Hacker News Reader

Comment by LilBytes | Hacker News Reader

4Chan and LiveLeak have both been blocked (via DNS) in Australia and New Zealand. So, the scrutiny albeit region specific has occurred.

View on HN

Just to expand on this a little bit, it is contingent on ISP and as far as I know, the following websites:

- voat.co

- 4chan.org

- 8ch.net

- liveleak.com

- archive.is

- bitchute.com

- zerohedge.com

- kiwifarms.net

I think I'm right in saying that Telstra, Optus and Vodafone are the 'Big Three', and they have blocked the above.

Here in NZ, It's Vodafone, Spark and 2 Degrees, all of whom, I understand, blocked access, though I've been unable to verify this first-hand.

There are also hefty prison sentences [0] (up to 14 years) and fines for people who read/distributed the manifesto and watched/shared the original footage.

Edit: More comprehensive block-list can be found here: [1]

[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/world/asia/new-zealand-at...

[1] - https://www.citizensagainstidiocracy.com/93/internet-censors...

Wait, are you saying that watching the video is considered a crime in and of itself? Not redistribution, and not even mere possession, but just seeing it?

Evidently you can't even read the manifesto (which involves possession of course. Dunno if you get in trouble for reading it over someone's shoulder).

https://qz.com/1579660/new-zealands-manifesto-ban-explained-...

According to that article, having a copy is worth 10 years in the pokey.

Well that makes me want to go read the damn thing. Good job NZ. This is why you get left off maps.

Certainly, like child porn, watching snuff movies was already illegal in NZ before the alt-right terrorist attack, all the NZ censor did was confirm that the snuff movie fell under that category, it was essentially born illegal. No one passed any special new laws to make it so.

It also falls under the US supreme court test for obscenity and is equally illegal in the US

>It also falls under the US supreme court test for obscenity and is equally illegal in the US

I don't think that's correct.

There are no federal obscenity laws. The U.S. government does not expressly prohibit obscene conduct. In fact, the U.S. government expressly protects some communications in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

https://legalcareerpath.com/obscenity-law/

18 USC 71 ... is the federal obscenity law, it's been much patched in and around child porn, but the basic law is still there. Of course there's been a lot of Supreme Court rulings in and around it culminating in the Miller test ... Your 'shooting video' is really a snuff film, probably one of the few genuine ones (along with those made by ISIS, and just as bad) and certainly falls under the Miller test

I mean, /r/watchpeopledie was active for nearly a decade and never had legal issues.. I'm not sure this is enforced in any meaningful way.

You can't just redefine a murder video as pornographic because you don't like it. You mentioned the miller test, so you already know it requires that it depict "sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law".

Ignoring the state law requirement (which you haven't cited), the video does not depict sexual conduct.. and there's no way you can twist this into being illegal in the US. It's not illegal. Period. ISIS videos aren't illegal either.

You've clearly misunderstood our laws.

18 USC 71 is about 'obscenity', which doesn't just include pornography. These days it includes a bunch of clauses about child porn, but that's mostly about politicians wanting to get their names on the board. The original, base law is more general and its definition comes from common law modulated by many supreme court decisions

>It also falls under the US supreme court test for obscenity and is equally illegal in the US

I fail to see how a shooting video appeals to the prurient interest in any way.

Hah, good luck enforcing that. Besides, most people that wanted to already saw the video and read the manifesto because they had proxies setup to get access to US video streaming catalogs.

zerohedge.com is not blocked on telstra (Australian) network as of yesterday (when I last visited).

Don't know about the other sites.

I don't think you understood my point. Blocking websites is not scrutiny of the intelligence services.

I'm saying an individual with weapons doxed himself and telegraphed his intentions on a public forum and the security services completely missed it.

That could all have been be picked up without any new laws or intervention from Facebook. We need to analyse how it was missed and learn from it.

Ah I see, I did misunderstand.

I agree with your comments entirely.

And according to my kids ‘everyone’ at school uses VPNs.

The only people who don’t have access to these sites are the people who don’t want to see it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com