Australia Censorship News

Members of Australia's Parliament are considering a prohibition on pornography depicting strangulation and choking.

Tanya Plibersek, a Labor MP and the social services minister for the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, announced the government's intent over the weekend, with other leaders confirming the move. Plibersek sexplained:

There is something wrong with a situation where 60% of young people say they've experienced strangulation. This is not sex education. It's not real life.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Albanese's office told News.com.au, The Albanese Government is deeply concerned about young people being exposed to sexual strangulation and other harmful behaviours through online content such as pornography.

Other reports indicate that Australian Attorney-General Michelle Rowland is working with Plibersek and other senior Labor and Liberal MPs to outlaw the practice and criminalize it.

Inspiration for the ban has been drawn from the United Kingdom. Parliament in the U.K. adopted amendments to a sweeping Crime and Policing Bill that outlawed depictions of strangulation in online pornographic content, even if the content is produced consensually between parties.

I am not sure that Australia or the UK have worked out the practicalities of such a ban. This material is commonplace and not website is going to trawl through all their videos to cut out such content so the only practical way to stop this on foreign websites is to block them all.

Halloween: The Game is a 2026 US survival horror game by Illfonic

The game is uncut and PEGI 18 rated in Europe but was banned in Australia by the Australian Censorship Board.

Versions

uncut	worldwide PEGI 18	Worldwide: Uncut Europe: Uncut and PEGI 18 rated
banned	Refused Classification Australia	Australia: Banned in 2026 The Australian Censorship Board banned the game citing illicit drug use that is linked to in-game rewards.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) is a 2011 Netherlands/UK horror by Tom Six.
With Laurence R Harvey and Ashlynn Yennie.      

Famously banned in the UK for 2011 DVD but later passed 18 after heavy cuts.

Also temporarily banned in Australia before later being passed R18+ with cuts. An uncut version was again banned in 2026.

In June 2026, Umbrella Entertainment announced an uncensored 4K UHD Collector's Edition of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE TRILOGY would be released on 22 October.

In July, the uncut version was awarded an R18+ (High impact themes, blood and gore, violence, sexual violence, nudity and sex scenes) as an Accredited Classifier Decision.

The Classification Board are able to revoke and overturn a decision made by a classification tool or accredited classifier if it believed it would have determined a different rating or the consumer advice was misleading, incorrect or grossly inadequate. This is what has now occurred, with the R18+ being replaced by an RC on 21 August. It is the first time a film has been banned in such a way since the March 2024 introduction of Accredited Classifier system.

A cut version was released in the US Unrated by the MPAA. Later it was released in the uncut version which is now cheekily tagged as the Director's Cut, still MPAA Unrated. The film was also banned in New Zealand.

Summary Review: Sick Fantasy

Inspired by the fictional Dr. Heiter, disturbed loner Martin dreams of creating a 12-person centipede and sets out to realize his sick fantasy.

This is the type of movie you will either like or hate, I doubt there will be much in between. The film is quite shocking, but not the most outrageous of the genre.

Actor Laurence R Harvey is masterful as Martin yet doesn't utter a single word of dialogue.

Australia has activated a new requirement for search engines to verify the ages of their signed-in users, with companies now facing a six-month countdown to full compliance.

The rule, which began on December 27, sits within a newly registered industry code under the authority of the eSafety Commissioner and extends the countrys expanding system of online censorship controls.

Search services such as Google and Bing must soon introduce age-assurance checks when logged-in users perform searches that might surface adult or otherwise high-impact material. The mechanisms vary, but common approaches include prompting users to confirm their age through a pop-up screen or submitting an official document, credit card details, or digital ID.

For those not logged in, searches will still function, but some content may appear blurred. Logged-in users under 18 will automatically receive filtered results excluding topics the government labels as harmful.