Follow-up questions to the EU Parliament President on #mepblock

Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament

This Monday, I received a reply from the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, where he confirmed that a decision to block certain emails from citizens to members of the parliament was taken on March 7, and said that this decision was ”justified”.

Since I strongly disagree with the President’s position on this, I have now sent the following letter asking for some clarifications:

Dear President Schulz,

Thank you for your letter dated March 28, and delivered on April 8, where you defend blocking emails sent by citizens to Members of the European Parliament, and say that the intervention by the technical services was ”justified”.

I would be very grateful if you could clarify the following points in relation to this policy:

1. Who has the authority to decide which emails from citizens get blocked, and how is such authority derived from a mandate by the Parliament?
2. What instructions from the President or otherwise exists for the filtering of email communication?
3. Do you think it is acceptable that communication from citizens is blocked without the Members even being notified of the fact that a filter has been installed?

Best regards,

Christian Engström MEP

President of the European Parliament defends treating emails from citizens as spam

The European Parliament’s President Martin Schulz defends treating emails from citizens as spam

On March 7, 2013, a large number of citizens tried to email members of the European Parliament to express their views on the ”Report on eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU”. The report had attracted public attention on the internet and in media, since it called for ”a ban on all forms of pornography in the media”.

One of the bloggers who wrote about this was the Pirate Party’s founder Rick Falkvinge, who asked citizens to email members of the European Parliament to let their views be heard, and set up a simple internet service to make it easy to find the addresses to the 754 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament).

Around noon on March 7, approximately 350 emails from concerned citizens had arrived, but then they suddenly stopped appearing.

This turned out to be because the parliament’s IT support department had taken the decision to block these emails by classifying them as spam, after some MEPs had requested this.

I was very upset when I found this out, and wrote a letter to the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz to complain. In the letter, I wrote:

I find it completely unacceptable that the parliament’s IT support department deliberately blocks certain emails from genuine citizens wishing to contact their elected representatives, and I find it even more unacceptable that this was done at the request of some individual MEPs (whose names and political groups I do not know).

No MEP should have the power of shutting off communication between other MEPs and their constituents using the parliament’s technical staff and infrastructure.

I look forward to your confirmation that you share this view, and that you will take immediate and appropriate action to both solve the present situation and make sure it is not repeated in the future.

I sent the letter to President Schulz on March 12. Today, almost a month later, I finally received an answer from President Schulz in the form of a paper letter which was delivered today (but dated March 28). You can read the President’s answer as a pdf here.

In his answer, the President of the European Parliament defends the blocking of the emails from citizens to MEPs as spam, and does not in any way indicate that he will do anything to prevent this from happening again.

I find this completely unacceptable.

Yes, it is quite true that 850 European citizens emailing each of the 754 Members of the European Parliament will result in several hundred thousand emails being sent. This is just straight-forward arithmetic.

But that is no justification for the administration of the European Parliament to take the decision to censor those citizens by just silently discarding the emails that citizens send, so that they do not reach the elected members.

In my opinion, citizens who take an active part in the democratic process and make their voices heard are an asset to the political system, not a problem that needs to be addressed by spam filters. It is a sad state of affairs when the President of the European Parliament disagrees.

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Update: Andrew Norton writes: EU [Parliament] President and IT Staff Don’t Understand Democracy, Maths, or Truth

PC World: Blocking antiporn ban protest mails was justified, European Parliament president says

Den frihetliga EU-kritiken måste enas!

Hax skriver:

Om de frihetliga, antiauktoritära krafterna inte lyckas samla ihop sig inför EU-valet är risken att ingen av dem kommer att hålla ända in i mål. Och det vore ett verkligt misslyckande för oss som verkligen vill ge allt EU:s vansinne fingret. Vi som kan göra mer skillnad än att bara sitta längst bak i parlamentet och skrika bu.

