Australia anti-terror measures: Extremist content will be blocked during attacks

The Christchurch attacks in March this year were a wake-up call for many countries in terms of anti-terror measures. The reverberations can still be felt – Australia has just conducted some anti-terror measures, after learning from the situation.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday, that the country will block extremist content in the event of a terrorist attack. The decision was announced at the ongoing G7 summit in Biarritz, France.

"We are doing everything we can to deny terrorists the opportunity to glorify their crimes," Morrison stated in a media briefing.

According to Reuters, such steps have been taken after the Christchurch mosque attack, which took place in March this year, and was live-streamed across the internet. Australia and New Zealand have posed increased scrutiny on websites and social media networks showing extremist content. The Australian government has stated that it will establish a framework to block domains that host such content. It added that the material will be independently reviewed and decisions will be taken on a case-to-case basis. It will coordinate with social media networks to quickly block such content in case of an attack. It will be done under the aegis of Australia's eSafety commissioner.

The government will also establish a 24/7 Crisis coordination center to monitor the internet for extremist content. It will also look into other violent content which shows murder, attempted murder, rape, torture or kidnapping being recorded by people involved in such crimes. The government, however, did not state whether this will be a one-off measure or it will work towards introducing legislative measures towards the cause.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, Microsoft along with Vodafone, TPG and Optus will be working with the government and are expected to brief officials on how they plan to carry out the recommendations. They have also formed the "Taskforce to Combat Terrorist and Extremist Violent Material Online," and are developing a framework to combat extremist material.