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Internet censorship in Australia is enforced by both the country's criminal law If enacted, the legislation would have required Internet service providers to censor access to such content for all users. However, the policy was rejected by the Coalition and was later withdrawn by the Labor party. The same day the withdrawal was announced, the then Communications Minister stated that as a result of notices to Australian ISPs, over 90% of Australians using Internet Services were going to have a web filter. Australian Federal Police would then pursue smaller ISPs and work with them to meet their "obligation under Australian law". iiNet and Internode quietly confirmed that the request to censor content from Australian Federal Police went from voluntary to mandatory under s313 in an existing law. iiNet had sought legal advice and accepted the s313 mandatory notice but would not reveal the legal advice publicly. In June 2015, the country passed an amendment which will allow the court ordered censorship of websites deemed to primarily facilitate copyright infringement. In December 2016, the Federal Court of Australia ordered more than fifty ISPs to censor 5 sites that infringe on the Copyright Act after rights holders, Roadshow Films, Foxtel, Disney, Paramount, Columbia and the 20th Century Fox companies filed a lawsuit. The sites barred include The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and SolarMovie. In April 2019, the Senate passed a bill in response to the Christchurch mosque shooting which required websites that provide a hosting service to "ensure the expeditious removal" of audio or visual material documenting "abhorrent violent conduct" (including terrorist acts, murder, attempted murder, torture, rape or kidnapping), produced by a perpetrator or accomplice, within a reasonable time frame. Hosts must also report such content to authorities. Those who do not remove the materials may face fines and jail time. Several ISPs had already voluntarily blocked websites related to footage of the Christchurch shooting before the bill had passed.

In 2006, the Federal Parliament passed the Suicide Related Materials Offences Act, which makes it illegal to use communications media such as the Internet to discuss the practical aspects of suicide.

In June 2015, an amendment was passed to Australian copyright law, which allows for the court ordered censorship of non domestic websites whose primary purpose is to facilitate copyright infringement.

In April 2019, the Senate passed this bill in response to the Christchurch mosque shooting, which was live streamed and circulated online. It requires websites that provide a hosting service to "ensure the expeditious removal" of audio or visual material documenting "abhorrent violent conduct" (including terrorist acts, murder, attempted murder, torture, rape or kidnapping), produced by a perpetrator or accomplice, within a reasonable time frame. Hosts must also identify and report such content to authorities. Those who do not remove the materials may face fines (including up to $10.5 million or 10% of annual revenue for corporations) and jail time. This law applies regardless of whether or not the content is hosted on servers in Australia. The bill has faced criticism for being imprecise, with no formal definition of how quickly sites must remove the abhorrent content, and being wider reaching than needed (it applies to any service that hosts content, while the intent of the bill implied a goal to impose it on social networking services).

Some state governments have laws that ban the transmission of material unsuitable for minors. In New South Wales, Internet censorship legislation was introduced in 2001 which criminalises online material which is unsuitable for minors. In 2002, the New South Wales Standing Committee on Social Issues issued a report recommending that the legislation be repealed, and in response the New South Wales government stated that the legislation "will be neither commenced nor repealed" until after the review of the Commonwealth Internet censorship legislation had been completed.