Läs hela Hax’ inlägg

Video: Christian Engström (PP) pratar om basinkomst [65 min]

Se föredraget om basinkomst på Youtube (65 min)

I tisdags pratade jag om basinkomst inför ett fyrtiotal åhörare på ABF-huset i Stockholm. Nu finns det en video på 65 minuter på Youtube från föreläsningen, med inklippta diagram för att (förhoppningsvis) göra det begripligt.

Jag presenterar en skiss på hur ett system för basinkomst (medborgarlön) skulle kunna se ut, och gör några första överslagsberäkningar för att se om det ligger inom det möjligas gräns för att finansiera. Svaret på den frågan blir ett preliminärt ja, men för att ge ett mer exakt svar behöver vi samla in mer data om vad dagens system kostar, och vad ett basinkomstsystem enligt förslaget skulle kosta. Att samla ihop den informationen skulle kunna vara en uppgift för någon eller några forskare, men det vore egentligen ännu bättre om arbetet kunde utföras av en svärm på nätet, så att fler personer blir involverade redan från början och kan föra kunskapen vidare.

Förutom att försöka räkna så noga som möjligt för att se om visionen basinomst är realistisk, bör vi redan idag börja se över reglerna för socialbidraget (det kommunala försörjningsstödet) så att de blir generösare och därmed mindre destruktiva och billigare att administrera. Allra första steget för att kunna reformera försörjningsstödet måste vara att staten tar över ansvaret från kommunerna. Det är en reform som är bra på en del andra sätt också.

Referenser och mer diskussion om förslaget till basinkomst finns på http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/category/medborgarlon/

”Wikiblogg” med inlägg om olika aspekter av basinkomst-frågan (där alla är välkomna att fylla på mer information i kommentarerna):

• Introduktion
• Statens och kommunernas budget
• Försörjningsstöd (socialbidrag)
• Sjukförsäkring
• Studiemedel
• Inkomststatistik

Tack till Anders Erkéus och Basinkomst Stockholm, som arrangerade seminariet. Det var väldigt roligt att få prata och diskussionen som följde var mycket givande.

 

Basinkomst tisdag 2 april 18:30 i ABF-huset i Stockholm

Basinkomst förslag 1.0 (klicka för detaljer)

Jag kommer prata om garanterad basinkomst (även känt som medborgarlön) under rubriken ”Basinkomst – en realistisk möjlighet?”

• Tid: Tisdag 2 april 2013 kl 18:30
• Plats: ABF-huset, Sveavägen 41, Stockholm

Entré 30 kronor (som går till lokalhyran).

Jag kommer presentera den skiss på system för basinkomst som jag har bloggat om tidigare, och försöka svara på frågan om jag tror att det är realistiskt att införa ett sådant system i Sverige.

Spoiler? – Ja, jag tror att det är realistiskt.

De första överslagsberäkningarna med hjälp av inkomststatistik från SCB tyder på att det ligger inom rimlighetens gräns att det skulle gå att räkna hem ett system för basinkomst, men visar framför allt att det behövs mer noggranna beräkningar för att kunna svara mer säkert. Och under alla omständigheter kommer det vara en stor reform, så det finns skäl att se basinkomst som en vision som vi bör närma oss ett steg i taget, snarare än att införa rakt av över en natt.

Men med de här två förbehållen tror jag att basinkomst är en idé som är fullt genomförbar på sikt, och som eventuellt är helt nödvändig också.

Välkommen tisdagen den 2 april 18:30 i ABF-huset i Stockholm!

Facebook-event

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Uppdatering: Diagram som jag tänkt visa på Powerpoint-format

Kopimism, Richard Dawkins, and the Paradox of the Cheerful Atheist Scientists

Click to read the earlier parts of Kopimism: The Creation

(This is a continuation of the Kopimist Creation Myth, which is also available in Swedish)

In the previous Kopimist sermons, we have seen how the laws of nature predict doom and gloom, and preach that everything is just a meaningless consequence of how it accidentally happens to be. Does this mean that scientists generally feel gloomy and sad when they think about the universe?

