Bitchute blocked due to terrorism?

[MrMobodies]

I just saw the Contacting Telstra Support About Blocking Bitchute video and I heard of some sites being blocked in certain countries weeks ago but now I see they are using terrorism as an excuse after from what happened with the Church shooting.

https://twitter.com/davidleyonhjelm/status/1107797978557771776

David Leyonhjelm
‏
I'm hearing Telstra and Vodofone have blocked Zerohedge, Bitchute and others because they posted a video of the Christchurch shooting.  Zerohedge is just a news site with useful financial info, FFS. 
Are we living in China?

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2019/03/isps-in-au-and-nz-start-censoring-the-internet-without-legal-precedent/

Posted on Mar 18, 2019 by Caleb Chen

Several websites including Voat, ZeroHedge, Archive.is, LiveLeak, and others have been blocked in Australia and New Zealand in direct contravention to civil liberties that citizens are supposed to have. The biggest of these internet providers, Telstra, has published a blog post defending their censorship action – even acknowledging that free speech has been sacrificed by company decision:

“We appreciate that it is necessary to ensure free speech is carefully balanced against protecting the community – but with these sites continuing to host disturbing content we feel it is the right thing to do to block them.”

In fact, some of the blocked sites have been unfairly lambasted in mainstream media as “refusing” to take down offending material. Let’s be clear, each and every one of the blocked websites operates lawfully – that includes removing illegal material when requested. These internet service providers (ISPs) in Australia and New Zealand have taken it upon themselves to play judge, jury, and executioner in their condemnation of these websites and their visitors just for exercising free speech.

In New Zealand, mobile internet service providers take it upon themselves to enact censorship
Starting over the weekend, Spark NZ, Vodafone NZ, and Vocus NZ were the three New Zealand ISPs that have taken it upon themselves to block these sites. On their part, the ISPs and smartphone network providers are claiming that these are only temporary blocks. Temporary blocks that have lasted multiple days – more than long enough to change people’s’ browsing habits. Even the perpetrators of this censorship are aware how unprecedented it is. Geoff Thorn, a chief executive at New Zealand Telecommunications Forum (TCF), commented to CIO:

“This is an unprecedented move by the telecommunications industry, but one that they all agree is necessary.”

CIO additionally confirmed that the ISPs are working together to ban the same sites.

In Australia, censorship also happens at the whim of the internet providers
Unsurprisingly, the over-reactive censorship has even started spreading around the world. Starting Monday the 18th, Telstra and Vodafone in Australia have also implemented these blocks network wide – that means even the many Australians using Vodafone reseller networks are affected by Vodafone’s censorship decisions. Of course, Facebook is not one of the sites that has been blocked.

Are these blocks due to legal request, or is Telstra now censoring entire sites due to internal policies? Setting a very dangerous precedent

— James Franklin (@James23235689) March 18, 2019

Vodafone has even confirmed that they were told to place the blocks, and they will remove the blocks when they are “advised” that the illegal content has been removed.

Censoring free speech is never “the right thing to do”
The internet providers in Australia and New Zealand are sliding down an incredibly slippery slope against free speech. Previously, in Australia and other parts of the world like Russia and Philippines, ISPs would not censor access to websites unless clearly told to by the government. The precedent that internet providers can decide when to start blocking sites seemingly arbitrarily has now both been set and abused… All in the name of “doing the right thing.”

They haven't blocked it in my country yet and they seem to work okay.

[John B]

It isn't a block like a full on court order, as with pirate bay etc. Telstra removes those domains from their DNS. However the sneaky thing is that telstra modems have locked DNS settings and so you have to rely on other methods.

Telstra has so far double down on this course of action and I will eventually be moving away from Telstra services entirely due to this.

[Rerouter]

Optus also have locked DNS settings on there modems, easiest solution is grab a router that you can set the dns on, and treat the modem as a modem via the WAN port.

[Ampera]

It makes you wonder why they want to hide what happened in New Zealand so badly.

What of it is so damaging to let the public witness. It's not a call to glory, it's not an advertisement for violence. It's terror, pure and unadulterated, something that needs to be there for people to understand, to understand the sheer inhumanity that people are capable, and to learn how to be different, today and tomorrow.

The constant and varied need of entity A to shut up entity B is something I will never understand. Information, in any form, and in any capacity should not be censored from those who wish to see it.

