Web Censorship Proposed For Norway 338
Aqwis writes "A Norwegian Web filtering system (link in Norwegian), comparable to the Great Firewall of China, has been proposed to the Norwegian legislature. It would, if enacted, block all Web sites and servers that contain hate material (racial hate, pro-Nazi sites, hate towards the government, etc.), most kinds of pornography (not only child pornography), foreign gambling sites, and sites that share copyrighted or other material that it is not legal to share (such as most BitTorrent sites and services such as LimeWire). Reactions have been mixed; however they are mostly negative."
Right (Score:5, Funny)
Beautiful plumage! (Score:5, Funny)
It's a well known fact that Norwegian blue content is easily blocked. As a matter of fact, the only reason it even shows up on the internet is because it's been nailed there.
Re:Beautiful plumage! (Score:4, Insightful)
and everything else resolving to the same IP-address. So if you want to get the competition
shut down, and they use a shared webhost, just buy cheap space from the same provider
and post something really, really nasty. What is considered nasty? Well, that's up to them to
decide. For the good of the people.
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Re:Beautiful plumage! (Score:5, Funny)
Mr. Praline: The bits don't enter into it. It's stone censored.
Owner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's timed out!
Mr. Praline: All right then, if he's timed out, I'll contact the host! (shouting at the router) 'Ello, Mister Chrissy Content! I've got a lovely fresh hard drive for you if you show...
(owner hits the modem)
Owner: There, he refreshed!
Mr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you reloading from the cache!
Owner: I never!!
Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Blasphemy! (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes, what a tragedy that was. The Life of Brian was successfully censored under the blasphemy paragraph. Fortunately, the paragraph is now completely dormant, and there is talk of having it removed... TLOB was the last successful invocation of the blasphemy paragraph.
At least I tried to RTFA (Score:2)
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Actually, that wasn't too bad. I don't know where you got whitewash from, and "ulovlig" means illegal, not bad.
Disclaimer: I speak Swedish, not Norwegian.
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Shouldn't that say "Bork Bork Bork" at the end or is that only Swedish?
Damn - I just got Slashdot blocked in Sweden.
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Re:Right (Score:5, Interesting)
As obviously incorrect as it is, this is actually a common belief in the south eastern US.
I grew up in San Francisco, but attended college in Alabama. As you might imagine, it took some time to get used to the degree of conservatism in the south east. After all, San Fracisco is a rather liberal place. When I grew up there in the 1970s, it was unusual for a day to go by when you didn't see a topless woman, some guy with his penis hanging out, or even a group of hippies performing their acts of "public love".
At first I wasn't sure if people in Alabama were serious or not. I'd hear people talking about how evil pornography was, and how if a girl even thought of a scrotum before she was 25, she'd be completely damaged for life. At some convenience stores, some of the religious people would throw the porno mags on the floor while the store owner was watching. It was actually quite strange to see how anti-sexual people in the south east US are.
I think I got a better understanding of how things really are there when I was in my final year of college. A couple of years before we had had one professor who was extremely against pornography, anal sex, homosexuality, and atheism. During my final year, there was a bit of a scandal involving that professor. It turns out that he had been caught with three other men sexually molesting a farmer's livestock and each other. So we had listened to him rant on against "sexual deviancy" day in and day out, only to find out that he one of the sickest bastards out there, completely contradicting everything he said and supposedly stood for.
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Re:Right (Score:5, Funny)
Why not try the U.S. method and call in an air strike on the source of the offensive material?
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I'm norwegian myself, but if this goes through (and I doubt it), I'm moving away. To me, this would just make Norway into a China with higher taxes.
The guy in charge of the comittee that made this proposal, Knut Rønning, is pretty much the Ted Stevens of Norway, he annoys the crap out of me. Here's a video with him (again, in Norwegian): http://tbtv.tb.no/player/nyheter/362-datakriminali teten-skal-til-li.html [tbtv.tb.no]
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Do you have any sources for this or did you write it because you think so?
Shared hosting (Score:2)
On the other hand, it might be a good time to create an ad-paid-for http proxy in Norwegian.
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Nah. I disagree. I think this is exactly the reason a lot of shared hosting providers have policies disallowing illegal, 'immoral' and 'obscene' content (read: pr0n, hate speech, etc.) It's not just about government firewalls, either. They want to avoid collateral damage caused by corporate and consumer proxy filtering as well.
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Given Norway's proximity to Sweden, I'm sure that the PiratPartiet (Pirate Party) would be interested in offering their paid-for proxy service [relakks.com] there if this law ever goes through.