No, not at all, quite the opposite in fact.

You don’t have to see many science documentaries about life, the universe and everything to be drawn in by the enthusiasm and sense of wonder that both the narrator and any scientists that appear in the program communicate. The mathematical formulas that they have discovered to describe the universe may be ever so depressing. The scientists who say they believe in those formulas, and only in the formulas, tend to be as cheerful and optimistic about the future as ever.

Richard Dawkins is a leading evangelist for believing in science, and science alone. Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme, Wikipedia tells us.

In his book The Magic of Reality from 2011, Dawkins summarises his views like this [in my translation back from Swedish]:

The real world, as seen by science, has its own magic — the kind of magic I call poetic magic: an inspiring beauty that is so much more magical because it is real, and because we can understand how it works. Compared to the true beauty and magic of the real word, magical formulas and sorcerers’ tricks seem cheap and superficial. The magic of reality is neither supernatural nor a trick, but quite simply wonderful. Wonderful and real. Wonderful just because it is real.

This is a very good, sensible and beautiful position, and in fact very similar to what Kopimism is saying as well. We Kopmists see the world as a magic, exciting work in progress, driven by the four fundamental principles Creativity, Copying, Cooperation, and Quality. The quote from Dawkins expresses what we Kopimists believe, in a very concise and beautiful way.

In the Kopimist faith, we have added the four fundamental principles, in particular Creativity and Quality, to the foundation of science that we share with Dawkins. This makes it easy for us Kopimists to justify our positive outlook on life.

We believe that there is Quality that guides us in the right direction towards the good, we believe that Creativity will continue to spur us onwards, and we believe that Copying and Cooperation provide tools to transform creative ideas into new reality. When the beauty of nature fills us with a sense of wonder in the way that Dawkins describes so well, we have a sound theological and philosophical argument to justify the happy smiles on our faces.

But Dawkins himself has a lot less theoretical justification for his positive world view, if he wants to base it entirely on science, and nothing but science.

According to evolutionary biology, which is Dawkins’ primary field of science, the entire miracle of life on earth can be described as the influence of random noise in the sexual reproduction process, combined with a crude mechanism for weeding out individuals that are unsuccessful in the all-out conflict over scarce resources. What’s so wonderful about that?

If there is beauty in a universe controlled entirely by chance and mechanical laws, that beauty would have no meaning anyway. According to science and Dawkins, that beauty has just appeared by accident, like if there happens to be beautiful reflections in the pieces of glass on the ground after someone has broken a shop window. Even if it looks like a heap of sparkling and valuable diamonds on the ground, this is just an illusion, and there is little to miss once it gets swept away by the street cleaners.

Dawkins of course has every right in the world to have his positive and confident view of the universe and the future, and we Kopimists share it. We believe that many people would become happier if they joined us in this belief. But if Dawkins wants to maintain that he is basing his positive world view on science alone, there appears to be quite a gap between what the scientific laws say about the universe, and how the scientists actually perceive it on an emotional level.

Albert Einstein is another example of an eminent scientist holding a world view that is atheistic, but filled with a sense of wonder and trust in the future. Dawkins uses Einstein as an example in the book The God Delusion, and (on page 36) he quotes Einstein saying:

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.

I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

Again, a very sensible and positive way of looking at the world, but the positive emotion seems to be quite out of touch with the equations he was basing his model of the universe on.

According to Einstein’s theory of gravity, the destiny of the universe is to become either a black hole where everything has been crushed, or an ever thinner emptiness where everything is too far away from everything else to do anything interesting. Which version of infinite boredom represents the future of the universe, according to Einstein’s theory, depends on the value of a cosmological constant that may or may not exist, and that nobody likes anyway.

This is what Einstein’s theory says about the universe we live in. What does he have to be so confident and positive about?

