Slashdot Mirror
It's Hard To Run a Blog In Sweden
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."
... do you want to bet that the leftist blogger is the one who posted the "comment"?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Pay attention everyone; expecially those of you who support hate crime and speech laws. This is what happens when you regulate certain "unacceptable" kinds of speech with the intent of "correcting" unpopular beliefs.
"Thoughtcrime" won't be relegated to fiction for long.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
but trolling one couldn't be easier
...the opposition censors the government!!
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I don't get what the problem is? Genocide of the Palestinians would be a valid answer.
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.
To the Star Chamber!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Would the owner of an apartment building be liable if someone posted a similar message on a bulletin board along side all of the for sale ads from other tenants?
-Xoltri
I don't know anything about Swedish law (except that Pirate Bay seems to get away with anything they want), but if the blog host is making reasonable good faith efforts to remove inappropriate comments and missed one, it seems morally reprehensible to hold him responsible.
A Møøse once blogged my sister.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
No, it's still the same, but they've introduced these new things called "countries that aren't the US and have different laws". Some other things you may come across in these "non-US countries" include people who speak funny, people who have never heard of Oprah and people with national health coverage...
they need to chill out, hop around a pole like frogs and knock back a bunch of liquor - have a few brawls and then everybody can love each other again.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
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).
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 comments.
Why is the guy being prosecuted? Should it not be the 'publisher' which would be wordpress.com? Wordpress is just as much responsible for Bildt's blog as Bildt is responsible for a comment to the blog... ergo... "Psychic spies from China crying to pass deregulation... Little girls from Sweden dream of free speech legislation... If you want these kind of dreams, just come to Colbert Nation..."' Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
On the other side, the pirate bay in Sweden is still legal... do one need to understand that kind of logic?
"poor Swedish legislation"
That would be bad Swedish legislation. "Poor" isn't a simply a grammatically superior version of "bad".
-Peter
So apparently Sweden has the same problems with blogs and web-boards as Germany. Over here the
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/
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.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Oh yeah, i feel suicidal.
Well i guess ALT+F4 will do this time.
poor adj. poor.er, poor.est
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.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
...that he doesn't live in a free country.
Of course, neither do we - since 9/11 - so I guess I shouldn't throw stones.
Somehow neither link seems to back up the claims in the article.
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?).
How can you tell the difference between an unacceptable post that was missed by a less-than-perfect process for removing it, from one that was left by an admin who wants to post it, so "missed it" on purpose?
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
--
make install -not war
Is this really the same Sweden that hosts Pirate Bay? Something seems really wrong with this picture: PB can thumbs its nose/flip the bird/gesture of your choice at copyright, and pretty much get away with it, because of Swedish law. And they're looking at prosecuting someone because of a comment posted on his blog site by someone else? Whether you think PB is doing anything wrong or not, there's something rotten in s/Denmark/Sweden/ if the law there says PB is OK but a blogger is criminally liable for anything unsavory posted on his blog by a third party.
Article in swedish.
I read the links from the Slashdot story, including an autotranslation of the Swedish report, but I saw nothing describing the person who reported the ugly post. Nothing to indicate they're a "leftist" (whatever that means). Who says it was a "leftist", other than mpawlo, who submitted the story to Slashdot?
--
make install -not war
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 should be balanced with common law principles of reasonableness and fairness. The sole purpose of such principles is to prevent useful laws from being abused, which is wont to happen when unreasonable and abusive use of the law is tolerated.
True free speech is actually much rarer in countries that tolerate the abuse of laws, because you can usually be prosecuted for something. Litigation-happy cultures do exist, sad to say, and they suffer horribly for it. America may nominally require freedom of speech, under the first amendment, but what's the reality? One potential case in Sweeden that may never go anywhere versus how many actual convictions for "unlawful" speech in the US this year?
Before we slam Sweden too much for one minor incident and call it "thoughtcrime", I'd point out that it's hard to compare this with, just for example, the crimes the CIA are now admitting to carrying out on those who thought wrong. I'd also point out that the Scandanavian countries - for all their laws on speech - are most unlikely to carry out such abuses. Freedom of speech is entirely right and proper, but it seems very clear that protecting freedom of speech is more complicated than simply saying that it's a nice idea.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's all because of foolish requirements in the fifth and sixth section of the "Lag om ansvar för elektroniska anslagstavlor " , approximately translated, The Electronic bulletin board responsibility act.
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.
Some background information:
The comment on the foreign minister's blog was posted several months ago, and he had been notified through several sources and even been interviewed about it in radio. Then he said that he the comments were indexed by the search engines anyway, so it shouldn't matter if they were removed. According to Swedish law, a person that has a web site where other people can post comments is responsible for removing posts that contain illegal content - for example hate crime. (It could also have been child porn or some other illegal content.) Since the foreign minister was aware of the content (although he denies that now), he is to be examined (not yet brought to court) for this potential crime.
The accusations against the foreign minister is not very strange from this perspective. One may argue that hate crime should not be illegal - but considering that it is - it is up to the owner of a blog to remove comments that are inappropiate. In Sweden, there is also laws that forbids people to lie about people to miscredit them for example.
