossz ( 67331 )

              I doubt they know what "select fire" means. So let's educate them.

              Select fire means it can be switched between single shot and burst or full auto mode. Burst mode typically means it will fire three rounds. Full auto means it will fire as long as you hold the trigger or until you run out of ammo.

              Both burst and full auto are illegal for civilians to own (with a rather narrow exception).

              • by Strider- ( 39683 )

                I would be happy on a ban of civilians owning repeating firearms. I don’t really care about people having bolt action rifles or pump action shotguns for hunting, but for those uses, there’s no reason to have a semi-automatic firearm.

                • Aren't almost all non-revolver handguns semiautomatic?

                  • Pretty much all of them, yeah.

                    But that's irrelevant, since a pistol is not a rifle.

                    (There is some grey area in between though, some weapons have been made specifically to skirt one law or another.)

          • all semi-automatics are "assault" rifles

            Are you aware of this?

            Literally no one else is aware of this silly concept which is unique to you and completely wrong.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I'll add that the video is akin to revenge porn in that the victims deserve some dignity and it takes that away. By watching or distributing it you are violating their human rights, and those of their families.

        Legal or not it's immortal.

        • The right of the people to information is greater than the notional right of the victims to dignity. (Dignity is clearly not a human right. There are circumstances where any government in the world will put something else before your dignity.)

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Dignity is a human right in the EU.

            While such rights are not absolute, there would need to be a very good reason to violate them. Morbid curiosity isn't a good reason.

            More over, I don't see any good reason to give publicity to this piece of shit. Using it to make money by streaming it with ads and malware is completely fucked up.

      • Re:Fantasy (Score:4, Insightful)

        by spikesahead ( 111032 ) on Monday September 09, 2019 @05:41AM (#59173298)

        You also don't have things like large animals, humans erased every single one of them other than the kangaroos and emus the second they got there. You don't have a violent underclass, you've utterly demoralized and ruined the aborigines and keep them smothered past the point where they could ever fight back. You have a stable economy. In 2018 Australia became the country with the largest median wealth per adult (other than the abbos). You have nationalized healthcare. Why in the world would you want a gun? Go ahead and be smug about it.

        I have none of that in the US. Nobody really gives a crap about me outside my family, certainly not my government which always feels like it's ready to fly off the rails into anarchy anyway. Sometimes our violent underclass invents games like block the road and kick at cars or run up behind people and punch them in the back of the head. I actually have large animals around that I can hunt for food, successfully, and they're delicious. I have all sorts of reasons to want a gun.

        If I wanted to move there I would, but this works for me. All I have to do is remember that the media gets paid every time one of our crazy people who don't have access to nationalized healthcare go bang. They get paid a lot to make it seem like crazy people with guns are coming to kill everyone in the world, when really bees kill more people every year and we're trying to SAVE THEM.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 09, 2019 @07:03AM (#59173496)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by deek ( 22697 )

      Nice rhetoric. Though in this case, it's not the truth that is being blocked. It's the video hosting.

      The truth is still out there. For the most part. Though your blatant disregard for the truth of firearms is rather disconcerting.

    • Banning this video may not do any good and could arguably have negative consequences, but it certainly isn't erasing the history of what happened.

      I'm in the US and am well aware of it as I'm sure everyone in NZ is even more painfully aware of it. I have no desire to watch it and I don't think I need to watch in order to condemn it as a horrible act and form an opinion on the availability of guns.

      Oddly enough, what I don't know is how the mosque shooter got his gun or if it was even illegal. NZ certainly d

      • by Skinkie ( 815924 )
        When evidence becomes statistics, statistics are being disputed or worse: banned. You can make this analogy for every genocide and the political movement active or in the future reflecting back to it. We are living in a world where real is almost indistinguishable from made up and fake news. This does not mean we should provide a place of worship for what has been real, similar to other rather successful genres of adult entertainment. Protect what has happened, make sure it is available, in its original und
      • Banning this video may not do any good and could arguably have negative consequences, but it certainly isn't erasing the history of what happened.

        Don't ban it. Replace it with a banner "On day X, some racist asshole that doesn't deserve to have its name mentioned, killed Y innocent people at a mosque in Z. All Christians and Muslims know it will burn in hell, everyone else hopes it will. "

    • This was highlighted further when a good Samaritan from the community used a rifle, one of those "evil black rifles" even, to stop the executions.

      A 65-year-old unarmed man managed to stopped a gunman. Source. [bbc.com]

      The Dayton shooting was stopped by "a good guy with a gun" within 32 seconds. 9 people were still killed. Source. [time.com]

      Mass shootings are a complicated problem, and it's very likely any truly effective harm reduction (because you'll never complete stop all maniacs from going off the deep end and killing a bunch of people with something) isn't going to fit in a tweet or a timed response to a debate question.
      But I will tell you what are the wrong answ

    • by idji ( 984038 )
      Books are about ideas that should not be blocked , not the visceral murder of real men, women and children - that should be blocked.
      Why aren't you demanding a website that shows you the bloody truth and reality of every road death? Why are you happy that those photos are blocked?
    • "evil black rifles"

      Oh look you're a fuckwit. Seriously, I did a search for "evil black rifles".

      First link: a pro gun person complaining about people complaining about "evil black rifles"

      Second link is a Pintrest page entitled "52 Best Evil Black Rifles images in 2013 | Firearms, Military ..."

      Third page: "Evil Black Rifles and tacticool hotness | Adventure Rider"

      Fourth page: someone complaining about people complaining about "evil black rifles"

      Fifth page: "evil black rifle archives" from ammoland.com

      Sixth:

    • Can't let people in New Zealand and Australia realize that mass murders aren't unique to the USA.