[sleemanj]

If such sites acted responsibly and actually worked towards removing the video which shows in graphic detail from a 1st person POV a gunman at close range murdering 50 innocent civilians, men, women, children, indiscriminately and with abhorrent callous detachment, then such actions would not be necessary.

In NZ the video has been rightly classified as objectionable material.

We do not need to have this video available, and we should do everything we can to eradicate it from being available to the public, it does nothing except to give this evil person the exposure which he wanted.

I live in Christchurch.

[John B]

Optus also have locked DNS settings on there modems, easiest solution is grab a router that you can set the dns on, and treat the modem as a modem via the WAN port.

I do have a spare Netgear router. So the telstra modem is plugged into the ADSL line, but then connect another router to the telstra modems WAN port?

[Rerouter]

If something is Illegal, they are well within there rights to limit access to it, just like a torrent site.

things get hidden from the average user all the time, google really doesnt like returning results older than 10 years old. yet most people would not know this.

To John, Connect the telstra modem to the netgears WAN port, and all your devices to the netgear not the telstra.

Edit:
Sorry, correction for Halycon, Infringing copyright goes against the terms of service for the connection, not Illegal,

[Ampera]

I live in the US. It's not a newsweek without people dying, just in my local area alone. Yet we still document it, we still inform people, and in this situation, we have a relatively rare and complete first person archive of the event.

People all over the world are told to fear violence, and fear those who create it, but there grows an issue when you start to fear something you do not know, and cannot see. This video, and other like it show people what exists in the world, and I cannot think of a better way to explain to people exactly why it has to be stopped.

This should absolutely not be kept out in the open, it's not something that should be normalized either, but to censor and banish it from the public because it's something we're not proud of is wrong, and just hides people away from the truth.

If something is Illegal, they are well within there rights to limit access to it, just like a torrent site.

things get hidden from the average user all the time, google really doesnt like returning results older than 10 years old. yet most people would not know this.

To John, Connect the telstra modem to the netgears WAN port, and all your devices to the netgear not the telstra.

Is it illegal? The act of creating it most certainly is but the tapes of what happened in New York on 9/11 are not only available to see, but are heavily documented for all to understand, know and remember. I myself have studied them to great length, to gain myself an insight as to what really goes on in the world.

Even if it was illegal, it's not the job of the ISP to limit access to it, it's the job of the responsible jurisdiction to find and prosecute the distributor. If this is how you want to frame it, I see it as companies then simply taking justice into their own hands.

[sleemanj]

This should absolutely not be kept out in the open, it's not something that should be normalized either, but to censor and banish it from the public because it's something we're not proud of is wrong, and just hides people away from the truth.

So we should allow any "relatively rare first person video" of anything to exist publicly accessible online because these things happen and should not be "hidden".  I think most right thinking people would be hard pressed to say that they would support that view without exception.

No.  Some things are are simply abhorrent and objectionable and the only reasonable and responsible thing to do is to work to remove them.  There is NOTHING that the general public can usefully derive from this video.  NOTHING.  Archive it for criminal justice and for the Royal Commission of Inquiry, the public will find nothing of use to them in it.

This is not war documentary where  justification of ensuring the public know what is being done in their name can be made, this is a video by a terrorist acting alone made to garner fame and incite hatred and violence.

[Rerouter]

I will at-least set the baseline here, Australia is not the US, NZ is not the US, if you see someone with a gun without a good context its seen as danger, not the normal,

creation or distribution of terrorism propaganda is Illegal in Aus, and I assume the same for NZ, and fairly heavily policed. The way to have a gun for most of Australia would be with a hunting licence, if you ever use that gun to threaten someone, your license is revoked and your black listed for some time.

Even the news here will not generally show any video media where you can see someone dying. this is the norm, b roll of the incident and investigating, fine, but not the direct article, which is better off in the hands of the relevant authorities.

So the reason for the removal would be for distribution of terrorism propaganda, the police or someone in the government would have issues take down notices for the specific topic,

[Halcyon]

Optus also have locked DNS settings on there modems, easiest solution is grab a router that you can set the dns on, and treat the modem as a modem via the WAN port.

I do have a spare Netgear router. So the telstra modem is plugged into the ADSL line, but then connect another router to the telstra modems WAN port?

You can also manually set your DNS server on your client PC's in the network settings. It will override the DNS provided by your router's DHCP server.

