The telecommunications industry is working together in an attempt to ensure any website housing footage of the Christchurch terrorist attack is inaccessible to New Zealanders.

Spark, Vodafone, Vocus and 2degrees - the country’s largest internet service providers (ISP) - are blocking any website which has footage of the shootings.

According to Geoff Thorn - CEO of New Zealand Telecommunications Forum (TCF) - this is an “unprecedented move” by the telecommunications industry, but one that they all agree is necessary.

“The industry is working together to ensure this harmful content can’t be viewed by New Zealanders,” said Thorn. “The gunman clearly wanted his actions to be seen, but we do not believe that this is desirable and are doing what we can to prevent this from happening as much as possible.”

Thorn said the ISPs are currently sharing knowledge with each other, and across the industry, to ensure each can block sites as soon as they are found to contain the video footage.

Furthermore, Thorn said a number of websites have so far been blacklisted, with requests made for the website to remove the footage.

“There is the risk that some sites that have legitimate content could have been mistakenly blacklisted, but this will be rectified as soon as possible,” said Thorn.

“The industry has a history of cooperating and putting competitive behaviour to one side for the benefit of New Zealanders, of which this is another good example.”