Optus said it made its decision after 'reflecting on community expectations.' Companies tried to scrub copies from the internet as the world reacted to the massacre but struggled to keep up with its spread.Ī spokesperson for Vodafone said that the company would only usually block access to a site on the request of law enforcement or the courts, but that this 'was an extreme case which we think requires an extraordinary response… While there were discussions at an industry level about this issue, this is a decision Vodafone Australia came to independently,' the statement said. New Zealand police and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern asked people not to share the graphic video. The Australian citizen live-streamed his attack on Facebook, and the footage quickly spread across the internet.

The block on 4chan was lifted after a few hours, Nine News said, but the other websites remained inaccessible.īrenton Tarrant, 28, was accused of murdering 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch last Friday, in what authorities described as a white supremacist terrorist attack. Telstra released a statement in which Networks and IT Executive Nikos Katinakis explained, 'We understand this may inconvenience some legitimate users of these sites, but these are extreme circumstances, and we feel this is the right thing to do.' The sites were also unavailable on Optus and Vodafone networks, although the companies had not confirmed the names of the sites they had blocked.

Several major Australian telecom companies blocked access to many websites accused of hosting and contributing to the dissemination of footage of the Christchurch, New Zealand, terrorist attack on two mosques last Friday.Īccording to Nine News, Telstra-the country's largest telecommunications company-blocked access to 4chan, 8chan, Voat, the blog Zerohedge and hosting platform LiveLeak on Tuesday.

Christchurch shooting video live leak