In October 2000, Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) attempted under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) to obtain documents relating to the implementation of the web filter. While a few were released, many were not, and in 2003 new legislation, "Communications Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2002", was passed by the Liberal government and four independents, and opposed by The Greens and the Australian Labor Party. While the stated reason for the bill was to prevent people accessing child pornography by examining the censored sites, this bill exempted whole documents from FOI, many of which did not reference prohibited content at all. EFA state that the bill was designed to prevent further public scrutiny of web filtering proposals. In 2002, New South Wales Police Force Minister Michael Costa attempted, without success, to shut down three protest websites by appealing to the then communications minister Richard Alston. The Green Left Weekly stated these were Melbourne Indymedia and S11 websites, and that the Australian Broadcasting Authority (the predecessor to ACMA) cleared them of breaching government regulations on 30 October 2002. Also in 2002, and under the terms of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the Federal Court ordered Fredrick Töben to remove material from his Australian website which denied aspects of the Holocaust and vilified Jews. In 2006, Richard Neville published a "spoof" website that had a fictional transcript of John Howard apologising to Australians for the Iraq War. The website was forcibly taken offline by the government with no recourse. After the devastating bushfires in February 2009, details about an alleged arsonist were posted online by bloggers. Victoria Police deputy commissioner Kieran Walshe had asked the state Director of Public Prosecutions to examine the possibility of removing these blogs from the web, as they might jeopardise any court case. In March 2009, after a user posted a link to a site on ACMA's blocklist on the Whirlpool forum, Whirlpool's service provider, Bulletproof Networks, was threatened with fines of $11,000 per day if the offending link was not removed. The 2009 winner of the George Polk award for videography shows footage of 26 year old Neda Agha Soltan being shot and dying during Iran protests. This footage has also been declared "prohibited content" by ACMA, attracting fines of $11,000 per day for any Australian website which posts a link to the video. On 15 December 2009, the Labor government announced plans to mandate censorship of refused classification material in Australia. The then Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, released a statement titled Measures to improve safety of the internet for families, which briefly outlined the proposed purpose and methods of filtering. The scheme aimed to develop "a package that balances safety for families and the benefits of the digital revolution", and was intended to complement the work of the ACMA by blocking content hosted overseas which is out of the control of Australian authorities. On 18 December 2009, the domain stephenconroy. com. au was seized by auDA, somewhat ironically for an anti censorship site, and content was then moved to stephen conroy. com. The basis for seizure regarded the moral owner of the domain, not its content. On 22 May 2009, it was disclosed in the press, citing WikiLeaks, that the Australian Government had added Dr Philip Nitschke's online Peaceful Pill Handbook, which deals with the topic of voluntary euthanasia, to the blocklist maintained by the Australian Communications & Media Authority used to filter web access to citizens of Australia. Euthanasia groups will hold seminars around Australia teaching how to evade the proposed filter using proxy servers and virtual networks. A spokeswoman for Senator Conroy said that euthanasia would not be targeted by the proposed web filter, however Stephen Conroy has previously stated that "while euthanasia remains illegal it will be captured by the RC filter". In January 2010, the Encyclopedia Dramatica article "Aboriginal" was removed from the search engine results of Google Australia, following a complaint that its content was racist. George Newhouse, the lawyer for the complainant, claims the site is "illegal" and should be blocked by the mandatory web filter. As the address of the site appeared on the leaked ACMA blocklist, it is likely that the whole site would be censored by the filter. A search on terms related to the article will produce a message that one of the results has been removed after a legal request relating to Australia's Racial Discrimination Act 1975. In 2010, the website of the Australian Sex Party is banned from within several state and federal government departments, including Stephen Conroy's Australian Communications & Media Authority. Convenor of the Australian Sex Party Fiona Patten has described this ban as "unconstitutional". In April 2013, it was revealed that an IP address used by more than 1,200 websites had been censored by certain Internet service providers. It was discovered by the Melbourne Free University which was one of the sites censored. It was later revealed that the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) had ordered the censorship of the address to target a fraud website, and that the remaining websites were censored unintentionally. The block was subsequently lifted. ASIC subsequently revealed that it had used its censorship powers 10 times over the preceding 12 months, and that a separate action taken in March had also caused the inadvertent temporary censorship of around 1000 untargeted active sites, as well as around 249,000 sites that hosted "no substantive content" or advertised their domain name for sale. The censorship was carried out under the section 313 legislation, and censorship notices were sent to four or five ISPs on each occasion. In March 2019, several websites disseminating footage of the Christchurch mosque shooting were censored by major ISPs in Australia and New Zealand, including 4chan, 8chan, and LiveLeak
On 2 September 2020, a woman was arrested in Ballarat for making a Facebook post that promoted a protest over COVID 19 restrictions in Victoria. A viral video from before her incitement charge shows her offering to take the post down and trying to convince the police that she did not know it was illegal. Rosalind Croucher of the Australian Human Rights Commission and Wendy Harris of the Victorian Bar both expressed concerns that police had infringed on freedom of expression with a disproportionate response. Politicians Michael O'Brien and Steven Ciobo, while reaffirming their support for the lockdown, also criticised the arrest as heavy handed.

In June 2011, two Australian ISPs, Telstra and Optus, confirmed they would voluntarily block access to a list of child abuse websites provided by the Australian Communications & Media Authority and more websites on a list compiled by unnamed international organisations from mid year.

