It's Hard To Run a Blog In Sweden 299
mpawlo writes "Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt is being investigated by a prosecutor because of his blog. In a blog post, Mr. Bildt states that some 13.000 comments are posted (Swedish link) on his blog and that he and his staff try to erase all inappropriate comments. However, they apparently missed a comment proposing genocide of Palestinians. This prompted a Swedish leftist blogger to report the conservative foreign minister's blog and the comment to the authorities. Now a prosecutor is looking into the matter and the foreign minister will likely be held responsible for the comments due to poor Swedish legislation on freedom of speech relative to the Internet."
Logical progression of hate crime/speech laws (Score:5, Insightful)
"Thoughtcrime" won't be relegated to fiction for long.
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Does this include death threats? Incitement to kill people? Instructions for how to make nuclear weapons? Fundraising for terrorists? Lying to courts? The president lying to the people? Fraud?
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There ought to be no limit on free speech means that speech should not be limited *for itself*. Hating someone is not a
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If "death threat" is a crime, then what's wrong with "advocating genocide" being a crime?
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Advocating genocide is somehow a death threat but it is to vague to constitute a crime, you are not involved in the crime. There's a difference between saying "quick, shoot that guy over there" and "death to group X".
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That's pretty subjective. Lots of people would disagree with that claim, and enough do that it is considered a crime in Sweden. Since it is a crime, then by your argument it is not a limitation on freedom of speech, yes?
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Sure it's hard to tell if a death threat is specific enough to constitute a crime and that's the whole point of justice by trial.
Now I don't care that it has been labeled a "crime" in Sweden. Who said so? The Swedish lawmakers... But you cannot just "claim" that something is a c
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No. You are wrong, on a technical point.
Imagine that I drive along a straight, wide road, in daylight. The road surface is in good condition, is dry, and my vehicle is in excellent condition. I am in full control of my vehicle. I drive at 65 mles per hour like this for five miles or so, without endangering myself or others.
I look in my read view mirror to see flashing blue lights. It's the cops, and I'm pulled over for exceeding the speed limit of 50mph.
I committed a crime, plain and simple, because t
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Sure, there's a difference. Actually there are several different statements that one could discuss whether to allow or make illegal
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They most definitely are nothing of the kind. Some details of the basic design are public, but those are very, very far from being actual instructions, and are only a tiny first step on the road to developing the actual weapons. Try again, this time considering easily reproducible instructions and all the necessary data.
Could I publish a book with the questioned content...
How
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Your post is nonsense, of course. Free speech is alive and well in Europe and has been for a long time. Contrary to the American model, however, most (all?) European constitutions consider a couple other things more worthy of protection.
In most (all?) European constitutions you will find an article guaranteeing the freedom of expression, the freedom of the press and such; but it will usually be article number four or eight or so (since you mention Germany: it's number five there). The first couple are usu
I disagree. (Score:3, Insightful)
Censorship, hate-crime laws and speech restriction laws can be entirely valid, fair and appropriate. When they are, they should exist - no matter who doesn't like it. But when they exist, they shou
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Just because you want to silence a few nutcases doesn't make you the moral arbiter of what opinions people are allowed to express. World War II happened. Get over it. Our continent was destroyed by a war started by racist morons too, but we, at least, are mature enough as a society to discuss and judge people for their stated opinions without
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I also agree that Europe was destroyed by morons and thugs. There is not one village ANYWHERE in Europe that does not have a memorial to the fallen in World War I every bit as extensive as
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Plato argued that such education is impossible - that people want to be dumb, basically - and argued the case for something more akin to a government in which only bureaucracies exist. What you're goo
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Because believe it or not, there are certain kinds of speech that are illegal in your precious US of A as well (defamation for example) which would generate the exact some problem if the law doesn't know how to handle it.
