Partners in Denmark and Finland are Save the Children, and in Iceland, Heimili
& Skoli. Financing originates from the EU Safer Internet Plus Program fund. 34 The
Swedish nongovernmental child protection organization ECPAT does a similar job. In
Norway, there is no official nongovernmental involvement.
Finland has a law to stop distribution of child pornography. 35 According to Section
1, the law was created to protect children and to block access to child pornography
sites that are hosted outside of Finland. Finland also has laws against mocking God or
religion (Criminal Act, Ch. 17, Sec. 10), but so far no content of this nature has been
filtered.
The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) compiles a secret list of Web sites
containing child pornography and distributes it to ISPs for filtering. 36 In February
2008, the Electronic Frontier Finland (EFF) published an analysis of ‘‘Finnish Internet
censorship.’’ 37 According to the report, the NBI filtering list contained about 1,700
Web sites in 2008. The EFF stated that a number of nonpornographic Web sites were
found on the list.
In early 2009, the Web site Wikileaks, 38 which collects evidence of corporate and
government misconduct, published a list of 797 Web sites censored by Finland. These
were originally harvested and published by a well-known Finnish ‘‘white hat’’ hacker
and activist Matti Nikki. 39 The list included his own Web site lapsiporno.info, where
he criticizes secret censorship. Matti Nikki argued that there were several legal Web
sites on the blocked list. On February 17, 2008, he stated that ‘‘nearly none of the sites
on the child porn list seem to contain child porn.’’ 40 On March 23, 2009, all charges in
a criminal investigation against him were dropped.
The blacklist operated by the Danish child pornography filtering system (3,863
blocked URLs) was leaked 41 on December 23, 2008, and made available online. Its publication was a protest 42 against secret censorship systems 43 and was supported by an
activist group, IT-Politisk Forening. All Danish ISPs filter content based on the list.
The head of the Telecommunication Industries Association of Denmark 44 says the
list is of Web sites the authorities deem illegal, and that it should be expected to
contain not only child pornography, but also racist, offensive, and libelous material.
The Danish police IT investigation unit NITEC insists their list consists of illegal pornography sites only. 45 The Danish ISP industry staunchly refuses to filter questionable
content (like gambling sites) unless they are contrary to statutory law or unless
required to do so by court order. Attempts by politicians have been made in Denmark
and other Nordic countries to protect government gambling monopolies from popular
online poker.
All Norwegian ISPs operate a voluntary Child Sexual Abuse Anti-Distribution Filter
(CSAADF). The filter is a blacklist of DNS addresses maintained and distributed by
Kripos, the Norwegian police agency that deals with organized, financial, and other
serious crimes. Each ISP implements this blacklist in its DNS servers by redirecting
Nordic Countries
329
& Skoli. Financing originates from the EU Safer Internet Plus Program fund. 34 The
Swedish nongovernmental child protection organization ECPAT does a similar job. In
Norway, there is no official nongovernmental involvement.
Finland has a law to stop distribution of child pornography. 35 According to Section
1, the law was created to protect children and to block access to child pornography
sites that are hosted outside of Finland. Finland also has laws against mocking God or
religion (Criminal Act, Ch. 17, Sec. 10), but so far no content of this nature has been
filtered.
The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) compiles a secret list of Web sites
containing child pornography and distributes it to ISPs for filtering. 36 In February
2008, the Electronic Frontier Finland (EFF) published an analysis of ‘‘Finnish Internet
censorship.’’ 37 According to the report, the NBI filtering list contained about 1,700
Web sites in 2008. The EFF stated that a number of nonpornographic Web sites were
found on the list.
In early 2009, the Web site Wikileaks, 38 which collects evidence of corporate and
government misconduct, published a list of 797 Web sites censored by Finland. These
were originally harvested and published by a well-known Finnish ‘‘white hat’’ hacker
and activist Matti Nikki. 39 The list included his own Web site lapsiporno.info, where
he criticizes secret censorship. Matti Nikki argued that there were several legal Web
sites on the blocked list. On February 17, 2008, he stated that ‘‘nearly none of the sites
on the child porn list seem to contain child porn.’’ 40 On March 23, 2009, all charges in
a criminal investigation against him were dropped.
The blacklist operated by the Danish child pornography filtering system (3,863
blocked URLs) was leaked 41 on December 23, 2008, and made available online. Its publication was a protest 42 against secret censorship systems 43 and was supported by an
activist group, IT-Politisk Forening. All Danish ISPs filter content based on the list.
The head of the Telecommunication Industries Association of Denmark 44 says the
list is of Web sites the authorities deem illegal, and that it should be expected to
contain not only child pornography, but also racist, offensive, and libelous material.
The Danish police IT investigation unit NITEC insists their list consists of illegal pornography sites only. 45 The Danish ISP industry staunchly refuses to filter questionable
content (like gambling sites) unless they are contrary to statutory law or unless
required to do so by court order. Attempts by politicians have been made in Denmark
and other Nordic countries to protect government gambling monopolies from popular
online poker.
All Norwegian ISPs operate a voluntary Child Sexual Abuse Anti-Distribution Filter
(CSAADF). The filter is a blacklist of DNS addresses maintained and distributed by
Kripos, the Norwegian police agency that deals with organized, financial, and other
serious crimes. Each ISP implements this blacklist in its DNS servers by redirecting
Nordic Countries
329