EFA receives a 'Take Down' notice

David Heath
Tuesday, 05 May 2009 17:11

Opinion and Analysis

Earlier today, the ISP hosting the Electronic Frontiers Australia website was served with a "Final Link-Deletion Notice" – Australia's equivalent of a "take-down notice" by the ACMA. 

In an article entitled "Net censorship already having a chilling effect" the EFA referred to a discussion on Whirlpool where a take-down notice had been issued to remove a link to an anti-abortion site which reports suggest contained pictures of an aborted foetus.

The EFA article also linked to the same anti-abortion page for the purposes of journalistic discussion and political debate.

According to the comments section of that EFA page, a semi-anonymous complaint was made to ACMA by 'Declan' specifically that "According to ACMA complaint 2009000009/ ACMA-691604278, the material at Abortion TV qualifies as prohibited content."  This complaint was laid on March 18th 2009; it took ACMA until May 5th to issue the "Final Link-Deletion Notice." 

Nothing like speedy action.

Following today's ACMA "Final Link-Deletion Notice," the EFA article was edited to remove the specific link to the website; replaced with simple Google instructions to find the same page, should the reader desire.

I'd guess it would be just as effective to use Google caches to find the link.

Now, unless my comment in the preceding paragraph is also illegal, I have just offered a method to bypass the ACMA goons.  Simply describe the content and permit Uncle Google to bring it to you.  And if the filters are in place, simply ask Google to perform an English-to-English translation of the site (unless ACMA decide to ban Google, of course). 

Alternately, investigate the joys of HTTPS connections.