A site that explicitly stated it would not host the horrific Christchurch terror video has been blocked by Australian telcos in an “extraordinary” effort to censor dozens of websites.

Telstra, Vodafone and Optus have all confirmed they are actively blocking Australian customers on their networks from accessing websites that hosted the Christchurch terror video.

None of the three telcos would say which sites had been blocked. The blocks are temporary and will be lifted when the footage is removed. The decision was made independently by telcos following industry-wide discussions, without any direction from law enforcement or the courts.

Facebook and Twitter were not targeted, despite hosting the video.

Guardian Australia understands this is because they are taking active steps of their own to remove the material from their pages. Many mainstream media outlets have also shown the video on their site, including News.com.au, which remains accessible.

But LiveLeak, a video sharing site known for often showing disturbing content, has been blocked by Telstra, Vodafone and Optus. The video initially appeared on LiveLeak, but was soon scrubbed and is no longer available in searches.

LiveLeak told its users in a statement on Monday that it was refusing to carry the video because it did not want to “indulge” the perpetrator by carrying his propaganda and that it had received “no small number of complaints” regarding the fact that it would not carry the video of the shooting in New Zealand, streamed live on Facebook.

“The Christchurch shooter wasn’t just some random ‘nutcase’. He planned not just the murders but also the chaos he would sow with his manifesto which reads like the fevered dream of a fully fledged ‘shitposter’.”

“Currently, judging by media coverage and reactions online, he’s getting almost exactly what he wanted. We don’t intend to indulge him further.”

Optus, Telstra and Vodafone were approached for comment on their decision to block LiveLeak. Optus referred questions about LiveLeak to the Communications Alliance, whose chief executive, John Stanton, spoke more generally about the blocks.

“Due to the extraordinary circumstances, several large ISPs in Australia have taken the decision to voluntarily implement temporary blocks of websites that continue to host footage of the Christchurch terrorist attack video,” Stanton said.

“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.”

Vodafone said in a statement it had blocked “dozens of sites” still hosting the footage “We understand users trying to access these sites for legitimate purposes may be inconvenienced but we believe it’s the right thing to do in these extreme circumstances to help stop the further distribution of this video,” it said in a statement.

“In Australia, blocking requests are generally made via the courts or law enforcement agencies however, this is an extreme case which we think required an extraordinary response.”

“There were industry discussions in relation to this issue and we did make enquiries with various agencies but this is a decision Vodafone Australia made independently.”

Such blocks are generally considered ineffective and easily bypassed. Users on the online forum Reddit are already rubbishing the blocks and the ease at which they can be evaded.

Also on Tuesday, Facebook revealed that the livestream of the attack was viewed 200 times during the live broadcast, and no one reported the content.

“Including the views during the live broadcast, the video was viewed about 4,000 times in total before being removed from Facebook,” the Facebook vice-president Chris Sonderby said.

“The first user report on the original video came in 29 minutes after the video started, and 12 minutes after the live broadcast ended.”