By Branko Miletic

Yesterday's so called exposure of the 'ACMA blacklist' posted on an overseas website and covered extensively by a number of Australian news outlets is not the real deal according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

In a prepared statement, ACMA said the publication of the list, erroneous or otherwise, was irresponsible.

"The list provided to ACMA differs markedly in length and format to the ACMA blacklist," ACMA said in a statement.

"The ACMA blacklist has at no stage been 2300 URLs in length and at August 2008 consisted of 1061 URLs.

"It is therefore completely inaccurate to say that the list of 2300 URLs constitutes an ACMA blacklist."

ACMA added that "many of the 2300 URLs provided on the list are no longer active. However, some of the URLs that remain active appear to relate to online depictions of child sexual abuse. Possessing, distributing or accessing such material may amount to an offence under the Commonwealth Criminal Code and relevant State laws."
 
ACMA spokesman Donald Robertson, whilst refusing to be drawn on the legal implications of the leaking of the banned site list, noted that "any publication of the ACMA blacklist would have a substantial adverse effect on the effective administration of the regulatory scheme which aims to prevent access to harmful and offensive online material"and that "such publication would undermine the public interest outcomes which the current legislation aims to achieve".

The fake blacklist, designed to catalog sites containing child pornography or other criminal content, included online gambling sites, YouTube links, regular porn and fetish sites, and websites of a tour operator, Queensland boarding kennel and a Queensland dentist.

It also includes the Wikileaks website. For its part, Wikileaks has gone on record and stated on its website that Australia is "acting like a democratic backwater".

Colin Jacobs from Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) said that many of the listed sites only contained "run-of-the mill adult material, poker tips, or nothing controversial at all".

"Now that we have seen the list, it is clearly not the perfect weapon against child-abuse it has been made out to be," Jacobs told ABC News.

Childwise chief executive officer Bernadette McMenamin was less benevolent in her criticism. She said she would be “extremely disappointed” if the actual list was really leaked.

"It’s sad to see that someone with fairly well-advanced technical skills has gone to the trouble of leaking this list just to prove a political point," McMenamin said.

"I think that they, whoever they are, should be punished. This is the last thing we need."

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