So yes, this is one of those cases where it's unclear what to do but I
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The US is fairly lenient on defamation--defamatory speech is prohibited only when there is malice behind it, unlike Britain. Defamation and fraud are the misrepresentation of fact. Americans have (and passionately believe in) the freedom to express any political opinions--be it favoring the violent overthrow of the government, the extermination of Canadians, or even the idea that homosexuality is not okay with God. If you express these beliefs, the police won't come after you like they do in Europe. People
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And in this case, the "wrong" is little more than an expressed opinion to which a single person took exception. This has everything to do with punishing unpopular beliefs and intimidating anyone who might dare express them in the future.
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You're not automatically responsible for everything that other people write on your webpages. However, if someone notices you of the existence of hate speech or similar, you should probably remove it.
Swedish law is, like a bunch of other law systems, more concerned with the PURPOSE of a law than the exact letter of the law. Laws themselves are usually pretty short and readable, but are accompanied by inst
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Because inciting people to kill other people are not allowed in Sweden.
Gettings someone to kill an specified person or any unspecified person of a certain group is prohibited in Sweden.
The right to live are more important than the right to free speach in Sweden. Those that misuse the right to free speach to get people murdered and thus impose on others right to live are criminals.
It's hard to run a blog in Sweden... (Score:4, Insightful)
In Sweden... (Score:2)
and the problem is? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a very good one mind you, but it would be effective.
I kid. I kid.
All countries go through stuff like this because laws arent fast enough to keep up with technology. Or, the people creating laws don't understand the technology. Happened before and will happen again, in every country around the globe.
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Put it in perspective. (Score:4, Insightful)
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-Rick
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Yowza. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Bingo. And he's not being held responsible... the problem is that the law rather untried at this point in time so the prosecutor needs to make a preliminäry investigation (in Swedish "förundersökning"). So pretty much: new law, more vigilance with the preliminary investigations until the legal situation has gelled a bit... which i
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oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:oblig. (Score:4, Funny)
midsommar (Score:4, Funny)
Tough cookies (Score:2, Troll)
It's too easy to cop-out with "oh someone else posted that comment" if one's intent is to spread violence. If the blogger left the comment there for a significant period of time, then he is probably guilty. And if the comments were too much for him to police himself, then he should have hired someone or limited the number of c
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Fuck you! I'll kill you!
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i'm not saying speach can't be a component of violent behavior, but that is why we have brains to sort it out. just saying something ought to be done is not enough, there has to be a real threat. you are no real threat to me - whoever posted on that blog in sweden is no threat to palestinians.
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Re:Tough cookies (Score:4, Insightful)
I simply don't monitor comments on my website (some other types of content besides blog posts permit them, or I would have said "blog") and frankly I think that is the way to go. Because if you remove some comments, you can be stuck removing other comments... but then, this is the US. I still reserve the right to remove whatever I like, of course, and if something is illegal or just nasty and I notice it then I remove it. But if I had a policy of policing then I would have to follow that policy.
Sorry to hear it's different in Sweden, I would run my blog out of a less oppressive country (in terms of freedom of speech, that is.)
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If you provi
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Re:Tough cookies (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are not allowed to advocate the overthrow of your government, your free speech is exactly worthless.
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Incitement to violence isn't protected speech anywhere, and bloggers have to police their comment areas for such comments (or else leave yourself in the position of promulgating them).
That actually is not true. For all of its faults, the US has extremely strong free speech protections and you basically have to be convicted of conspiracy before your speech can get you in trouble. I can merrily call for all the Jews, Palestinians, Blacks, Whites, anyone to go die without even the slightest worry of legal recourse. On the other hand, if I had a stockpile of weapons in my basement, armed some crazy neo-nazis, loaded the weapons, and drew up a plan to go kill some Jews, then I would actua
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It certainly looks to me like this supports the view that incitement to illegal activity is itself illegal under US law. There is a requirement of imminence, so posting on a website pro
On the other side (Score:2)
disturbance liability (Score:5, Informative)
blog/board owner can be held responsible for any offensive/illegal content posted by someone on
the discussion board or comments. Even if the owner isn't aware of any such posting. This is called
"disturbance liability". If he is sued and agrees to remove the incriminating content there are some
stiff financial penalties if the poster is continuing.
