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.

Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark's list of banned websites.

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.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) maintains a blacklist, since leaked, of websites which would form the basis for the mandatory filter. It has issued a take-down notice and threatened fines of $11,000 per day to at least one website hosted in Australia which contained a link to material on this blacklist. On Tuesday 15 December, 2009, it was announced that new legislation, entitled "Measures to improve safety of the internet for families", would be introduced to support mandatory Internet filtering.

The Australian Government today announced further details of its approach to improve safety on the internet for Australian families.

The Government’s approach to cyber-safety has been informed by the Government’s trial of internet filtering and extensive industry feedback about the most appropriate way to improve safety online.

The cyber-safety measures announced today include:

Introduction of mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused Classification (RC) –rated content.
A grants program to encourage the introduction of optional filtering by Internet Service Providers, to block additional content as requested by households.
An expansion of the cyber-safety outreach program run by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the Cyber-Safety Online Helpline – to improve education and awareness of online safety.

WikiLeaks on Thursday exposed a secret blacklist of web pages the Australian government reportedly is considering permanently filtering from the internet.

The list of some 2,395 web pages, the authenticity of which the Australian authorities dispute, includes the usual suspects of sites pertaining to child pornography, extreme violence and even bestiality. But not all the sites are offensive, and include links to rank-and-file pornography, YouTube videos, poker sites, WikiLeaks entries and even URLs to a Queensland dentist and dog-boarding kennel.

"History shows that secret censorship systems, whatever their original intent, are invariably corrupted into anti-democratic behavior," WikiLeaks said in a statement. "This week saw Australia joining China and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries censoring WikiLeaks."

The disclosure highlights growing threats to an open internet from public and private entities.

Beyond the obvious online censorship in China, Russia, Thailand and elsewhere, the Recording Industry Association of America is seeking to ban copyright scofflaws from the internet altogether. In the United States and abroad, governments and Hollywood are moving to shutter BitTorrent tracking services like The Pirate Bay, whose four founders are awaiting a verdict in their criminal copyright infringement trial.

The federal government in Australia wants to force all ISPs to use the list to censor the internet for everyone. It’s allegedly the same list that vendors of filtering software get from the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Child Wise, an international child protection charity based in Australia, said the list’s publication is bad for children and the person who exposed it should be jailed.

"Every 15-year-old boy in the country is going to be after this porn list," said Bernadette McMenamin, the group’s executive director. "The person who’s done this should be prosecuted and jailed for effectively disseminating and promoting child pornography."

"The leak and publication of prohibited URLs is grossly irresponsible," Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told The Australian. "It undermines efforts to improve cyber-safety and create a safe online environment for children."

Conroy attempted to cast doubt on the authenticity of the leaked list by highlighting discrepancies in the blacklist’s size. While the leaked list contains 2,395 banned web pages, he said the government’s blacklist contains about 1061 links.

Child Wise, an international child protection charity based in Australia, said the list’s publication is bad for children and the person who exposed it should be jailed.

"Every 15-year-old boy in the country is going to be after this porn list," said Bernadette McMenamin, the group’s executive director. "The person who’s done this should be prosecuted and jailed for effectively disseminating and promoting child pornography."

"The leak and publication of prohibited URLs is grossly irresponsible," Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told The Australian. "It undermines efforts to improve cyber-safety and create a safe online environment for children."