Wikileaks removed from ACMA blacklist

No parts of whistleblower website Wikileaks are now on the Australian blacklist of banned websites, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

In March 2009 the ACMA revealed that a number of pages on Wikileaks were put on the blacklist of banned websites because the pages linked to websites on Denmark's blacklist.

However, the ACMA today revealed that Wikileaks was no longer on its blacklist of websites.

"Currently, the ACMA list of prohibited URLs that is notified to accredited filter providers does not contain any URLs within the Wikileaks website," the ACMA told ZDNet Australia in a statement. "Since April 2010, the ACMA has investigated two complaints about specific pages of content on the Wikileaks website, which both resolved to content found to be not prohibited."

URLs on the blacklist are what the ACMA classifies as prohibited material. The refused classification material on this list would be blocked under the Federal Government's proposed mandatory internet filtering scheme. However what is defined in the category of refused classification material is to be reviewed by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General before the government moves ahead with any legislation surrounding the filtering scheme.

The news comes as Wikileaks today began releasing some 250,000 diplomatic cables to the media, including information that US secretary of state Hillary Clinton had ordered surveillance on the United Nations. Wikileaks resorted to using the media to distribute documents after its website suffered a distributed-denial-of-service attack.

In 2009 the website leaked what at first appeared to be the ACMA's blacklist of banned websites, although Communications Minister Stephen Conroy denied that the list was ACMA's.