Internet Censored
Fears new Polish law will mean internet censorship in Poland
Warsaw, Poland 4 February, 2010 - A proposed Register of Prohibited Internet Pages and Services built censorship controversy among bloggers and internet users in Poland.
The register is likely to double up on the prosecutor’s job of hunting internet child pornography and other illegal content.
But it is written in such a way that has bloggers fearing for their freedom of expression.
The register’s critics suggest the confusing legislation will be overused affecting innocent bloggers and internet users.
The bill which suggests the new register does not state which content will get a webpage on the register and “predicts the introduction of a mandatory hindrance in access to pages and services that include illegal content,” Finance Ministry spokesperson Magdalena Kobos said, though it remains unclear what kind of hindrance that should be.
A page which fails to block it’s own content will make the registry, but it’s unknown how a page should get registered since it’s unknown how it should be blocked.
The ministry admits that this “clause… might be ineffective”.
Also, should a blogger be affected, the bill doesn’t predict what he should do next since he might not have legal title to the page, as many blog services don’t require user details at sign-up.
The Ministry suggests self-censorship to users who want to keep off the register, though it worded this basic instruction somewhat differently.
Bloggers also felt cheated on the issue of “public consultation”, not only because they were never consulted, but because they suspect the results of such consultation were made up.
On January 19 the government accepted the bill dated January 4. But on January 29 on the Poland’s Public Information Bulletin webpage a bill, dated 3 days earlier, was published, with different content to the original bill.
Both versions of the bill were included on Marek Jerzy Manikowski’s blog, www.manikowski.pl.
Visitors to his site noticed a sentence, which read “the following bill was the subject of inter-ministerial consultation and was also subject to public consultation,” disappeared in the second bill, but a list of consulted organizations, including the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, was added.
In the comments, internet user “virrus” said “it seems they printed the public consultations post factum”.
The Finance Ministry said the register would hunt down and block sites with content such as child pornography, but this is already the responsibility of Poland’s prosecutor.
“In the battle against and prevention of pathology resulting in a negative effect on society public offices should undertake all legally available means…” to fight illegal behavior, Ms Kobos said.
Ms Kobos said that during work on the bill it was decided that placing a given address on the Register of Prohibited Pages and Services was up to the court to validate.
By Victoria Ziarkowski
Freelance Writer
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