On the subject of blocking URL's in Australia, I've noticed Aussie Broadband don't carry on with such nonsense. To-date, they are yet to block Bitchute and other sites which Telstra, Optus and others have decided to block.

If something is Illegal, they are well within there rights to limit access to it, just like a torrent site.

Torrent sites nor merely downloading copyrighted content from torrents is not illegal in Australia.

[Ampera]

Then of what use do the tapes for 9/11 have? It was one of the most abhorrent days in modern history, yet there are museums and documentaries about that.

Of course I agree for the need for exceptions, I never said there weren't any, I'm just saying that this is not one of them. This video is of historical importance, a major terror attack, something that people should remember, and not forget.
There are videos that serve no historical purpose, where the benefit to the viewer is not in learning about and remembering an event, and the detriment is purely to the people who had to suffer to make the videos.

This is history, documented as well as reasonable, and for the same reasons we teach children about the holocaust in schools, and big production companies make documentaries about 9/11, it's important that this stuff is not just recorded, but available to be viewed and learned from.

I will at-least set the baseline here, Australia is not the US, NZ is not the US, if you see someone with a gun without a good context its seen as danger, not the normal,

creation or distribution of terrorism propaganda is Illegal in Aus, and I assume the same for NZ, and fairly heavily policed. The way to have a gun for most of Australia would be with a hunting licence, if you ever use that gun to threaten someone, your license is revoked and your black listed for some time.

Even the news here will not generally show any video media where you can see someone dying. this is the norm, b roll of the incident and investigating, fine, but not the direct article, which is better off in the hands of the relevant authorities.

So the reason for the removal would be for distribution of terrorism propaganda, the police or someone in the government would have issues take down notices for the specific topic,

You are correct, the US is not New Zealand nor Australia, but this conversation is not about guns. What the laws do and do not say are also not what is being debated here, it's if ISPs are justified in taking that action into their own hands, irrespective of police order. I do not know if it is illegal or not in Australia, the word of whatever law you refer is to say, and it's up to the courts (or whatever entity is responsible for handling these sorts of requests in your jurisdiction) to decide if this applies, not the ISPs.

As far as I am aware in the US, it is legal to share recorded videos of terrorism, I can walk into the NY State museum and see 9/11 footage. I'm not sure if I'd see this as propaganda. I did not watch the video myself, but irrespective of whatever sort of things he said, that is the absolute LEAST of what should even be of concern here. Having understandable and acceptable qualms of allowing public access to views of strong human suffering and death is one thing, but the censorship of someone's views and opinions, regardless of how nefarious they may be, is violating a key human right.

[EEVblog]

Telstra has so far double down on this course of action and I will eventually be moving away from Telstra services entirely due to this.

Me too, I'm gone, moving to Exetel.

[EEVblog]

If something is Illegal, they are well within there rights to limit access to it, just like a torrent site.

The video is not illegal in this country. Telstra took it upon themselves to play censor and block sites containing it, they were not directed to do so by the government or any law enforcement agency, they just wanted to virtue signal.

[magic]

The video is not illegal in this country. Telstra took it upon themselves to play censor and block sites containing it, they were not directed to do so by the government or any law enforcement agency, they just wanted to virtue signal.

I find it surprising given that it will inevitably piss off some customers.

If such sites acted responsibly and actually worked towards removing the video which shows in graphic detail from a 1st person POV a gunman at close range murdering 50 innocent civilians, men, women, children, indiscriminately and with abhorrent callous detachment, then such actions would not be necessary.

Dude, just admit already that you have never been on LiveLeak
The Internet is absolutely full of gore. There are videos of torture and brutal executions in third world shitholes, gang violence (including third world gang violence, 'nuff said), ISIS execution videos which certainly do actively promote violence and terrorism too, gruesome accidents, animal cruelty, all sorts of stuff.
And it hasn't been there just since yesterday. Whole forums exist dedicated to collecting and commenting on such videos.
Or maybe it's not violence but politics of unorthodox persuasion that bother you? Worry not, we have you covered too
It's all there and it will stay there because there are as many people who want to watch it as there are those who want it not to be watched.

In NZ the video has been rightly classified as objectionable material.

In the Liberal Democratic West, your Internet watches you!

We do not need to have this video available, and we should do everything we can to eradicate it from being available to the public, it does nothing except to give this evil person the exposure which he wanted.