Some courts think it is technically possible to monitor a web-board with 200k comments per month
like http://heise.de/ [heise.de]
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You can't say "hateful" comments about groups of people, regardless if it's homosexuals, muslims, palestinians, or exactly what.
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At least you can say "hateful" things about your government...for now.
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they do nothing but bitch about everyone but themselves.
At least he didn't... (Score:4, Interesting)
Quote Old Testament scripture with respect to homosexuals... Then he'd be in *real* trouble.
The interesting thing about freedom of speech is that it's not absolute, not even in the most liberal of countries. In the more liberal countries, you're free to say anything you like, as long as your speech doesn't have the effect of prompting action.
Which kind of makes the so called "Freedom of Speech" pointless.
The sad fact of the matter is no matter how much we'd like to believe otherwise, people will be judged by what they say, and even by words of the people with whom they associate. Even though this was probably a smear tactic, the realization of freedom of speech requires that we live in some kind of fantasy world where speech never has an effect on the *actions* of people. In such a world, you could say whatever you want.
Instead, we ought to consider the consequences of speech before we speak. Speech with political consequences shouldn't be restrained, but speech with violent consequences ought not be protected. Drawing the line between the two isn't easy, because political speech often has violent consequences.
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Re:At least he didn't... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're confusing "pointless" with "ignored". I support freedom of speech - total, absolute, unregulated (and whatever your "what about" question is, the answer is, "yes, damn it"). A lot of people say they support freedom of speech, but don't really support it because they fear it. If you think that there ought to be freedom of speech with some regulations, then that's pointless, but that's you. If there are any regulations, then it's no more "free" than China or Stalinist Russia; it's just a different sort of lack of freedom.
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False advertising? Defamation? I'm interested to see how you'd justify these.
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Speech with political consequences shouldn't be restrained, but speech with violent consequences ought not be protected. Drawing the line between the two isn't easy, because political speech often has violent consequences.
Well said!
However, if history has taught us anything, it is that the repression of any form of speech, even violent speech, serves only to fan the flames and causes far much more damage to humanity than any possible result of the original banned material.
I should never have to be in fear of losing my civil rights simply because I put certain words to a page, no matter what those words are. Now if those words have action attached to them (e.g. I told you to go kill my rival), then I have to worry. That's
Original source? (Score:2)
I can't really read Swedish, but Carl Bildt doesn't seem to mention that he's under investigation (wouldn't he'd got immunity while in office anyway?).
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An english language site of swedish news is thelocal.se also has it at http://www.thelocal.se/7674/20070621/ [thelocal.se].
And no, politicians do not have immunity whi
It's Hard to be the Government (Score:3, Interesting)
Government ministers have so much power, the public takes so much risk giving it to them, that they have to avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing. Because it's often so hard to tell the difference, and the difference often doesn't matter to the results
Liberal Genocide (Score:2)
Oddities in the Swedish law (Score:3, Informative)
Which states that the provider is responsible for the comments if they obviously contains either illegal content (hate speech, child pornography, calls for riots) or
illegally republished copyrighted content (i.e a very blatant copyright violation).
And even if you didn't have the time to check all the comments or if you missed something, you are responsible, since you have been negligent ( sixth section).
However even if he had been covered by the Freedom of the Press part of the Swedish constitution he would have been under investigation anyway, since hate speech is exempt.
He will probably receive a small fine and that's the end of it.
crying fire! (Score:2)
Point:
We can't yell fire in a crowded theatre.
Should we be able to advocate genocide on the internet?
Point:
In the US, we have a constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech.
Do they have the same in Sweden?
Comments ignored by Bildt since April. (Score:3, Informative)
The blogger is Jinge of http://www.jinge.se/ [jinge.se] (Swedish) These comments have been on Carl Blidts blog since early april, for over two months now. During this time it has has been mentioned to him several times. He has been interviewed on both the news and the radio about them, without removing them. It is probably more because of incompetence then malice because he on the news said IIRC that he wanted to remove the comments but there was no point in doing it since they already were in "the cache".
