Do you chop out offensive parts of movies?
They used to do that. The board doesn't do that anymore. My colleague has this letter from Stanley Kubrick. He was furious that the board wanted to cut his movies. And he wrote this letter personally.
There was also "Monty Python's Life of Brian." When that movie was released, the Norwegian board of film classification actually deemed it to be blasphemy and banned it. What was funny is that the Swedes, when they released the movie, said, "This is the film that was too funny for the Norwegians," and they sold tons and tons of tickets. We eventually allowed it but came out with a sign that said it's fiction and not about Jesus Christ.
About two weeks ago, we lifted a ban on all mainstream movies that had been forbidden or cut. That was for our 90-year anniversary. How's that for a birthday gift?
So you consider yourself a free speech advocate?
Actually, it's not a problem. Rating movies for children has to do with protecting them from harm. If you say, "This movie is probably not appropriate for anyone below 15," that's not considered censorship. That's considered protection. But on my day job, we strongly advise against censorship measures like filters.
What European nations are pushing Internet filters?
Mainly the United Kingdom, which goes along with having more similarities with the trigger buttons of the Americans. The major filters are produced in the United States.
Is US filtering software adapted for the European market?
The white- and blacklists are based on American wording. They're created by and sold by American companies -- which is ridiculous for us, coming from different languages and cultures. There are so many different examples of crazy stuff that's being filtered out.
Even inside Europe, you have different cultural values and hot buttons. Can you give me some examples?
You have the typical ones. There's the Anglo-Saxon hot button, which is nudity. Scandinavians tend to care less about it at all. Bad language is hardly an issue, and nudity is something we don't perceive as dangerous or bad. Though in Norway, hard-core pornography is not allowed. We have issues with racist speech, though the threshold for conviction is very high. Blasphemy is a trigger button for some parts of the country because of the state Lutheran religion.
