The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people
who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further
expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower
site Wikileaks.
The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority
comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion
forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link
published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA - an
anti-abortion website.
ACMA's blacklist does not have a significant impact on web
browsing by Australians today but sites contained on it will be
blocked for everyone if the Federal Government implements its
mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme.
Already, a significant portion of the 1370-site Australian
blacklist - 506 sites - would be classified R18+ and X18+, which
are legal to view but would be blocked for everyone under the
proposal. The Government has said it was considering expanding the
blacklist to 10,000 sites and beyond.