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Censorship The Internet

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."
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Web Censorship Proposed For Norway

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  • Right (Score:5, Funny)

    by f_raze13 ( 982309 ) on Monday February 12, 2007 @11:40PM (#17992668)
    If we block any obscene content, our people will become fine, upstanding citizens. And don't tell me to RTFA, because it's in Norwegian.
    • by President_Camacho ( 1063384 ) on Monday February 12, 2007 @11:57PM (#17992852) Homepage
      If we block any obscene content, our people will become fine, upstanding citizens. And don't tell me to RTFA, because it's in Norwegian.

      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.
      • by EvilIdler ( 21087 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @01:59AM (#17993796)
        In short, they want to block everything with hate (hey, my private server would be blocked!),
        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.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
          If you're doing any kind of business over the internet, even just hosting a site, wouldn't it be wise to just spend the extra $3.95 (price from my shared hosting provider) for the dedicated IP address? If you're really worried about some IP getting blocked, then I don't think $4 is really going to take a big bite out of your budget.
      • by TheoMurpse ( 729043 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @03:51AM (#17994406) Homepage

        It's a well known fact that Norwegian blue content is easily blocked.
        Owner: No no he's not censored, he's, he's timed out! Remarkable content, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful bits!
        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)

          by Hittite Creosote ( 535397 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @06:11AM (#17995076)
          On the Monty Python front - the Norwegians (initially) banned the film "Life of Brian". So in Sweden it was advertised as "the movie that is so funny, it was banned in Norway".
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Tore S B ( 711705 )
            On the Monty Python front - the Norwegians (initially) banned the film "Life of Brian".

            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.
    • And don't tell me to RTFA, because it's in Norwegian.
      Like that makes any difference.

      I dag legger Datakrimutvalget fram et forslag som vil pålegge Internett-leverandører å blokkere nettsider med ulovlig innhold.
      I don't know a word of Norwegian, but it sounds like the Datacrime bureau wants to whitewash the Internet and block websites with bad content. Hey, at least I tried...
      • by lokedhs ( 672255 )

        I dag legger Datakrimutvalget fram et forslag som vil pålegge Internett-leverandører å blokkere nettsider med ulovlig innhold.

        I don't know a word of Norwegian, but it sounds like the Datacrime bureau wants to whitewash the Internet and block websites with bad content. Hey, at least I tried...

        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.

      • by Divebus ( 860563 )

        I dag legger Datakrimutvalget fram et forslag som vil pålegge Internett-leverandører å blokkere nettsider med ulovlig innhold.

        Shouldn't that say "Bork Bork Bork" at the end or is that only Swedish?

        Damn - I just got Slashdot blocked in Sweden.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        I dag legger Datakrimutvalget fram et forslag som vil pålegge Internett-leverandører å blokkere nettsider med ulovlig innhold.
        Today the data crime "utvalg" laid forth a proposal which will require ISPs to block webpages with unlawful contents.
    • Re:Right (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @01:11AM (#17993434)
      If we block any obscene content, our people will become fine, upstanding citizens.

      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.

    • If we block any obscene content, our people will become fine, upstanding citizens.
      I'm sure this is the view of some citizens of Norway. The Norwegian legislators who introduced this bill would be doing their constituents and a representative form of government a disservice if they did not introduce such a bill. They might have their fingers crossed hoping it would pass, but since these people elected them, they have a duty to do. And they did it.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by rune420 ( 1037380 )
      You wouldn't need to, you pretty much nailed it.
      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]
  • In the day of shared hosting and virtual hosts on the same IP address, this appears to have the potential for huge collateral damage.

    On the other hand, it might be a good time to create an ad-paid-for http proxy in Norwegian.
    • In the day of shared hosting and virtual hosts on the same IP address, this appears to have the potential for huge collateral damage.

      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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by quanticle ( 843097 )

      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.

    • Yes, this is mentioned in TFA. On the whole, the article is extremely critical to the suggestion.

      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.
      • by lendude ( 620139 )
        Hey - put me down for a kidney just in case: I've got a buyer!
  • by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig@hogger.gmail@com> on Monday February 12, 2007 @11:40PM (#17992672) Journal
    This will work as well as the chinese one...
  • No, relli! (Score:5, Funny)

    by j_presper_eckert ( 617907 ) on Monday February 12, 2007 @11:40PM (#17992676)
    So people won't be able to read my blog about how a moose bit my sister once?
    • So people won't be able to read my blog about how a moose bit my sister once?

      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...
    • by Dahamma ( 304068 )
      It depends, is your name Moose?
    • Yes they will, because if a moose bit your sister, you're Swedish, not Norwegian!
  • Come on, Slashdotters, curb your impulses! This law must be enacted! Won't anyone think of the fjords?
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by flyingfsck ( 986395 )
      Uhh, what has President Fjord got to do with Norway?
    • by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Monday February 12, 2007 @11:54PM (#17992834)
      I agree. The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big kringle. It's a series of fjords.
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Divebus ( 860563 )

        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)

    by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Monday February 12, 2007 @11:42PM (#17992706)
    that the supply of idiots eager to babysit me and legislate morality isn't only confined to the US and China.
  • Can someone here please define 'Hate' as it is meant to be applied to determine which websites to ban?
  • by Jarn_Firebrand ( 845277 ) <`eurus103' `at' `gmail.com'> on Monday February 12, 2007 @11:46PM (#17992746)
    but it's in NORWEGIAN!
  • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday February 12, 2007 @11:49PM (#17992784) Journal
    Norway censor porn? You're kidding, right?
    • by Graabein ( 96715 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @01:04AM (#17993394) Journal

      Norway censor porn? You're kidding, right?