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The suggestion has been posed now by a commission formed in 2002 (by the right-wing government then in power). The positions of the councilmembers is not political in nature, i.e. simply random employees of the FCC.
This suggestion doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing. I'm willing to bet any vital organ.
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Your English isn't bad because you're Norwegian, it's bad because you're an idiot.
You know, where the current administration are fighting private schools to avoid thoughts that are not socialistic enough.
No, it's to avoid religious nutcase schools like Liberty University and the like in the US. And it's a good thing, too. And the recent school reforms are as unsocialistic as they get.
Where the state takes most of what you earn by direct and hidden taxes.
This will work as well... (Score:5, Funny)
No, relli! (Score:5, Funny)
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No, they'll be able to read that. The flickr photoset that goes along with it is another story. Møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...
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Curb your impulses! (Score:2)
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Re:Curb your impulses! (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh dear, the attempts to control what travels through the Internet and into our brains. Is that what's hurting us? Can we put one ounce (28.349523 grams) of this effort towards nailing the bot nets, spam generators and Internet pirates with Phishing schemes instead of policing our minds? Maybe policing our minds is easier than the hard work of really fixing a dozen Chinese hosts throwing the dictionary at my servers all day long or absorbing 80% of the Internet's bandwidth with noise. Fix that, lawmakers.
Y
Good to know (Score:5, Insightful)
Define hate (Score:2)
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Man I *hate* censorship (Score:2)
Guess I better not go to Norway...
I tried to RTFA... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I tried to RTFA... (Score:5, Funny)
Notice they've tried to cross out all the o's. Just wait till they hit the rest of the alphabet, none of these hate sites will be readable!
Re:I tried to RTFA... (Score:5, Funny)
Porn? They practically invented it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Porn? They practically invented it (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. Norway is puritan country. Porn (people fscking) is illegal. Pictures of nekked boobies aren't.
Even so, this has been blown waaay out of proportion (Slashdot, sensationalist?! Nah...) It's just a proposal by a panel so far and what's more, of the 6 members of the panel 4 were against. The minority, i.e. the remaining 2 members, have demanded that the Justice Department consider the proposal anyway and present it to Parliament regardless.
Whether or not that will really happen remains to be seen. Needless to say, just about everyone else are up in arms over this.
Democracy in action, folks. Nothing to see here, move along.
IAAN (I Am A Norwegian) and IRTFA.
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Still not 100% certain what's allowed or not, but I've seen ads.
We do, however, have lots of cool ads you won't see in the US. "We love boobs!"
Re:Porn? They practically invented it (Score:4, Informative)
The ruling came about after a reinterpretation of the law - there are only two things that are forbidden by Norwegian law. Child pornography and "offensive" (støtende) pornography. The courts gave them a run-around and said "people don't find this offensive, if you want the law to prohibit hardcore, say it". It's an odd variation of the Miller test, and it may still apply for vids that show rape etc. - nobody's quite found the new limits yet. In any case, the porn is flowing now but that is only in the recent year or so.
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The lack puritanism is what distinguish Denmark from the two other Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Norway.
Teacher: Question Authority. Student: Says who!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh Look! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh Look! (Score:4, Informative)
Ummm I take it you didn't RTFA.
This is a proposal from a 6 member panel at the bottom end of the Norwegian Government. Thankfully, it's still unlikely the actual Norwegian parliament will even look at a bill based on the proposal (since it isn't yet even in bill form!!!), let alone make a law based upon it.
Two major problems have occurred here:
1) People should RTFA before posting!!!
2) Slashdot should stop people from submitting extremely misleading summaries. (and FireHose just makes the situation 10x worse due to point 1).
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So all we have is to go with the summary and what interpretations those claiming to be in the know tell us. Why don't you save us some troube and translate it for us (if you got the time).
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Clueless government or clueless citizens? (Score:2)
Things That Offend and You Aren't Allowed to Say (Score:3, Insightful)
In the U.S., you say somethings and you get yourself fired, thrown out of office, ridden out on a rail, decertified what have you:
This post will be censored in Norway, but so will anyone who tries to argue the opposite of any one of these points. Is that freedom?
Re:Things That Offend and You Aren't Allowed to Sa (Score:2)
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Re:Things That Offend and You Aren't Allowed to Sa (Score:5, Insightful)
That's so clueless I'm going to go ahead and assume you're an American here. I'm also going to point out that Norway consistently ranks in the top five in various agencies' ratings of press and speech freedom. The United States
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I don't know enough about the PATRIOT act to speak for or against it, but I'm sorry, no: Guantanamo Bay is absolutely inexcusable. It really is that bad.