Kopimism solves the apparent contradiction between the scientists’ gloomy theories and cheerful outlook on life by adding the four fundamental principles to the laws described by science, in particular Creativity and Quality. These principles do not contradict science. They are merely an addition to the strict scientific natural laws, and help explain the magic of reality and give us a reason to feel trust in the future, even though we cannot say what that future will contain.

When Dawkins speaks about the inspiring beauty of reality, he is absolutely right. Nature is filled with the most stunning beauty, from the tiniest detail of an insect’s antenna up to magnificent ecosystems that go from horizon to horizon. This is what Robert M. Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance calls Romantic beauty, the kind of beauty that is immediately apparent to the eye.

Dawkins is also right when he talks about how wonderful it is that we can understand how reality works, that we can learn to see and appreciate what Pirsig would call the Classic beauty of the universe, the structural beauty that makes it all fit together.

For a Kopimist, it is easy to agree with both Dawkins and Einstein in their sense of awe an wonder. This is how we feel as well.

But even if we agree, we should note that the minute these prominent scientists started to talk about beauty, they left the realm of science and entered that of philosophical speculation.

”Beauty” is not a scientific term within either physics or biochemistry. As Pirsig points out, there are no scientific instruments that can measure beauty or Quality objectively, and nobody expects that anybody will be able to design such instruments in the future either. A cornerstone in Pirsig’s philosophical reasoning is that he refuses to provide a scientific definition of Quality, as any attempt to do so would reduce it into something different and smaller.

The Quality that Pirsig is talking about is not a part of science as we know it, but neither is it opposed to science in any way. It is an addition, not a replacement. The reason that Pirsig started to think about Quality in the first place was that he wanted to defend Science, which he called The Church of Reason, from real or imagined metaphysical threats.

So even if both Dawkins and Einstein and Pirsig are outside the realm of science when they are talking about beauty, there is noting wrong with that. Beauty is not anti-sientific concept, it is an extra-sientific one. It does not contradict science, it just goes outside it, and talks about things that are not described by the mathematical formulas that represent our laws of nature.

Nothing wrong with that, but it deserves to be pointed out for clarity.

I think Dawkins and other evangelists for what they call a ”scientific” atheist world view would do well to admit that their belief system does not just consist of the laws of science and nothing more, but of additional components as well.

I think many people who are considering giving up their old religious beliefs in favour of a more atheist world view get a feeling of philosophical claustrophobia when the case for a scientifically based world view is presented as ”science, and nothing but science”.

Since Dawkins is talking about ”beauty”, which is not a scientific concept, he has obviously  taken at least one step beyond science as such in the world view he is preaching.

Why not admit that, when doing so would remove a barrier that at least some people feel they must overcome before they can seriously consider the message that Dawkins and others who agree with him are trying to share?

We Kopimists believe in the laws of science, but we believe there is more to the universe than just that. We believe not only in science, but also in the four Fundamental Principles, the Four Kopimist K’s of Creativity, Copying, Cooperation, and Quality.

With Quality as one of our Fundamental Principles, we can agree wholeheartedly that reality is indeed beautiful, both in a Romantic and Classic sense, as Pirsig explains those terms in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Kopimism does not go against science, so just like for Dawkins, our beliefs are not anti-scientific. But we point out that in order to believe in the beauty of science, it is not enough to believe in science alone. You have to believe that there is something worth calling ”beauty” as well.

We Kopimists acknowledge that we do, that we see a universe that is full of it.

This is an insight and a world view that we want to share.

Copy and Share!

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CC-BY-NC Christian Engström

Om inte EU blir mer demokratiskt, då är det dags för Sverige att gå ur

Läs Teresa Küchlers krönika i SvD

Vilka EU-nyheter är viktiga, på riktigt? Var fattas besluten i EU, egentligen? Det är frågor som Svenska Dagbladets Teresa Küchler tar upp i sin EU-krönika den 26 mars. Frågor som är stora, viktiga och svåra att svara på.