On 20 March 2019, Telstra, Optus, TPG and Vodafone censored access to several websites in response to the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand. The websites, which included LiveLeak, 4chan, 8chan, Voat, Kiwi Farms and Zero Hedge, were blocked for allegedly hosting footage of the shootings that was originally live streamed on Facebook. Sites were banned using a combination of DNS blocking and IP blocking. DNS blocking is relatively easy to circumvent (whether implemented through ISP controlled DNS servers or sniffing all DNS requests); whereas IP bans can only be circumvented with a proxy, VPN or Tor. Information on the exact methods and timeframes that sites were blocked is vague and anecdotal, but there was a significant amount of online discussion at the time. Optus appeared to use IP blocks for 4chan and possibly other sites. Telstra took a similar approach. Most bans appeared to be lifted after several weeks, with 4chan and Voat bans extending longer. One source states that the Telstra bans lasted only "a few hours", which sparked some public controversy. Normally such censorship would be ordered by the Australian Communications & Media Authority, but this event exposed the independent power that ISPs may exercise. Telstra released a brief statement soon after blocking the sites, referring to "extraordinary circumstances" that required an "extraordinary response". TPG did not officially respond to media inquires other than a statement that it would "comply with any request of this nature made to us by authorities"; however, user reports indicate that TPG also temporarily blocked access to a subset of these sites.

In October 2008, the governing Australian Labor Party proposed extending Internet censorship to a system of mandatory filtering of overseas websites which are, or potentially would be, "refused classification" (RC) in Australia. As of June 2010, legislation to enact the proposed policy had not been drafted. The proposal has generated substantial opposition, with a number of concerns being raised by opponents and only a few groups strongly supporting the policy. In November 2010, the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) released a document indicating that the earliest date any new legislation could reach parliament was mid 2013. However, voluntary filtering by ISPs remains a possibility. (a reference to the Australian Rabbit proof fence), Firewall Australia or Great Firewall Reef (a reference to Great Barrier Reef and the Great Firewall of China). The proposed filter has been referred to in the media variously as an Internet filter and a web filter. The worldwide web is a myriad of software documents containing pointers to each other, hosted on server computers around the world. The Internet is the physical network used to convey requests from users' computers to these servers and responses from the servers back to the users. The proposed filter only monitors certain ports specific to conveying web traffic. As it aims to monitor the majority of web traffic, it is appropriately referred to as a web filter. As it is agnostic of the majority (99.99%) of other connections a user's computer might establish with other computers on the Internet, it is something of a misnomer to refer to it as an Internet filter. Since the proposed filter is situated at the Internet service provider (the junction between users and the Internet at large), introducing such a filter cannot possibly slow down the Internet itself. It can only (potentially) slow down access to the Internet by users of that ISP. Ignoring load considerations, communication speed across the Internet for any non web traffic would be unaffected.

In 1995, the Labor Party of Federal Government began inquiries into regulating access to online content as part of expanding the scope of classification material mediums. In the same year, the Liberal Party of Victoria and Western Australia State Governments and Country Liberal Party of Northern Territory Government implemented changes to law that allows censoring online content as part of expanding the scope of classification material. Queensland introduced similar legislation at the time, but a case of an ISP systems administrator showed it did not apply to online services when the judge ruled that the act did not apply. In 1996, the Labor Party of New South Wales State Government attempted to propose a standard Internet censorship legislation for all Australian States and Territories. The legislation would have made ISPs responsible for their customers' communications. But the proposed legislation attracted widespread protests and has since been postponed in favour of a national scheme. In 1997, following the previous Federal Government, the Liberal Party further commissioned inquiries into a variety of online censorship schemes, including self imposed censorship by ISPs. By 1999, the then Federal Government attempted to introduce an Internet censorship regime. Some have pointed out it was to gain support from minority senators to assist with the sale of Telstra and introduction of GST, but as noted above, this censorship plan had been in development for several years. In 2001, CSIRO was commissioned to examine Internet content filtering. The report focused primarily on evaluating the effectiveness of client side filtering schemes (which were generally ineffective), but also discussed some of the difficulties with ISP based filtering