13000 comments is not much for a blog as old as Carl Bildt's. In comparison Jinge's blog has about 30000 comments all manually moderated before being visible on the blog. These particular comments were few and all in the same thread. The comments encouraged prosecution and/or extermination of the Palestinan people.
These laws are seldomly used, but have been used in recent yers agiants hate speech advocating prosecution of and/or violence towards jews and homosexuals, and probably others that I can't remember right now.
Weird editing makes story unclear (Score:2)
What has happened in this case is that a preliminary investigation has been initiated. It is not a formal prosecution. This investigation is carried out by a prosecutor. I am afraid the editing makes
English Translation (Score:3, Informative)
Here is a [loose] English translation of the article
In total, there are more than 13,000 comments, of varying type, on this blog. And during the last few months we have been trying to remove posts that were particularly inappropriate or insulting.
As soon as we are notified about something we missed, we have removed it. However, it is clear we missed a contribution from a certain person early this year.
Naturally, this is unfortunate. That this was not done on purpose is clear, because we have removed other comments in the past. The comments that we were notified about today were obviously removed immediately.
That is how it is. After that the legal examination have to run its course.
Where this will lead, I do not know. But I think it would be sad if it forced me to shut down this blog. And if I have to do that, it will most likely lead to other blogs being forced to do the same thing.
However, we have not reached that stage yet.
The Real Deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Two separate acts, with a common ground, regulate freedom of the press and freedom of broadasting media respectively -- it is technology dependent. Anyone publishing (or broadcasting) media must have a license to do so, and whoever has the license is the registered publisher, who alone will face any legal actions if anyone in the staff commits a "crime of freedom of speech" (that is what is it called, totally Orwellian, I know).
An exception to this was when two journalists (Guillou and Brattström) were convicted of spying when they exposed the Information Bureau, an illegal intelligence agency.
Anyway, people publishing without such a license (like bloggers) are not protected by the two separate acts that regulate freedom of speech. Instead, private citizens are subject to a "Personal Data Act", that initially made it an offense to publish virtually anything about anyone without written permission. People have been convicted for describing colleagues breaking a foot in the yard under this law. It was initially a very harsh interpretation of a EU directive.
Reality later had its impact as the Internet grew larger, and especially since Web 2.0 applications began to spread on the net (blogs, newspaper comments and so forth). The "Personal Data Act" was changed accordingly this year, and private citizens publishing stuff that is of an artistic or journalistic nature are in essence covered by one of the two basic acts on freedom of speech (both of which are part of the constitution, which by the way is not as strong as the American constitution), namely the one regulating broadcasting media. People who blog for other reasons than debate or journalism have no such protection.
Mr. Bildt's blogging is thus covered by the constitution. But the comments are not, because yet another law covers such elements, namely the so called BBS Law (or law on electronic billboards). This law states that anyone operating a billboard (or equivalent; a blog is a billboard acccording to this definition) has the same role as a registered publisher in a media company, and therefore has to surveill the platform he is letting up for public use and also take action within reasonable time, should there be reason to do so.
Practically, this means one has to remove illegal messages or comments within a week from being notified of their existence. One can also apply for a license to operate as a media company, to get the fullest protection of the law (which means that only a special prosecutor can prosecute). But then one also have to save every intermediate state of the media in question, that is the state inbetween every comment and change on the blog, like a versioning system -- this is too overwhelming for a private publisher of a blog. In the current case, a common prosecutor is investigating the case -- no one has yet been notified of anything, it is just an investigation.
So, these are the basics of Swedish "freedom of speech". In essence, the law has a 16th century view on such freedoms of expression, only recognizing media companies as valid publishers. The common man has until fairly recently been rather unfree. The press and the media are thought to be "representatives" of the people, which is why the media is usually called "the third state power" in Sweden. Regular folks are not supposed to have freedom of speech. The press and the broadcasting media are an elite group with special privileges, and recently they have begun attacking blogs for infringing on those privileges.
Regarding the current case, there will probably be no action, since Carl Bildt has had his foreign ministry staff go through all comments and remove those that may be unlawful. They have missed one or two such comments after being notified, but the law isn't that rigorous. A reasonable effort has been made, and it is likely no one will be held accountable for anything in this matter.
