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Web Censorship Proposed For Norway
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."
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.
This will work as well as the chinese one...
So people won't be able to read my blog about how a moose bit my sister once?
Can't stop the Beta? Time to evacuate to ##altslashdot at webchat.freenode.net - Slashcott in effect.
that the supply of idiots eager to babysit me and legislate morality isn't only confined to the US and China.
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.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Norway censor porn? You're kidding, right?
Table-ized A.I.
I agree. The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big kringle. It's a series of fjords.
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.
Wizard Needs Food, Badly
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 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?
There's a thoughtful comment based on a complete view of the facts of the situation if I've ever seen one.
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.
toresbe
No, it's just been passed through the prototype Norwegian Internet Filter.
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!
This post will be censored in Norway
...doesn't. How's that PATRIOT act working out for y'all?
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
toresbe
Øh my Gød! Yøu're absølutely right! Nøøøøøøøøøø!!!
toresbe
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.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
is that if you watch a man fall, you will not stop to help him up. that if a man is dying of sepsis, you will not buy him 79 cents in antibiotics, that if a man is smart but can't afford an education, then you will deny him a future. etc
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The Liberal Party of Norway is currently a small-sized party in opposition, together with the conservatives (check out what sort of ladies can be in politics in Norway: how many milliseconds would she last anywhere else?) and Christian democrats. The thing most closely resembling the Republicans is the Progress party, 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, the Socialist Left party (more or less like Labour, only more environment-focused and anti-NATO, and generally more left-leaning) and the Centre party (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 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.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
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".