Censorship in Finland
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Censorship in Finland refers to government policies in controlling and regulating certain information.
History
In 1686, the office of Censor of Books, which was to monitor literature imported and published in Finland, was established. Publishers had to get approval for their books.
In the 19th century, the censors attacked the press. Several newspapers were stopped soon after they came out.
In 1829, a law was made about censorship, which heavily increased the censorship. The law was in place until 1865. A committee was made to take care of it. Its president was the deputy chancellor of the university.
Locations
During World War I, Russian censorship was carried out in the following cities: Helsinki, Tornio, Kuopio, Vaasa, Pori, Tampere, Turku, Rauma, Oulu and Viipuri.
At the end of 19th century during the attempt of Russification in Finland, several Finnish newspapers were taken out of print.
During the Second World War, a government agency was founded to administer censorship. [1]
After the Second World War
In the immediate aftermath of the
During the period of
Modern day
Film
Film censorship carried out by the government agency Finnish Board of Film Classification was abolished in 2001. However, the agency still rates all movies sold in Finland.[2]
Internet
In 2006, a new copyright law known as Lex Karpela set some restrictions on publishing information regarding copy protection schemes.
Also in 2006, the government started Internet censorship by delivering Finnish ISPs a secret blocking list maintained by Finnish police. Implementation of the block was voluntary, but some ISPs implemented it[citation needed]. The list was supposed to contain only sites with child pornography, but ended up also blocking, among others, the site lapsiporno.info that criticized the move towards censorship and listed sites that were noticed to have been blocked.
Following a “voluntary law” [3] enacted by Finnish parliament on 1 January 2007, most of the Finland’s major Internet service providers decided on 22 November 2006 to begin filtering child pornography, and ISPs first started filtering in January 2008. The Ministry of Communications has commented that filtering is voluntary for ISPs as long as they do not refuse. The blacklist is provided by Finnish police and should contain only foreign sites. Technically filtering was planned to be URI based, like the United Kingdom’s Cleanfeed, but so far implementations have been DNS based.
A majority of these censored Internet sites, however, do not actually seem to be censored by the Finnish ISPs due to actual child pornography, but due to “normal” adult pornography instead. Most of the known sites are also located in EU or United States where child pornography is strictly illegal anyway. Two-thirds of the Finnish Internet censorship list of the filtered domains were collected on
At September 2008, problems with accuracy continued, when the website of the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web
In 2008, a government-sponsored report considered establishing similar filtering in order to curb online gambling.[6]
After investigation of complaints about how the law on filtering child pornography has been implemented and the actions of the police, the vice
The Pirate Bay
In 2012, internet service providers
Press
The Finnish press currently enjoys extensive freedom.
See also
- Media of Finland
References
- ^ Ekholm K. Political censorship in Finnish libraries from 1944-1946. Libraries & Culture. 2001;36(1):51-57.
- ^ "Legislation". vet.fi. Finnish Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2010-10-11.
- ^ "Laki lapsipornografian levittämisen estotoimista 1.12.2006/1068" Archived 2011-05-01 at the Wayback Machine, FINLEX
- ^ "The Finnish Internet Censorship List". Archived from the original on 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2011-04-28.
- ^ Tietokone, 27 September 2008, W3C:n sivut joutuivat Suomen sensuurilistalle Archived November 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine (translation in slashdot) Archived 2008-12-01 at the Wayback Machine
- ISSN 1797-1993. Archived from the originalon 18 November 2008. Retrieved 18 January 2008.
- ^ "Statement of the Parliamentary Ombudsman (pdf, Finnish)" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2011-04-28.
- ^ "Elisan verkossa otetaan käyttöön käräjäoikeuden määräämät väliaikaiset Pirate Bay estot". Elisa. 11 January 2012. Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
- ^ "Sonerakin alkoi estää Pirate Bayta". ITViikko. 30 July 2012. Archived from the original on 31 July 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
- ^ "Ei kahta ilman kolmatta: DNA esti Pirate Bayn". ITViikko. 31 July 2012. Archived from the original on 6 August 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
- ^ "5th year in a row - Finland tops press freedom index". Yle. 12 February 2015. Archived from the original on 23 April 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
- ^ "Norway, Sweden surpass Finland in 2017 press freedom rankings". Yle. 26 April 2017. Archived from the original on 29 April 2017. Retrieved 29 April 2017.