On the ot
Re:How much... (Score:4, Insightful)
If people don't get drug into court for bullshit laws, the bullshit laws tend to stay on the books.
It's unfortunate that most of the world seems to work that way, but there you have it.
It's probably better for everyone if that sort of thing actually happens, especially if it happens to high-profile individuals. Even the individuals getting busted, in the long run (it's cold comfort when you're in court, though.)
Re:How much... (Score:4, Interesting)
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We've been imprisoning people for smoking cannabis for decades, doesn't look like that bullshit law is going away any time soon.
Re:How much... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not universal. First, we're imprisoning mostly the wrong people for the aforementioned effect to occur, people who don't have any money. If you get busted for drugs, they're likely to take away all your money and claim it came from drugs whether it did or not; so see point 1.
Second, the War On Some Drugs is too profitable for too many influential groups for this to work. Think about all the beneficiaries! The biggest motivation to ban Marijuana originally came from Hearst (with his paper industry) and DuPont (with his plastics industry) but it also benefits the pharmaceutical companies, who get to sell bullshit drugs for things which can be treated with cannabis; the liquor industry, which would probably see a decline in sales; the private incarceration industry including both companies which build prisons and companies which run them; and of course, the justice system, which has dramatically higher volume with marijuana illegal than it would without it. There's also special organizations created just to reduce marijuana production, like CAMP, which would have no reason to exist without the prohibition (although they did cut CAMP's funding this year, or so I hear.)
What I find particularly annoying about this issue, though, is that the American public is being pretty fucking stupid by going along with the bullshit arguments. I don't know about you but I learned in school (partly in college, but just a lame two-year) that prohibition was an abject failure all along, and that it was terminated because it essentially provided endless positive PR for organized crime; they could make people happy and grateful by breaking the law! And, of course, make the usual pile of money in the process. It made gangsters famous instead of infamous and made them rich to boot. But we have precisely the same situation today with the other controlled substances; plus it is honestly true that some import drug sales fund terrorism. (Of course, so did paying OBL's Taliban to combat opium production in afghanistan, but never mind that for just now.) So the government is telling us "don't buy drugs, because they fund terrorism" while at the same time literally creating a market for foreign drugs by outlawing their production (and use of course) here in the states! And on top of that, it harms the US economy by sending that money out into the world instead of having it spent here and remain in local communities, let alone in the country.
I don't understand how so many people in this country can continually vote to keep drugs illegal except to believe that they did not at all learn the lessons of prohibition of alcohol - the only constitutional amendment ever passed that limits freedoms. And, of course, an amendment which was later revoked.
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What? The 13th amendment limited my freedom to hold slaves. No? Not buying that? Neither do I, but it's the same argument people make when they say the GPL is "less free" than BSD.
Man I can not stay on topic today. heh.
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That's evidence, that this particular law is not bullshit — in the majority's opinion, anyway...
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Before anyone brings it up, driving under the influence is a separate issue from the legalization one and does need to be dealt with.
Re:How much... (Score:5, Funny)
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You don't think that anyone on the far right in [any country] would be willing to suggest genocide as a solution to the Israeli/Palestine problem?
Whatever horrible stereotypes you have about left/right/other, there will be at least one person on the internet who is even worse than you thought possible.
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you're new to the internets, arent you?
Re:How much... (Score:4, Informative)
The blogger has somewhat of a grudge against our current right-wing government and writes about any setback or "scandal" with glee, and tries to manufacture scandal where there isn't one. But it's probably some other moron who posted the comments.
Note that the stage this is in is that a prosecutor is investigating if they're even gonna bother pressing charges. Considering similar cases before, and considering the severity of the comments, absolutely nothing is going to happen, it's just the wet dreams of one blogger. Move along. Nothing to see here.
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American Heritage dictionary disagrees with you (Score:2)
3. Not adequate in quality; inferior: a poor performance.
bad adj. worse (wûrs), worst (wûrst)
1. Not achieving an adequate standard; poor: a bad concert.
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