Australia Threatens $11,000 Fines For Unapproved Linking

Be glad if you’re not running a website, blog, or forum in Australia right now. If you linked to the wrong website, a site on the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s secret blacklist, they can fine you $11,000 ($7,262 US) per day that link stays live.

Advanced in the name of combating child pornography, the ACMA’s secret blacklist is said to contain 1,370 websites, over 500 of which are considered legal adult content. The publishing a list of sites banned by Denmark. Even the press release about Denmark’s banned website list was placed on Australia’s “Prohibited Online Content” list.

This was done after a mole lodged a complaint with the ACMA about Wikileaks. The agency’s letter of acceptance was published at the Wikileaks site as well.

As this news spreads, it has been reported that the ACMA has Whirlpool forums with an $11,000 compliance. A forum member posted a link to a US-based anti-abortion site which posted pictures of aborted fetuses. The site joined the blacklist after someone complained to the ACMA.

One imagines the logic behind not releasing a blacklist is to not encourage or enable visitation to illegal content. However, as the ACMA is proving, those in charge of censoring the Australian Web have become drunk with undesirable content power and have gone about adding innocent and legal sites to the list. Further, it’s hard to imagine the justification for steep fines for linking to sites the government hasn’t revealed are illegal.