'These ISPs have sought to balance community expectations to remove access to the video with the need to minimise any inconvenience that may arise from legitimate content being blocked as an unavoidable, temporary consequence,' Communications Alliance chief executive John Stanton said in a statement. The telco industry's peak body said the decision to voluntarily block domains was made due to the 'extraordinary circumstances' involved. Cloudflare noted that 8chan has inspired and provided a sort of haven for several mass shooters, By protecting the message board's online presence, according to the post, Cloudflare played a part. Optus said it had blocked the domains after 'reflecting on community expectations'. 'While there were discussions at an industry level about this issue, this is a decision Vodafone Australia came to independently,' a spokeswoman said in a statement. Vodafone said while blocking requests normally came from the courts or law enforcement agencies 'this was an extreme case which we think requires an extraordinary response'. The ban on 4chan was lifted a few hours later. Optus and Vodafone declined to name which domains they blocked but the same platforms also failed to load on their networks on Tuesday afternoon. Watch the latest news on Channel 7 or stream for free on 7plus >