In March 2003, the Fairfax papers The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald reported the results of a survey taken by The Australia Institute of 200 children, which found that many of them had found pornography on the Internet. Over the next few days was a storm of media and political attention, and there were calls for finer Internet filters and tougher censorship laws. Analysis of the report showed little new material, and only 2% of girls had admitted being exposed to pornography, while the figure for boys was 38%; such a difference between boys and girls would seem to indicate that inadvertent exposure was rare, contrary to the conclusions of the report. After the controversy died down, no new action resulted from the new report, media attention, or political speeches. The Australian Family Association petitioned the Australian Federal Government in 2004 to further restrict access by children to pornographic material via the Internet. The petition was submitted in December 2004. On 21 March 2006, the Labor Party committed to requiring all ISPs to implement a mandatory Internet blocking system applicable to "all households, and to schools and other public Internet points" to "prevent users from accessing any content that has been identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority". On the same day, the then communications minister Helen Coonan stated that to <blockquote> "filter the Internet will only result in slowing down the Internet for every Australian without effectively protecting children from inappropriate and offensive content". In May 2008, the government commenced an $82 million "cybersafety plan" which included an additional mandatory filter with no opt out provision. This ISP based filter aims to stop adults from downloading content that is illegal to possess in Australia, such as child pornography or materials related to terrorism. In March 2009, Stephen Conroy dismissed suggestions that the Government would use the filter to crack down on political dissent as "conspiracy theories". He stated that the filter would only be used to remove "refused classification" (RC) content, using the same rationale as existing television, radio and print publications, and that the Senate could be relied upon to provide rigorous assessment of any proposed legislation. However, Labor's policy statement on the issue contradicts this. It is also contrary to an earlier ministerial release in 2008. The most recent explanation of the government's position on this issue is provided on the ministry website. This clearly states that only ISP level filtering of (designated) refused classification (RC) material will be mandatory under their policy. However, ISP's will be encouraged to offer ISP level filtering of 'adult content' as an optional (commercial) service to their customers. Such an optional extra service is aimed at parents trying to protect their children from 'undesirable' content that would otherwise be available, because it would not be RC (e. g., it might receive a classification of "R"). Labor Senator Kate Lundy said in January 2010 that she is lobbying within the party for an "opt out" filter, describing it as the "least worst" option. In February 2010 she said she would propose the opt out option when the filtering legislation goes before caucus. Stephen Conroy has stated that 85% of Internet Service Providers, including Telstra, Optus, iPrimus, and iiNet, welcome the Internet filter. In response, Steve Dalby, iiNet's chief regulatory officer, stated that iiNet as a company does not support the Internet filter, and never has. On 9 July 2010, Stephen Conroy announced that any mandatory filtering would be delayed until at least 2011. On 9 November 2012, Stephen Conroy shelved the proposed mandatory filter legislation in favour of existing legislation, touting that it was successful in compelling the largest ISPs to adopt a filter. As a result, 90% of Australian Internet users are censored from accessing some web based content.

In February 2009, then opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin obtained independent legal advice confirming that a mandatory censorship regime would require new legislation. In March 2010, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey attacked the filter, saying "What we have in the government's Internet filtering proposals is a scheme that is likely to be unworkable in practice. But more perniciously it is a scheme that will create the infrastructure for government censorship on a broader scale". During the 2010 Federal Election, Liberal communications spokesman Tony Smith announced that "a Coalition government will not introduce a mandatory ISP level filter", with Joe Hockey also announcing an intention to vote against the policy if Labor is re elected. This followed the 2010 Federal Conference of the National Party passing a motion proposed by the Young Nationals to "oppose any mandatory ISP level internet censorship". In November 2012, Coalition Communications spokesman welcomed the proposed legislation being dropped as it endangered freedom and Internet performance. However, some Coalition members voiced concern, citing support for a mandatory filter to protect children and families but will not propose it citing lack of political support at the time. The Coalition have proposed an "eSafety commissioner" to take down undesirable content from the Internet as a means to protect children. It was met with criticism as a duplication of current government efforts and "difficult and expensive" to implement. In September 2013, two days before the federal election, the Coalition announced they would introduce an opt out filter for all Internet connections, including both fixed line and mobile devices. This has since been retracted as "poorly worded" in a statement from Malcolm Turnbull, who said, "The correct position is that the Coalition will encourage mobile phone and Internet service providers to make available software which parents can choose to install on their own devices to protect their children from inappropriate material."

The Greens do not support the filter, and Greens senator Scott Ludlam predicts that due to obstruction in the Senate, the legislation will not be introduced until after the next federal election. A Family First spokeswoman confirmed that the party wants X rated content banned for everyone, including adults. A spokesman for independent senator Nick Xenophon said: "should the filtering plan go ahead, he would look to use it to block Australians from accessing overseas online casino sites, which are illegal to run in Australia". Senator Xenophon has, however, stated that he has serious concerns about the plan, and in February 2009 withdrew all support, stating that "the more evidence that's come out, the more questions there are on this". He believes that money would be better spent educating parents and cracking peer to peer groups used by paedophiles. A political party associated with the Eros Association, the Australian Sex Party, was launched in November 2008 and plans to campaign on issues including censorship and the federal government's promised web filter. In 2014, the party won a seat in the Victorian Legislative Council.