We're still an extraordinarily free society...
Actually, you're far below par for the course in Europe. You do seem to enjoy talking about it the loudest, though.
Re:Things That Offend and You Aren't Allowed to Sa (Score:2)
How did this get modded up? (Score:2)
Who the hell got thrown out of office for saying that? Saying that Israel doesn't have the right to exist is much more likely to get you in trouble--I know because I said something similar a few times and my coworkers got all uptight about it (well, I didn't say they didn't have the RIGHT to exist so much as it was a stupid stupid STUPID place to start a new country, and we shouldn't have been involved in protecting them from their own stupidity, ESPECIALLY if that meant piss
It was only a matter of time . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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So, what is the real dilema here? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is way too much in the world to worry about besides what people view on the Internet. Lets not forget that it is the parents responsibility to ensure their kids don't torture animals, bully other kids, and learn a set of spiritual values.
I am (mostly) a libertarian, but despite political leanings, I cannot fathom any political faction believing that it is their responsibility to remove all possible danger from the lives of citizens as to provide a blanket of security and safety for them. When ANY government feels this is their responsibility, it is high time to execute that government and move on to the next version.
This is not so much an example of stupid government as it is a call for the citizens of that country to impeach and behead the leaders of that government... in any order that seems appropriate at the time.
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This is a suggestion by a panel of employees at a cybercrime commission formed by the previous, conservative government, and none of the people on the board have been chosen by politicians.
As I've said in other posts, this does not stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing.
Norway, my love... (Score:2)
There goes the iTunes Store... (Score:2)
obligatory... (Score:2, Funny)
Chinese relations (Score:2)
Funny the article summary mentions the People's Republic of China offhand. A while back I was studying "communist" history, and if my memory serves correct, Norway was the first nation to recognize the sovereignty of the PRC (or maybe the first western nation to do so).
People I know who are native to China seem to have a very positive image of Norway; for example, I had one very good Chinese friend who aspired to live there one day--thought it was the most beautiful country in the world. Norway is beauti
Irony, thy name is Norway. (Score:2, Funny)
Or is this just Norway sticking its middle finger up at a United States company, only to then stick it up again to the rest of the world?
It has to be said! (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a shame that when a a comittee is called upon to make a statement on something like the internet there are never any young people included. I am now 22 years old, internet has been a part of my life since I was 10 (and even more so for my 11 years old sister). I can tell these old guys and researchers so much about online culture, society, human interaction and etiqette that they will never ever get to know or learn because internet will always be something "new" and foreign in their life, not something that has been there from the beginning.
Nazis & Paedophiles (Score:2)
maybe this would be a good thing (Score:2)
there are two ways IPv6 would counteract this
* every web site would use it's own (so that they don't get blocked if some other schmuck is on a different virtual box)
* the blocked sites would change address every few days to avoid detection
now, blocking millions and millions of IPv6 addresses would be rather, erh... undoable
Hate (Score:2)
Can't have that, now can we?
Still, the moniker "hate" has indeed turned out to be the key for re-introducing classical censorship legislation to western nations.
Is all of this even illegal?? (Score:2)
= "Web sites that provide pornography that can offend."
Hmm, is that kind of material even illegal in Norway otherwise? It would encompass most porn because you can be sure there's always someone offended about it, particularly often in governments it seems.
Re:The Guard of Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Before you get your Slashdot panties in a twist and get offended, note, I'm a libertarian (note the case) and can't stand the damned conservatives. They are as bad as our liberals, just intolerant of other things. With these two, we can't say a damned thing.
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I will defend your right to be offended, as long as I can be offended by your offense, and I can say what I damn well feel, even I have to further defend you being offended by what I say...ad infinitum.
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The slashdot cheer squad (Score:2)
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libertarianism (Score:3, Interesting)
if you understand what is wrong with selfishness, you understand what is wrong with libertarianism
the only people who take libertarianism seriously are earnest philosophy majors in college with no real world experience, and 40 and 50 year olds behind on their alimony payments
yes, liberals and conservatives are always trying to tell you what to do
because they care. smothering you is a side effect of caring. of course that can do damage, but not as much damage as liber
the problem with selfishness (Score:5, Interesting)
of course, it is absurd for me to suggest that altruism and selfishness cannot coexist at the same time, in the same person, in the same society. this is, in fact, what most modern western societies are like: capitalism with social safety nets, or socialism with a capitalist engine. but notice how the agenda of libertarians is to remove those social safety nets. that's interesting
what would happen without those social safety nets? you honestly can't imagine how they might be necessary, how they might, in fact, help you by removing the attractiveness of criminal acts that are sought after by the desperate? that is as actually cheaper to pay for the social safety nets then to pay for eventual negative effects of a growing poor underclass?
