But this is evil, evil speech!

As I have said earlier, the biggest threat to the freedom of speech is, of course, us. Some, however, are more so than others.

I wanted to write something about the current scandal with child porn Internet censorship, but I couldn't find a single printable word, so you better read a summary by Kai Puolamäki.

The Powers That Be have been just lovely lately. First, the state prosecutor Mika Illman (of the "criticism of foreigners is OK as long as it's not pronounced out loud" fame) wants to moderate forums, blogs, chats and IRC after the fact, like radio or TV, revealing not only a total lack of understanding of the technologies involved, but, a lot more disturbingly, a total lack of understanding of the difference between the public and the private conversation.

Man, we obviously can't even afford a moderator for the state prosecutor's office. How do you expect every IRC channel to have one?

The the Minister of the Interior Anne Holmlund informs us that chat forums are like all other places of entertainment, and therefore need to have somebody who'd keep the order, like in all other places of entertainment. Don't know where Ms. Holmlund hangs out for fun IRL, but if that place has people who keep order by telling everybody present what they are allowed or not allowed to talk about, I am sure glad I don't hang out there.

And now the Minister of Communications, Suvi Linden, is saying that talking about spreading child pornography as a test for freedom of speech is unacceptable. By this she is referring to the webpage of Matti Nikki, which is about the Internet censorship and has the list of sites banned by police's secret lists.

One thing I am curious about: if somebody puts up a site that lists all the stupid things the politicians have said lately, how long will it take for it to go on the secret child pornography list?