As of October 2008, the plan includes two blocklists, the first used to filter "illegal" content, and the second used to filter additional content unsuitable for children. The first filter will be mandatory for all users of the Internet, while the second filter allows opting out. The government will not release details of the content on either list, but has stated that the mandatory filter would include at least 10,000 sites, and include both the ACMA blocklist and UK's Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) blocklist. In December 2008 the IWF list caused problems when the Wikipedia article Virgin Killer was added to the list, as it prevented many people in the UK from being able to edit Wikipedia. The ACMA definitions of "prohibited content" give some idea of what could potentially be blocklisted. Online content prohibited by ACMA includes:
Any online content that is classified RC or X 18+ by the Classification Board. This includes real depictions of actual sexual activity, child pornography, depictions of bestiality, material containing excessive violence or sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use, and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act. Content which is classified R 18+* and not subject to a restricted access system that prevents access by children. This includes depictions of simulated sexual activity, material containing strong, realistic violence and other material dealing with intense adult themes. In answer to a question in Parliament in October 2008, the government in January 2009 stated that of the 1,370 websites on the blocklist, 674 were related to child pornography, and the remainder would be classified as R18+ and X18+. Two websites are known to be on the ACMA blocklist after they were submitted to ACMA for review. When ACMA responded with the advice that these sites had been placed upon its denial list, ACMA's response was in turn posted back to the web by the original submitters, with the purpose of demonstrating that political content would be censored by the mandatory filter. One was an anti abortion website, with details posted to Whirlpool, and the other was a copy of Denmark's own Internet blocklist, with both the blocklist and ACMA's response posted on WikiLeaks. The web hosting company for Whirlpool, Bulletproof networks, was threatened with $11,000 in fines per day if the link was not removed, so Whirlpool removed the link to the restricted site. Civil liberties campaigners regard the inclusion of these sites on the blocklist as a demonstration that it is not difficult to get a site placed on the blocklist, and that the blocklist includes sites which are themselves not illegal to view.

On 26 March 2009, the Australian Classification Board’s website, http://www. classification. gov. au/, was attacked by the Internet group Anonymous, automatically redirecting visitors to a page on the same site with a message mocking censorship efforts with the text:
This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONTROL YOUR FREEDOMZ. The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC. We are part of an ELABORATE DECEPTION from CHINA to CONTROL AND SHEEPIFY the NATION, to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. All opposers must HATE CHILDREN, and therefore must be KILLED WITH A LARGE MELONS during the PROSECUTION PARTIES IN SEPTEMBER. Come join our ALIEN SPACE PARTY. In September 2009, the group Anonymous reawakened, in Operation Didgeridie, in order to protest the policy of Internet censorship, and on 9 September initiated a Distributed Denial of service attack against the prime minister's website. As a result of this attack, the site was taken offline for approximately one hour. On 10 February 2010, the Parliament of Australia's website, www. aph. gov. au, was attacked by Anonymous once again. The attacks included distributed denial of service, black faxes, prank calls and spam emails. The attacks commenced at 12 midnight local time and the website was down for over two days. The attack, named "Operation Titstorm" is reportedly in defiance of the government's banning of small breasted women and female ejaculation in pornography. The group called for physical media to be distributed to members of the Australian Labor Party as well as assaulting email addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers with spam and pornographic images that were in the categories to which were going to be filtered by the government's policy.

In a 2012 "Report of the Independent Inquiry into Media and Media Regulation", Raymond Finkelstein argued that standards of "accuracy, fairness, impartiality, integrity, and independence" on the part of the press could only be achieved through government control. He proposed the creation of an independent News Media Council covering all platforms (print, online, radio and television) with the power to order changes to published content, publication of a right of reply by anyone or any organisation that makes a complaint, and the publication of an apology. Refusal to comply could result in the author, media organisation, or blogger being accused of contempt, a trial by a court, and the possibility of the fines and / or prison sentences associated with contempt of court findings. The proposal would have the effect of converting the code of ethics of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) into laws enforceable by the courts. As a result, small publishers and bloggers may feel coerced into publishing corrections or apologies when they lack the time, energy, or resources to defend themselves in court against a contempt charge.