      Literally no one thinks that. What people in New Zealand and Australia realise is that the USA doesn't give a shit about them while Australia and New Zealand take proactive measurements that have demonstrably minimised their occurrence.

      • by rikkards ( 98006 )

        Got any evidence of that? Mass shootings of the Port Henry and Christchurch are so minimal in occurence you can't say for sure for at least another couple decades. Australia's ban wasn't considered a success since there was no change in the overall gun violence (suicides did have a dramatic downtick though so there is that) in that the reduction of violence was already happening 5 years before and didn't change after. The initial ban only scooped up an estimated 20% of the eligible guns. There has been anot

    • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      Can't let people in New Zealand and Australia realize that mass murders aren't unique to the USA. That might expose just how much of a failure their laws against gun ownership are doing in protecting them.

      Yes, because there aren't articles discussing the Christchurch shooting everywhere, including their local news outlets.

      What better way to show how gun laws in New Zealand failed than to see 50 innocent lives ended.

      What better way to let a propaganda video sent by the shooter himself propagandize and incite

  • Who's Shocked? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @09:54PM (#59172658)
    Not too surprising that a country with nothing like the 2nd Amendment would have nothing like the 1st.
    • As an Australian, I wouldn’t want any of the US amendments, I’m proud and happy we don’t have anything like the 2nd, and I can’t recall meeting a single person who wants guns to be more available here than they are.

    • Same goes for the 18th and 21st
    • by jrumney ( 197329 )

      What makes you think that a snuff video has anything to do with the first amendment?

  • I support this (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by jonwil ( 467024 )

    I dont like the idea of censorship in general but there are some things (including child exploitation material and terrorist/extremist content) that is so disgusting that its absolutely OK to block that content in the event that the original host of the content is unwilling/unable to remove it at the source.

    • by Z80a ( 971949 )

      The problem is that you have humans judging what will be blocked, and humans can be corrupted and will be corrupted until something like a video of someone complaining about some megacorp dumping toxic waste is considered "extremist content".
      Of course on the other hand, you definitively need to have the law enforcement going after who did the videos (specially the child exploitation ones), so people do less of em.
      Every other kid on the internet should be an FBI agent.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      You know, some people think some kind of religious or atheist or political statements are even much more repulsive and should for sure be censored!

      The problem is you can either have censorship (and after not too long a lot of things will get blocked that have nothing to do with the original justification) or you can prevent it completely. Yes, that means some really bad stuff will be available, but the alternatives are far, far worse.

      • You know, some people think some kind of religious or atheist or political statements are even much more repulsive and should for sure be censored!

        In other words we as a society have to collectively decide what is OK and what isn't. Which is what society already does with all sorts of things.

  • Why is it illegal? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by beepsky ( 6008348 ) on Sunday September 08, 2019 @10:20PM (#59172718)
    Why is the Christchurch video and manefesto even "illegal"?
    They're historical documents.

    Pretty sure other stuff like Mein Kampf and ISIS beheading videos are legal, and those are the same or worse
    • I don't get why this was downvoted and marked "troll".
      Liveleak has been filled with all kinds of death and gore for years, but they only want to block it now for this one video.
      And how is some madman who killed less than 100 people's ramblings worse than the ramblings of a guy who killed 11 million Jews and Gypsies?
      • And how is some madman who killed less than 100 people's ramblings worse than the ramblings of a guy who killed 11 million Jews and Gypsies?

        The cases are different, not better or worse, because in this case we can still do something to stop or dampen the present madman's intended incitement to perpetrate similar crimes. We cannot do anything to change the course of events 80 years ago (and instances since), but we can certainly learn from the experience and inhibit similar behaviours early.

    • by Z80a ( 971949 )

      The manifesto is kinda useful because it points out the kind of actually very nasty person that the shooter was.
      Someone that believed that he would start a war between the far left and far right by using very calculated targets and means, so we should be particularly aware of this kind of people,as there could be more.

    • by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Monday September 09, 2019 @09:13AM (#59173924) Journal

      For extra fun, carry your copy of Mein Kampf into Germany.

  • PHRACK is pleased to announce our Corporate Library 2019 torrent.

    It's been two years since we first released this resource and the library has grown considerably (through hook and crook) since then. While the initial library containing everything from 1985 to 2017 was roughly 13GB uncompressed, the compressed version of the new library (1985-2019) weighs in at 78.4GB (under 100GB decompressed.)

    I say "compressed" because the library is now too large to create a torrent file from its unpacked directory and

  • I live in Australia, and have seen the awful video. I do not know if the video I saw had been modified, edited or otherwise messed with. Either way, the video appeared to show that the shell casings after being ejected were disappearing in mid air like in a video game. I would not be surprised if some people who saw that same video, came to the conclusion that it may have been a staged false flag attack. I absolutely, do not know what actually happened. The targeted censorship of the video when there is ple
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      (re-posting this as comment to your post, as my original post was very soon downvoted to -1)

      I saw parts of the video on the day the crime was committed: I searched for it to see whether this was actually real (the bit about there being a livestream, that is), not out of any particular desire to see the actual killings. Due to me seeing those video sequences so close in time to when all this happened (less than 12h after), there is zero chance I saw anything else: like some sort of after the fact fake or edi

  • by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Monday September 09, 2019 @06:48AM (#59173454) Journal

    The Liberals always throw up a smoke screen of controversy to distract the electorate from what they don't want them paying attention to. [datacommissioner.gov.au]

"I got everybody to pay up front...then I blew up their planet." "Now why didn't I think of that?" -- Post Bros. Comics

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