Sunday, May 13, 2007

We Have Ways of Making You Moderate

We just received this email from Vasaramammer about the latest official attack on free speech in Finland:

More jihad against free speech today.

Mika IllmanState prosecutor Mika Illman demanded mandatory moderators for all internet discussion forums (this includes blogs, since blogs are discussion forums in a way).

This news item was not published in English either in hs.fi or Newsroom Finland, which publishes Finnish news in English.

Illman has previously worked with Ombudsman for Minorities Mikko Puumalainen, and Puumalainen quotes Illman’s works in his inquiry request against Mikko Ellilä.

This smells like an orchestrated campaign to control internet discussion and the smell is very bad indeed. Thankfully, the Finnish blogosphere has been very active in opposing this.
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However, the fact is that both Illman and Puumalainen are fighting a losing battle, since the internet has no borders and Finnish authorities have no say in it if the articles are posted in a discussion forum outside Finland. This will only hurt Finnish internet operators.

However, the mainstream media will not speak against this, since they want more readers in their heavily moderated blogs. Currently, the discussion forums of Helsingin Sanomat (hs.fi) are considered a laughingstock because of the heavy-handed censorship there.

2 comments:

kepiblanc said...

The scary thing here is that Finland is by no means alone. The entire EU(SSR) is proposing exactly that. And what happens when the USA gets a'democratic' president? - Maybe then Denmark is truly alone....

Yorkshireminer said...

I think you mention in one of your earlier articles that this Ombudsman had dealt with 500 cases last year. That is if my rough and ready maths are anything to go by approximately one complaint for fifty thousand Finns. Now Finland really does have a problem with racism and Xenophobia. Finland has such a bad problem that his department could be closed and nobody would notice. He is blowing in a teacup to make a storm. I personally think that he is inflating the problem so that he can keep his job. You can bet your bottom dollar that this parasite has a fat paycheck with a hell of a lot of perks. Such as inflation indexed pension etc. etc. etc. etc. I was reading the other day that a British MP not one of the major parasites in Brussels, Could by using his lodging allowance to buy a house in central London and renting it out could make nearly 400,000 pound profit at the present rate of increase in house prices . That by the way that is if he only serves one term, think what here will make if he serves two or more terms. Do you wonder why these bottom feeders abase them selfs for the muslim vote.