Australian Government includes Poker sites, YouTube videos on censorship list

The blacklist of web sites banned by the Australian Government has been leaked to pubic disclosure site Wikileaks.

The list details all sites “refused classification” in Australia that would be illegal to view in Australia, or as was discovered last week, even linked to. The list, which does include child pornography sites, is remarkable for the additional material it also bans. Included on the list are Poker sites, including sites where poker is played and even a Poker news sites, religious sites, YouTube videos, normal porn sites and as Asher Moses at The Age points out, even the site of a Queensland dentist.

The sites on the list would form the backbone of Australia’s proposed internet censorship regime. Currently, the sites aren’t blocked although illegal to view; under the proposal, all sites on the blacklist would be blocked at the ISP level in Australia.

The list finally puts to rest the Australian Government’s line that the filter was all about child pornography, when it’s clearly not at all, and that the filter would be far greater than Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy has previously said.

I can’t link to the list because it’s likely that the list itself will end up on the list (and it’s a AU$11,000/ day fine), but I’ll be damned if I can’t link to a perfectly legal site like Pokerstars. As well as having an account with Pokerstars, I’m also an affiliate; waiting for the police to come and drag me away now.