Censorship in Denmark
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Censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
in
Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...
has been prohibited since 1849 by the
Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...
:
§ 77: Any person shall be at liberty to publish his ideas in print, in writing, and in speech, subject to his being held responsible in a court of law. Censorship and other preventive measures shall never again be introduced.
This effectively means that published material does not need prior acceptance from a censor before being released, also known as
prior restraint Prior restraint (also referred to as prior censorship or pre-publication censorship) is censorship imposed, usually by a government or institution, on expression, that prohibits particular instances of expression. It is in contrast to censorship ...
. However,
child pornography Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a chi ...
,
hate speech Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
,
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
,
libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
, and state security laws do exist, which means that authors, publishers, and others can be held responsible for statements in publicly disseminated material that violates these laws. Until June 2017, §140 of the
Danish penal code The Danish Penal Code, also known as the Danish Criminal Code ( da, Straffeloven),Retsinformation.dStraffeloven./ref> is the codification of and the foundation of criminal law in Denmark. The updated official full text covers 29 chapters and is al ...
(colloquially, ''blasfemiparagraffen'') outlawed
blasphemy Blasphemy is a speech crime and religious crime usually defined as an utterance that shows contempt, disrespects or insults a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a religiou ...
.


Internet censorship

Internet censorship Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as Wikipedia.org) but exceptionally may extend to all Inte ...
became a growing issue in Denmark from 2005 with
child pornography Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a chi ...
sites,
file-sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include rem ...
sites such as AllOfMP3 and, more recently,
The Pirate Bay The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute mag ...
, being blocked on the
DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
level by ISPs. On 23 December 2008,
WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...
released a list of 3,863 sites being filtered in Denmark. However, no evidence of Internet filtering was found by the
OpenNet Initiative The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) was a joint project whose goal was to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employed a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigato ...
in 2009. Due to legal issues ONI does not test for filtering of child pornography. In November 2011, the DNS blocking was expanded to include websites selling drugs and unlicensed
online gambling Online gambling is any kind of gambling conducted on the internet. This includes virtual poker, casinos and sports betting. The first online gambling venue opened to the general public was ticketing for the Liechtenstein International Lottery in ...
sites. The DNS filters can easily be circumvented by simply changing to a different
DNS server A name server refers to the server component of the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the two principal namespaces of the Internet. The most important function of DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of human-memorable domain names (example. ...
, such as
Google Public DNS Google Public DNS is a Domain Name System (DNS) service offered to Internet users worldwide by Google. It functions as a recursive name server. Google Public DNS was announced on December 3, 2009, in an effort described as "making the web faster ...
,
OpenDNS OpenDNS is an American company providing Domain Name System (DNS) resolution services—with features such as phishing protection, optional content filtering, and DNS lookup in its DNS servers—and a cloud computing security product suite, Umbre ...
, censurfridns.dk and other similar services. This situation has been criticised by several organisations and in June 2011 in an open letter a confederation of the Danish IT-business organisations appealed to the Danish government for a revision of this practice and for the institution of clear legislation on the subject. In 2012
Internet service providers An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privatel ...
(ISPs) and copyright holders in Denmark agreed on a framework where all ISPs will block access to copyright-infringing content if one of the providers is ordered to do so by a court. The
Danish Ministry of Culture The Minister for Culture of Denmark ( da, Kulturminister) is the Danish political minister office responsible for culture, head of the Ministry of Culture of Denmark. The political responsibility for culture, as well as church and education, was ...
plans to work with ISPs and rights holder groups to "formalise" the agreement in a "written Code of Conduct".


Selected instances

In February and March 2004 three
Berlingske Tidende ''Berlingske'', previously known as ''Berlingske Tidende'' (, ''Berling's Times''), is a Danish national daily newspaper based in Copenhagen. It is considered a newspaper of record for Denmark. First published on 3 January 1749, ''Berlingske'' ...
journalists, Michael Bjerre, Jesper Larsen, and Niels Lunde, were prosecuted for "harming state security" after publishing the details of classified intelligence reports about the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In December 2006 the three were acquitted by a Copenhagen court. On 18 October 2005 Denmark's biggest Internet service provider
TDC A/S TDC Holding A/S or TDC Group (formerly Tele Danmark Communications) is a Danish telecommunications company dating back to 1879. TDC Group is the largest telecommunications company in Denmark. The company's headquarters are located in Copenhagen ...
launched a
DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
-based
child pornography Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a chi ...
filter in cooperation with the state police department and
Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...
, a charity organisation. Since then, all major providers have joined and as of May 2006, 98% of the Danish Internet users were restricted by the filter. Also, as of 18 October 2005, TDC A/S had blocked Internet access to AllOfMP3.com, a popular
MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
download site, through DNS filtering. In March 2006, Internet filtering caused some controversy when a legal sex site named Bizar.dk was blocked, sparking discussion about the reliability, accuracy and credibility of the filter. On 4 February 2008 a Danish court ordered the Danish ISP
Tele2 Tele2 AB is a Swedish telecommunications operator headquartered in the Kista Science City, Stockholm, Sweden. It is a major telephone operator in Sweden, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Tele2 also has a 25% share in T-Mobile Netherland ...
to shut down access to the
file-sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include rem ...
site thepiratebay.org for its Danish users. Right-wing commentator
Lars Hedegaard Lars Hedegaard (born 19 September 1942) is a Danish journalist and author. He established the Danish Free Press Society in 2004, which was turned into the International Free Press Society in 2009. Career Originally a high school teacher, he was ...
was prosecuted under the hate speech statute (§ 266b) for remarks made to a blogger in December 2009 criticizing Islam. He was first acquitted in the District Court in January 2011, then convicted upon appeal to High Court in May 2011, and finally acquitted in April 2012 by the Danish Supreme Court, which ruled that it could not be proved that he intended for the statements to be published. Danish politician
Jesper Langballe Jesper Marquard Langballe (31 August 1939 – 15 March 2014) was a Danish Lutheran priest, author and politician who represented the right-wing populist Danish People's Party () in the Danish parliament, Folketinget, from 2001 to 2011. Langballe w ...
pleaded guilty and was convicted of hate speech for comments he made about rape and
honour killings An honor killing (American English), honour killing (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), or shame killing is the murder of an individual, either an outsider or a member of a family, by someone seeking to protect wha ...
in Muslim families in a newspaper article in connection with Hedegaard's case."Jesper Langballe admits defamation after Muslim rape comments"
''IceNews'', 14 December 2010. Retrieved 16 August 2012
In November 2011 a website selling diet pills, 24hdiet.com, was blocked by Danish ISPs, the first use of a new law on the blocking of foreign websites that sell drugs.
English translation


See also

*
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Denmark Freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Denmark are ensured by § 77 of the constitution: :''Anyone is entitled to in print, writing and speech to publish his or hers thoughts, yet under responsibility to the courts. Censorship and other pr ...


References

{{Liberty