oh: you thought libertarianism would do anything except shrink the middle class?
sorry: selfishness compounds interest. what i mean by that is that, in a libertarian society, given a few generations, all power and money would be centralized in a handful of ultrarich. of course, libertarians say that their political philosophy is all about the little middle class man making it on his own, unburdened by the intrusions of a busy body government. what they don't understand is how their livelihood relies so much on those government hand outs, indirectly, they can't fathom seeing the worth for paying. this doesn't make a libertarian wiser, this makes him more shortsighted
the only people who gain from libertarianism is not the hardy backwoods souls. it is the ultrarich in the penthouses of the urban centers. it is amazing how libertarians cannot understand how selfishness concentrates wealth into societies of rich and poor, and destroys the middle class. the little middle class guy in the woods who supports libertarianism supports the impoverishment of his children and grandchildren so that the ultrarich can get even richer
which makes perfect sense, right? selfishness only cares about yourself... not the next generation
there is nothing wrong with what ayn rand said about the many and varied benefits of selfishness. but there is everything wrong with thinking that those positive aspects of selfishness, in a vacuum of altruistic efforts and benefits, does anything but consume that which it creates, and then some
life is balancing act on so many principles. when it comes to altruism and selfishness, especially
you must have equal parts both concepts in your political philosophy, or you have a political philosophy that only impoverishes and makes miserable
understand why both altruism and selfishness must be expressed in your political philosophy, or understand nothing at all
the problem with all lowercase (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, you make some very good points, and I commend you for them, but god is your post hard to read. Maybe it is just me, but I find it downright painful; everything just runs together forcing me to read it more slowly than normal. A few extra seconds using the shift key and punctuation would save many minutes of total time of readers who are slowed down trying to read it.
altruism under duress is superior (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:The Guard of Freedom (Score:5, Informative)
If you'd RTNorwegianA, it says quite clearly that this is merely a suggestion by a panel at a cybercrime law enforcement agency, and has seemingly been universally panned by politicians, media, and the populace alike.
Tore - The Norwegian Guy.
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None of the members of this panel are politicians, they are merely relatively senior employees of various agencies, including the Norwegian FCC (Post & Teletilsynet).
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Re:The Guard of Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, you have some of this wrong. Censoring for pornography and language is a conservative/neocon thing. Censoring for offensive ideas/language is a liberal thing. At least, thats the break down in the U.S.
Between the two camps, we are losing our freedoms.
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Well, the Americans just came up with a new way to protect the children different from the Norwegian version. Your ISP will have to record all traffic they see coming in and out of your computer [google.com] so that the government can simply subpoena all the information and analyze all your stuff at their leisure in their search for child porn. You want to talk about thinkin
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of many hackers *with attitude*. I'd expect circumvention mechanisms to be ready on the first day.
That is, if the politicians are actually drunk enough to let this pass.
Re:The Guard of Freedom (Score:4, Informative)
The Liberal Party of Norway [venstre.no] is currently a small-sized party in opposition, together with the conservatives [hoyre.no] (check out what sort of ladies can be in politics in Norway: how many milliseconds would she last anywhere else?) and Christian democrats [www.krf.no]. The thing most closely resembling the Republicans is the Progress party [frp.no], a hate-spewing propaganda machine for the lesser mentally developed (yes, there is statistics showing Progress voters are less schooled than average; and yes, they actually bought the WMD bull back in 2003).
Current government is headed by the Labour party [arbeiderpartiet.no], the Socialist Left party [sv.no] (more or less like Labour, only more environment-focused and anti-NATO, and generally more left-leaning) and the Centre party [senterpartiet.no] (farmers).
I would not agree on the opportunity of using a link to Dagbladet to explain this issue (ok most people do not read Norwegian anyway), as Dagbladet is a low-quality tabloid focusing on flashy headlines. This article from Aftenposten [forbruker.no] indicates that censorship is a mindretallforslag, i.e. a minority proposition. The majority of the Datakrimutvalget (Authority for computer crime) actually voted against this proposal.
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Re:Stuff like this... (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair (Score:2)
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I think it's scary to think there are still Americans who think the US of today allows them more liberties than your average European country. I mean, I knew that there must be some, statistically, since there's so many American citizens to begin with, but it's still troubling to see one in action.
Here's something for your consideration: the European peoples have, for the la
But dont forget... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Womb to Tomb, baby! (Score:4, Funny)