Men det är nödvändigt att söka svar. 60 till 80 procent av alla svenska lagar och regleringar kommer från EU. Tyvärr får svenska folket nästan aldrig veta vad som är på gång, vilket är ett demokratiskt problem. Politik är en verksamhet som medborgarna bör vara delaktiga i – inte något som plötsligt drabbar passiva och oinformerade åskådare.

Küchler går hårt åt sina kollegor i media, som hon menar bara går på de allra enklaste och rubrikvänligaste nyheterna. Det ligger något i detta. Därmed inte alls sagt att de enkla och rubrikvänliga nyheterna skulle vara oviktiga. Men man skulle kunna önska sig en mer blandad kompott.

Problemet är inte att svenska media rapporterar för mycket från EU. Det allvarliga är allt man missar. Saker som kommer att påverka vanligt folk, företag och den svenska politiken – som nu ofta kommer som en blixt från klar himmel, när allt redan är för sent för att påverka.

Vill man veta vad som sker i EU, då måste man ofta välja utländska media eller följa ett antal av de rätt specialiserade politiska bloggar som bevakar EU. Detta lämnar det stora flertalet, som är beroende av etablerade svenska media, i okunskap om vad som sker i en central del av politiken.

Küchler tar också upp den känsliga frågan om var beslut egentligen fattas. Spelar den formella behandlingen av ett ärende hos de folkvalda i Europaparlamentet egentligen någon roll? Görs allt ändå upp av ett litet frimureri av icke-valda byråkrater bakom stängda dörrar? Vad säger det, i så fall om tillståndet för vår demokrati? Och vad skall vi göra åt saken?

Vi piratpartister vill reformera EU genom att ta fram ett nytt fördrag. Det skall fokusera på att göra EU till en demokratisk verksamhet. Det skall slå fast våra medborgerliga fri- och rättigheter. Det skall ange enkla och begripliga spelregler för EU. Och politiskt skall det fokusera på fri rörlighet för varor, tjänster, människor och kapital.

Ett sådant nytt fördrag skall sedan underställas alla européer i en gemensam folkomröstning, vid ett och samma tillfälle. Därefter är det upp till medlemsstaterna att godkänna eller förkasta fördraget, på det sätt varje land finner lämpligt.

På detta sätt ger man demokratin i EU nytt liv. Om både folket och medlemsstaterna får säga sitt – då finns det i vart fall förutsättningar för ett mer demokratiskt, mer begripligt och rimligare fördrag. Vilket är ett första och helt nödvändigt steg för att komma till rätta med de problem som nämns i texten ovan.

För att media skall kunna rapportera från EU måste verksamheten vara begriplig. För att medborgarna skall kunna vara delaktiga krävs att EU är öppet och transparent. För att den demokratiska processen skall vara meningsfull krävs en möjlighet att utkräva ansvar. Det borde vara självklart.

EU måste bli mer demokratiskt, mer begripligt och mer transparent. Och det måste ske inom överskådlig tid. Om detta inte sker – då är det dags för Sverige att lämna EU. Det finns helt enkelt gränser för vad vi kan finna oss i.

Allowing snus in the EU could save 350.000 lives per year

Watch my speech in IMCO on how snus could save lives in the EU (6 min)

Sweden has by far the lowest rates of people dying from smoking related diseases, compared to the other EU countries. The reason is very simple: we have by far the lowest rates of smoking.

In Sweden, smoking prevalence is 13%, compared to the EU average of 28%. (The second best EU country has a smoking prevalence of 23%, close to the average.) Half as many people smoke, which has led to half as many people dying from smoking in Sweden compared to the rest of the EU.

This is because snus is legal in Sweden (but not in any other EU country), which has given Swedish smokers the possibility to switch from smoking cigarettes to using snus. This represents a major health benefit, because although snus is not a healthy product in itself, snus is between 90 and 99% less dangerous than smoking.

