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Australian ratings board website now classified as 'hacked'

The website for the Office and Film and Literature Classification, the Australian ratings body that assigns age-based content ratings to media -- including, most importantly to us, games -- has been hacked by jerks. The website has been temporarily taken down.

The hackers added a message to the front page that said "This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONTROL YOUR FREEDOMZ," according to GameSpot. "The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC [sic]." The attack could be in response to last night's ABC Q&A show, in which Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy spoke about a plan for mandatory Internet filtering.

While we don't necessarily agree with that plan, we really don't agree with any response that leads to the inaccessibility of the OFLC website. Did the hackers even consider for a moment how their actions would affect our ability to learn about unannounced games?