If you care about limiting exposure, read also about Streisand Effect
And understand that there are millions of people who have already realized 10 years ago that censorship is a thing on the Internet and download everything remotely "interesting" that they see. This video will keep being reuploaded everywhere for years to come as long as there is any interest in it.

[stj]

NOTE: This message has been deleted by the forum moderator EEVblog for being against the forum rules and/or at the discretion of the moderator as being in the best interests of the forum community and the nature of the thread.
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[EEVblog]

The video is not illegal in this country. Telstra took it upon themselves to play censor and block sites containing it, they were not directed to do so by the government or any law enforcement agency, they just wanted to virtue signal.

I find it surprising given that it will inevitably piss off some customers.

Not the least bit surprising. It's very trendy these days for companies to virtue signal their "social justice" credentials, often at the financial and reputation expense of the company. Such thinking has infected modern corporate culture.

[EEVblog]

Dude, just admit already that you have never been on LiveLeak
The Internet is absolutely full of gore. There are videos of torture and brutal executions in third world shitholes, gang violence (including third world gang violence, 'nuff said), ISIS execution videos which certainly do actively promote violence and terrorism too, gruesome accidents, animal cruelty, all sorts of stuff.

And you can easily find that stuff on Youtube, no need for Liveleaks or other sites.

[EEVblog]

If such sites acted responsibly and actually worked towards removing the video which shows in graphic detail from a 1st person POV a gunman at close range murdering 50 innocent civilians, men, women, children, indiscriminately and with abhorrent callous detachment, then such actions would not be necessary.

In NZ the video has been rightly classified as objectionable material.

But making it illegal to posses or watch is one step too far. You can go to jail in NZ simply for linking to this video let alone possessing it, or the "manifesto". That is insanity. You cannot run a functioning society trying to play whack-a-mole.
And in an insane ironic twist the NZ government will actually sell you the manifesto they have banned!

it does nothing except to give this evil person the exposure which he wanted.

Having entire sites banned because of this video and people fighting over freedoms is precisely what he wanted. So 

I live in Christchurch.

My condolences for your governments actions that will come back and bite you one day when they censor and declare illegal to posses information that you want to access.

[langwadt]

If such sites acted responsibly and actually worked towards removing the video which shows in graphic detail from a 1st person POV a gunman at close range murdering 50 innocent civilians, men, women, children, indiscriminately and with abhorrent callous detachment, then such actions would not be necessary.

In NZ the video has been rightly classified as objectionable material.

But making it illegal to posses or watch is one step too far. You can go to jail in NZ simply for linking to this video let alone possessing it, or the "manifesto".

the same goes for childporn, I don't think there are many that object to that.

But banning whole sites is not the way to do it

[splin]

 Having made that difficult first step, it's a much smaller step to start blocking sites that host content critical of Telstra's business practices and competence - including EEVBLOG.

[stj]

blocking is blocking,
next they will block political candidates in the runup to elections.

btw, thanks for wiping my last post without explanation - kind of telstra-ish.
all i did was link an analysis of the content.

[Ampera]

the same goes for childporn, I don't think there are many that object to that.

But banning whole sites is not the way to do it

Wait wait wait. You're saying child porn shouldn't be banned off the internet? I mean not by ISPs, it should be by the government shutting down the distributors and arresting the creators, but really?

The big difference here is that there is no historical, documentative, or really any legitimate value besides perverse sexual pleasure derived from the suffering of children. There aren't many exceptions, but /that's/ one of them. Be careful here though, this was one topic I intentionally avoided as this can spiral well out of control.

[madires]

Configure a different nameserver (https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns-servers-2626062) or install a recursive resolver (bind, unbound, ...) with a list of the root nameservers. The latter also helps with DNSSEC.

[Stray Electron]

I will at-least set the baseline here, Australia is not the US, NZ is not the US, if you see someone with a gun without a good context its seen as danger, not the normal,

creation or distribution of terrorism propaganda is Illegal in Aus,

   REALLY?  Then how far are they willing to take that?  It sounds to me in cases like this then it would be illegal to mention it on the news or the internet or even to talk to your family or neighbors and even discuss that it happened. This very thread would be illegal by that rule.

   From here it sounds like the governments (and some of the news media) of Australia and NZ want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that these events don't happen.  This is the kind of action we've come to expect from the dictatorial Chinese government but not from democratic nations.