      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.

    • Well, the censorship was sort of removed recently. We can now stream all the cocks and pussies we want.
      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!"
    • by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @03:30AM (#17994288) Homepage
      Actually, up to a ruling by the Supreme Court (ours, not yours ;) in december 2005, hardcore pornography was forbidden. Somehow, Norway never experienced the same liberalization as Sweden and Denmark, however, we do have a much more relaxed relationship to nudity than the US. For example in "Brødrene Dal og Karl XIIs gamasjer" which is a childrens/young teen series you get to see a female streaker in full frontal nudity - now show me that on US public television. Many were those who had satellite connections and set the texting to Swedish, goodbye censorship. Nevermind Internet when that got around.

      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.
  • by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Monday February 12, 2007 @11:50PM (#17992804)
    Here starts the slipperly slope of freedom of speech to criticize the government.
  • Oh Look! (Score:2, Insightful)

    Another government passing an idiotic and unenforcable law! I can't wait for another pack of politicians ready to make utter and complete asses of themselves.
    • Re:Oh Look! (Score:4, Informative)

      by malsdavis ( 542216 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @01:12AM (#17993440)
      "Another government passing an idiotic and unenforcable law!"

      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).
      • the article or at lest when I tried to access it was writen in a language that most here cannot read.

        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).
    • by Kjella ( 173770 )
      If by "passing" you mean "a minority in a sub-committee forcing the issue through to parliament". There are, like in the US some rather naive "everything the police do is good and cops should see everything" people particularly in the police/justice area, which see criminals slip by their fingers but don't see the price we'd pay. A prime example would be our DVD-Jon prosecutor - she managed to ban anonymous cell phones, wanted to ban anonymous email, read an EU directive so that ISPs should store web/email/
  • Hmmm...If I could read the cited article I might be able to better respond. Here in the US we have lots of uptight folks who PROPOSE legislation. That doesn't mean it will get enacted. On the face of it, this seems to be a big nothing unless the government is signing on. I can't imagine that Norwegian big business would allow this to pass considering the ramifications. With big business controlling the government this would obviously never happen. Comparing Norway to China? How about apples and orang
  • 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:

    • Niggardly - Thought I'd start out with Norway roots. Guess why this word is banned from most offices. Look it up. Only the the uneducated would become offended
    • Clinton was a dope smoking, womanizing, draft dodging President
    • Florida voters are senile and shouldn't be allowed to touch a ballot
    • English should be the official language of the U.S.
    • A whole bunch of words:
      • Nigger
      • Beaner
      • Boy
      • Kraut
      • Heimy
      • Mic
      • Dago
      • WOP
    • Global warming is caused by nature
    • I'd love to watch lesbians have sex, as long as one of them was NOT Hillary
    • Maybe DeGaulle was right
    • Patton was right (slap)
    • So was Truman
    • Israel has a right to exist
    • A culture that condones and/or embraces suicide bombers has no right to exist

    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?

    • Eh? It just looks like a laundry list of things often said by assholes.
    • by Tore S B ( 711705 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @12:31AM (#17993128) Homepage
      This post will be censored in Norway

      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 ...doesn't. How's that PATRIOT act working out for y'all?
    • According to your post 98% of the Republicans would have been kicked out of office by now.
    • Israel has a right to exist

      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
  • by troutinator ( 943529 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @12:01AM (#17992886)
    It was only a matter of time before a Western nation tried this. It is interesting that the press are not censored but instead adhere to self-imposed commandments of caution ("Vær Varsom-plakaten"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway#Politics [wikipedia.org] So now they wouldn't be blocking their own people from saying things but preventing any outside thoughts that were found disagreeable to find their way in. Or will this also go to cover the "hate towards the government" expressed by Norwegians themselves? And just how will such things like "hate towards the government" be determined? Will any discussion of a dislike of the governments actions be blocked, or will it be limited to blatant hate that threatens bombs and assignations? Lets just hope the US never tries that, or have they already?
  • by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @12:10AM (#17992952) Journal
    First, there is another government that thinks they can regulate the Internet. We know that is stupid, but more importantly, they believe they can regulate the dissemination of hate speech. We might as well ban megaphones now. Worse than regulating the Internet, this is an attempt (seemingly) to regulate thought and speech. Can we all agree on how that will work out. Next thing you know Reporters Without Borders will be reporting on this story.

    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.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tore S B ( 711705 )
      GAH!, why was this modded Insightful....

      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.
  • I was planning to visit Norway again and maybe move to Norway one day, and maybe become a troll after my imperial days are over... But now... Darn... :(
  • First thing banned - all links to apple.com. Voila, the iTunes Store is now officially closed in Norway! That will take care of all the pesky people complaining about iTunes Store bought stuff...
  • THE INTERNET- so funny they banned it in Norway.
  • 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

  • Uh, isn't this from the same country which ruled Apple's DRM scheme as illegal? [macnn.com] What happened to "information wants to be free?"

    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)

    by talornin ( 745646 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @02:17AM (#17993908)
    Ok! I am Norwegian and I just want it t be known that a _minority_ within this commiitee, which is composed of old and wery conservative people, is proposing this bill and just to inform you, there is no chanse in hell that this will ever make it past the Storting (Congress).


    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.

  • Yeah, push them further underground rather then trying to foil their next plot. Can't believe people this stupid get into politics (although it does seem to attract quite a select closed mind from what I've seen of my school fellows).
  • and lead to the fast adoption of IPv6.
    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 towards the government"

    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.
  • Nettsider som tilbyr porno som virker støtende.
    = "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.

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