Swedish ISP About-Turn Over Censorship

[GhostShip]

It seems the threat of blocking and the bad publicity got a Swedish ISP to reverse its "moral" decision to block a site that was breaking no laws.

http://www.slyck.com/story1367.html

On December 12, the ISP Perspektiv Bredband  blocked AllofMP3.com from its Swedish and Danish customers.
Since AllofMP3.com has yet to be ruled illegal in Sweden or Denmark, the actions by both ISPs drew enormous criticism from citizens, journalists and copyright reform organizations such as the Swedish Bureau of Piracy.
Criticism was fueled when Perspektiv Bredband admitted the action was a morally based decision - not a legal one.

"This kind of moral policing is an attack on the essence of what has made internets such a wonderful arena for communication," said the Bureau of Piracy. "Internet can be this vibrant space much thanks to the stupidity of the infrastructure, it delivers data from A to B, no questions asked. Configuration and intelligence is left to the end users. Choosing what is transferred is up to you and me, not your ISP nor the Chinese or your own government."

Its nice to see an apology for something that should never have taken place, any other ISP's contemplating acting as the moral guardian of the webs users is likely to face similar strong action on many fronts as it usurps the rights of their cutomers to a free and full network acess, I hope we do not see this type of stupidity again.

[KM]

well as they announced that they chose which content their customers access, doesn't that make them guilty in every single case of one of their customers downlading child pornography? as they have stated that they actively participate in what the users do, rather than merely being an ISP that simply provides a connection

[GhostShip]

It is a slippery legal slope and I am glad they saw that this could be used against them from many angles, privacy issues as well as liability for actions occuring across their network.