If you are a smoker, the best thing is of course if you can give up all forms of nicotine use completely. But if you are unable or unwilling to do this, switching from cigarettes to snus is almost as good from a health perspective. Thanks to snus, Sweden is a remarkable success story in the fight against tobacco induced death and diseases.

It can often be tricky to compare numbers between different countries, as there can be many different factors that explain any differences in the numbers, but in this particular case it is pretty clear.

Sweden’s two closest neighbours, Denmark and Finland, both have twice the smoking prevalence of Sweden: 26% in Denmark, and 25% in Finland. Both Denmark and Finland are very culturally similar to Sweden, but yet smoking is twice as common there as it is in Sweden.

There simply is no other plausible explanation than snus why Sweden is doing so much better in its efforts to reduce smoking than the rest of Europe, including culturally similar Denmark and Finland.

Smoking kills 700.000 persons per year prematurely, according to the statistics presented by the European Commission. I have no reason to doubt these statistics. Tobacco smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in the developed world.

This means that if we could reduce smoking in the rest of the EU down to Swedish levels, we would save 350.000 lives per year.

Against this background, I find it completely unacceptable that the EU Commission proposes to continue the present ban on snus in all the EU countries except Sweden. With this many lives at stake, it is quite simply immoral that the Commission is not even prepared to let member states who would want to follow Sweden’s example, and use snus as part of a harm reduction strategy, to do so if they want to.

This is, in essence, what I said last week in the Committee for the Internal Market and Consumer Protection IMCO, when we had an exchange of views on the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive.

By lifting the ban on snus on the EU level, and allowing each member state to develop its own policy in this area, we can potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives per year in Europe. Not exploring this possibility is just immoral.

You can watch the video of my intervention on Youtube (6 min).

Read more about how the European Commission is actively massaging and distorting its own scientific evidence to support a continued ban on snus.

With so many lives at stake, we have an obligation to address this matter in a calm and evidence based manner, rather than upholding the EU ban on a smoke-free product that demonstrably saves lives.

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Declaration of interest: I am a snus user, which has allowed me to cut down my smoking drastically, even though I have not stopped completely yet. My wife used to smoke, but gave it up completely several years ago by switching to eucalyptus flavoured snus.

Det är väldigt kul att vara MEP för Piratpartiet

Jag var på en mottagning arrangerad av den amerikanska handelskammaren AmCham tidigare ikväll. Det var tal från podiet om hur fantastiskt bra det kommer bli med det nya frihandelsavtalet som ska börja förhandlas mellan EU och USA.

Medan jag lyssnade stod jag bredvid en handelsattaché från den amerikanska ambassaden, som jag just hade börjat prata med, och förklarat för att jag representerade det svenska Piratpartiet.

När talen var slut (och gudskelov var de faktiskt korta på riktigt den här gången), vände jag mig mot attachén och sa att jag höll med om att det kommande frihandelsavtalet var en jätteintressant fråga.

- Vi är så otroligt stolta över att vi lyckades stoppa ACTA-avtalet, sa jag och log med hela ansiktet. Och det är fantastiskt, nu finns det flera hundratusen människor som har varit ute på gatorna i Europa och demonstrerat mot ett frihandelsavtal. Om det nya EU-USA-avtalet innehåller ett ”IP-kapitel” om upphovsrätt och patent kommer det bli så mycket lättare att mobilisera motstånd nästa gång.

Och så log jag en gång till.

Det är verkligen kul att ha förmånen att få representera Piratpartiet i Europaparlamentet, och få den här typen av tillfällen.

Det var alla engagerade medborgare som tog till gatorna eller mejlade EU-parlamentariker som gjorde att vi kunde stoppa ACTA-avtalet.

