The Great Firewall of Sweden?
It seems that the Swedish police is censoring the Internets as we know it.
Everyone knows that companies and governments use censorship software to block employees from accessing certain websites, but today I was pointed to a site which appears to be blocked by Swedish police on at least three of Sweden’s four largest ISPs: Comhem, Tele2 and Bredbandsbolaget.
The blockage is due to the alleged child-porn contents of the website so I am guessing the site itself is NSFW. The URL suggests that it might be a hentai site, which is in the western world synonymous with manga-style hardcore porn, i.e. pornographic drawings. I have not been able to confirm the true nature of the site, since I am unable to go there due to the blockage.
However, I feel that the motives behind the block are irrelevant. The fact that the site seems to be censored by the Police at the ISP level is very disturbing. The site has not been taken down, it’s simply not accessible from at least two large ISPs in Sweden due to government interference.
I was actually able to browse parts of the site using google’s cache service, but all the images were still blocked.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out that accessing the contents of this particular site is not my goal, nor am I challenging the criminal nature of child pornography. I feel very strongly about putting every last abuser (sexual, or otherwise) of children behind some very thick bars. However, if one type of content is censored at a national level, what’s next? And should one government organisation, really be given that kind of power?
I suppose I might be overreacting, but whenever I browse the internet and see government or police logos where there should be none, I get scared, tired and frustrated. Scars of growing up in the USSR, no doubt. Here’s to a free world.
Am I naïve to assume that internet should be completely free? Am I wrong to think that censoring criminal activity is bad? Argh! My head hurts from all this.
Update: Nisse made a good point: since it’s illegal to view/posess child pornography, one could go to jail if one was to view the site in question… Food for thought.
Another update: Slashdot talks about similar blocks in Finland
Technorati Tags: censorship, censur, great firewall, police, polis, sweden