Sweden and Freedom of Speech

Mikael Pawlo writes "The Swedish website Flashback is getting back online. The controversial web site is now hosted by the Swede Zenon Panoussis, currently living in the Netherlands." I'm pretty sure we've posted a story about this before, but I can't find it in the archives. It's a tale about how to suppress speech you don't like without going through regular channels - see below for more.

"The website has an interesting story. Flashback is a web site, a newsletter, a magazine and an virtual ISP. It's editor in chief and CEO is Jan Axelsson, a Swede well-known for his strong believes in freedom of speech. All business is conducted in the spirit of "freedom of speech - use it or loose it". Everyone is welcome to publish their opinions or host their websites with Flashback, as long as they do not break the laws of Sweden, such as threats, defamation and so forth.

"Nevertheless, a Swedish politician, Bjorn Fries, has been trying to shut Flashback down for a long period of time. Fries is a famous nazi-fighter in Sweden and has received several awards for his work. Fries argues that he's beeing threatened by one of the web sites hosted by Flashback. However, he did not try to shut the site down in court. Instead the municipal lawyer of Karlskrona (where Fries is chairman of the municipal executive board) wrote all the mayor Swedish cable and Internet providers, urging them not to sell Internet access to Flashback. This also happened.

"All the larger companies denied Flashback access and they denied smaller ISPs backbone access if they would take Axelsson as a customer. Thus Flashback was put offline. Axelsson has sued the major companies for breach of the EC competition law, but such law suits take long time in Sweden and it's a tough case to win.

"This has raised interesting questions whether major ISPs should be able to choose their customers and the customers of their ISP customers. Please note that no legal suit has predestined the shutdown of Flashback.

The current location of Flashback.

Index of articles about the incident - most of them in Swedish."

Comments

Wow, interesting question...

[Masem]

As stated in the summary, there's no legal precident, no direct government shutdown, or anything - just that the gov't person wrote enough ISPs to basically blacklist the site. Is this censorship? Not directly... I don't know what freedom of speech they have in Swed but I'd assume that it's about as open as the US. This could be thought of in so many ways:

Privately owned companies have a right to refuse business with you; you can't buy a car in the states if your credit rating is terrible, for example. Of course, the reasons must be anti-discrimatory -- I can't say "Only men may by things from me", lest I get equal rights protectors on me. What's weird here is that every business that serves the ISP need for this site refuses his business with no other viable alternative except for going out of the country...an interesting twist on indirect censorship...

Which raises another question - the fact that the gov't person wrote things to these ISPs to deny the site service consistute as libel? Certainly the site appears to be doing nothing wrong against the law in Sw, but one person in a power position doesn't like what they say and takes action to prevent it? Certainly there's some significant damage here particulary if they are a small ISP and thus a for-profit business.

Finally, one has to wonder to what extent freedom of speech is covered. Assuming a similar freedom of speech right as in the states that would be in Sw, is having unrestricted access to a medium part of that freedom, given necessary concerns on finacal and technological ability? (I don't think we can go and say that net access is a universal right, as that would mean we'd have to completely wire every house in the US with net access, and that would be expensive!!). If I have the ability and the money to use a public medium to deliever a message which is covered by freedom of speech, would an effective blockage of that medium (even though other, less effective mediums are available) a violation of freedom of speech? I figure that in the US, the answer to this would be no, given the currect thought in the US gov't, but this is a nation-by-nation decision.

Re:Wow, interesting question...

[Masem]

Well, it's a freedom of speech question -- it's where you have to draw the line between a true threat and a possible one. It's very similar to the case of the pro-life group with the web site that resembled a hitlist of doctors that performed abortions, with 'X's through those that were killed or shot at by assailents. Is it free speech or is it a threat? It's a tough call.

However, what SHOULD have been done, given the additional information, is the gov't person talking to Flashback *first*, asking them to remove the pages of the threat; Flashback could have looked, determined if it was such, and taken appropriate action; if they decided it wasn't, they could have easily written a letter back to this person saying so, and any further action by this person would then easily be seen as threatening legal action.

Instead, the gov't offical bypassed Flashback completely, and took more drastic measures, suggesting that there was an alterior motive for this; maybe he didn't like MOST of the material at Flashback which does sound like an peaceful anti-government-like site. Which any politican should of course be wary about, but trying to shut down completely is very much an abuse of power.

government action

[www.sorehands.com]

I had been reading some briefs on injunctions and lawsuits. From those readings it seems as though civil lawsuit is considered a government action.

Even a government agency contacting a business could be considered a government action. What if the secret service calls your boss and asks to make an appointment to inspect your computer as part of an investigation? Do you think that you'd still have a job? It's a mighty big hamer that the government yeilds; it must be handled with care.

Re:Zenon vs. COS

[Anonumous Coward]

The CoS won the case so far. The sequel is coming up soon at a theatre near you, namely at the Stockholm court of appeals on January 18-26 (in Dolby Surround[TM] if available). Exciting developments might be in store.

Legal stuff aside, the CoS lost in all practical purposes and intents. Their "secret scriptures" are all over the place by now, and the ghost can never be put back into the bottle. The CoS suffered a tremendous PR disaster through that lawsuit and has not sued a critic ever since. I think that the words "lost" and "won" somehow lose their meaning in this issue.

Zenon Panoussis