Filtering Swedish Parliament

The Swedish Parliament has installed a filter in order to stop access to child pornography (Swedish press release). The filter was not installed in order to stop activities which were occurring but rather to prevent their occurrence. Most probably the decision to install such a filter was done to prevent what could have become a public relations nightmare.

The filter will delete any child pornography images it detects and no logs are created. The decision to create no logs may be strange but with the Swedish freedom of information policy this is probably done again to prevent public relations messes from occurring? Oh correct my cynical soul (if I had such a thing) if I am wrong.

Therefore in order to prevent a problem that has not occurred the highest decision making body in Sweden has placed its free access to information into the hands of who? Most probably a private company. If I was a more paranoid person then I would say this was a bad decision. This means that Swedish members of parliament will be unable to find information freely and independently.

Naturally I am not supporting child pornography – don’t be obtuse. I am, however, against putting free access to information into the hands of a private body. This is self censorship. Done in order to avoid public relations disasters.

Of course the parliamentarians could complain but considering the political atmosphere surrounding this issue anyone complaining would probably be placing themselves in a questionable light. This has the makings of a classic paranoid witch-hunt.

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