Ryktesvis pratas det om att EU-kommissionen (som fungerar som EU’s regering, fast den inte är vald) blev uppriktigt skakad när hundratusentals medborgare, först i Polen och sedan i resten av Europa, gick ut i januari- och februarikylan 2012 och protesterade mot ett ”frihandelsavtal” som inte hade ett dugg med frihandel att göra, utan bara var ett försök att gå runt de demokratiskt valda lagstiftande församlingarna och bakvägen tvinga internetleverantörerna att bli fildelningspoliser.

Det är väldigt bra om EU-kommissionen kommer ihåg den känslan, och det är ännu bättre om USA förstår att det inte kommer att fungera att försöka köra samma trick en gång till.

Jag hoppas den amerikanska attachén gör det som diplomatiska attachéer är till för, och rapporterar den här konversationen hem till dem som kommer sköta förhandlingarna mellan USA och EU.

Annars kan det bli så att vi måste ut och demonstrera igen i femtongradig kyla för att få behålla friheten på nätet. Men behövs det så gör vi det. Vi har redan gjort det en gång och vunnit.

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Läs mer om det kommande Tafta-avtalet hos DN

The EU parliament (mostly) said no to a porn ban

The European parliament’s vote earlier this week on a resolution that asked for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media was not entirely easy to interpret, but the most reasonable political interpretation is to say that the parliament said No to a ban on porn.

But let’s take a closer look at the different articles that the parliament voted on.

First, Article 14:

14. Points out that a policy to eliminate stereotypes in the media will of necessity involve action in the digital field; considers that this requires the launching of initiatives coordinated at EU level with a view to developing a genuine culture of equality on the internet; calls on the Commission to draw up in partnership with the parties concerned a charter to which all internet operators will be invited to adhere;

The parliament rejected this article completely, which is very good. If it had not, it would have called for turning the internet service providers into some kind of private ”porn police”, very much along the same lines as the ACTA treaty that wanted to turn them into a private file sharing police.

The rejection of this article was a clear and very important victory for free speech and information freedom.

Then, Article 19:

19. Calls on the Member States to establish independent regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and advertising industry and a mandate to impose effective sanctions on companies and individuals promoting the sexualisation of girls;

This article asked member states to establish regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and a mandate to impose sanctions on companies and individuals. That kind of mechanism has no place in a democratic society.

The rejection of this article as well was another clear victory for freedom of speech.

Finally, Article 17:

17. Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism

Here, the parliament rejected the second half of the article with the explicit call for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media, but kept the first part with the indirect reference to the resolution from 1997.

This is where it gets tricky and a bit ambiguous.

On the one hand, the parliament rejected the direct call for a ban. So far, so good. The parliament no longer highlights that particular article in the old resolution. If the highlighting had remained, it would have been clear that the parliament did in fact want a ban on porn in media, but it was taken away.

But on the other hand, Article 5 of the 1997 resolution still  contains a call for ”statutory measures to prevent any form of pornography in the media”, and the parliament expressed that it wanted that resolution implemented, without mentioning any exceptions.

So how should we interpret this?

The reasonable political interpretation is that the parliament does not want to ban pornography on the internet or in the media.

If this had been a legislative report, it would have been correct to say that the parliament wanted to ban porn in magazines, TV and DVDs. Legal texts are quite similar to computer code (although courts are quite different from computers), so in  that case an indirect reference would be just as strong as a direct mention of the porn ban.

But this is a political resolution where the parliament just expresses an opinion, and then it has to be read in a different way. From a political perspective, the important thing is that the parliament actively removed the wording ”a ban on all forms of pornography in the media” (and remove all the sharp proposals on how to enforce it). If the majority had in fact been in favour of a ban, it would have had no reason to do this. Since it did, the only reasonable conclusion is that the majority of members didn’t want a ban.

This is a victory, and that’s what counts in the political landscape in Brussels.

Thank you, all activists who contributed by sending emails to MEPs or in other ways!

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Republished at Falkvinge on Infopolicy

Others on the topic: TechEye