Mikael Pawlo (the poster) is a well known Swedish lawyer that I normally have a great deal of respect for, but in this case his posting is missing some vital information about the case.
I know, this would never happen in the Empire! Oh, but it will.
- blogs/
As usual it will be happening under the guise of protecting our children. IT'S FOR THE KIDS! Senator John "Globalist Shill" McCain introduced a bill in 2006 called "Stop the Online Exploitation of our Children Act of 2006". That bill allows for what is happening in Sweden, only ours is all juiced up on roids.
It would, from the thinkprogress article linked below,
-"Commercial websites and personal blogs "would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000."
and my favorite,
-"Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain's legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face "even stiffer penalties" than ISPs."
Of course it is all in the definitions. How do YOU define obscene or offensive? Maybe as "something that is lascivious" and appealing to prurient interests. Maybe something that is abnormal, unhealthy, degrading or shameful? They have all been used to define illegal obscenity. Pick your word, the more broad, vague and all-encompassing the better. Of course these word games have been played time and time again to do nothing more than rip away the first amendment from the citizens.
The excuse of protecting the children to relieve the citizen of his/her rights is one of the oldest in the politicians bag of liberty stealing, tyranny inducing tricks.
Don't ever say it can't happen here.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/13/mccain-war-on
I've followed the development of this story for a while now. The blogger is Jinge of http://www.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 homosexuls, and probably others that I can't remember right now.
I haven't read this article, just the OP's summary.
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?
I've followed the development of this story for a while now.
The blogger is Jinge of http://www.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.
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 this less clear.
When it comes to linking my original links was to the Swedish media reports on this case, which would clarify things further. It appears from Swedish media reports that Mr Bildt and his staff are constantly monitoring this blog for hateful comments, but that they missed this specific comment, even though a blogger claims to have pointed out this comment to Mr Bildt and his staff on several occassions. Personally, I do not know the circumstances well enough to tell what is facts and what is not in that respect, but it might affect whether Mr Bildt will be prosecuted or not. Perhaps some Swedish lawyer versed in the field could give a short brief of the current legal situation in this field.
Pawlo.com
So apparently Sweden has the same problems with blogs and web-boards as Germany. Over here the 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.
Here is a [loose] English translation of the article
Apparently our cleansing efforts of uncomfortable comments on this blog missed a few submissions from, in particular, one person - And via the media I have now been informed that this has caused a prosecutor to start a preliminary examination to see if a crime has been committed.
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.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Sweden actually has the oldest legislation there is regarding freedom of speech. The problem is that it is too old.
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
Your argumentation is a bit on the vague side here. Let me try and help You out with a quote from Mark Twains great American novel "Tom Sawyer abroad", where Tom explains the self evident truths of this world to his somewhat perplexed companion, Huckleberry Finn:
I thought he must be losing his mind. But no, he was in real earnest, and went right on, perfectly ca'm.
"A crusade is a war to recover the Holy Land from the paynim."
"Which Holy Land?"
"Why, the Holy Land -- there ain't but one."
"What do we want of it?"
"Why, can't you understand? It's in the hands of the paynim, and it's our duty to take it away from them."
"How did we come to let them git hold of it?"
"We didn't come to let them git hold of it. They always had it."
"Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, don't it?"
"Why of course it does. Who said it didn't?"
I studied over it, but couldn't seem to git at the right of it, no way. I says:
"It's too many for me, Tom Sawyer. If I had a farm and it was mine, and another person wanted it, would it be right for him to --"
"Oh, shucks! you don't know enough to come in when it rains, Huck Finn. It ain't a farm, it's entirely different. You see, it's like this. They own the land, just the mere land, and that's all they DO own; but it was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they haven't any business to be there defiling it. It's a shame, and we ought not to stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it away from them."
"Why, it does seem to me it's the most mixed-up thing I ever see! Now, if I had a farm and another person --"
Should it for some odd reason(?) happen so that one of you guys still do not get it, the argument is further developed here: http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/
send + more == money?
I think he said it best, "Bloggin ain't easy".
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
"A liberal grading system is one designed to give individuals good grades"
No.
A liberal grading system is one designed to give the grader less work.
oh wait, Arabs are semites to, never mind!
fuck karma, I like saying the truth better
"Maybe this poor blog should just relocate their server to the United States to avoid the Swedish laws then."
Actually, it is already located in the US (on the Wordpress servers), so it can't really be relocated there. The funny thing is that if I remember correctly, Flashback, a Swedish-language forum open to just about any discussion, has had these kind of problems earlier, and I believe it was tried against the same law. It was freed, as it is located in the UK...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
Apparently state radio was boring and RTLM had good music. Then, they used the radio station as a vehicle to "... broadcast messages designed to achieve interethnic hatred and encourage the population to kill, commits acts of violence and persecutions against Tutsi population and others on political grounds."
In fact the UN tribunal sentenced them to a life sentence for this: RNW article about RTLM (case is under appeal at the moment: "trauma and drug use explained the extremist conduct of the RTLM journalists" yeah right :-/).
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?