

Ask HN: Countries with sane governments that won't mess with my Internet use? - prajjwal

What countries have governments that have not/are not currently planning to pass stuff like SOPA and don't mess with how people use the internet? Ones that won't block websites at the drop of a hat, for completely bogus/absurd reasons?
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forgotusername
Estonia prides itself on running a progressive show with first class support
for the Internet (voting for the government takes place online, for example),
they stream almost-hard porn on TV before the watershed (it's just not in
their culture to care about these things – as a UK citizen, was shocked to
find a lesbian movie playing on terrestrial there), English literacy is
amazing in the capital (Tallinn) especially among young people, rental and
general prices for everything are dirt cheap, and intra-Europe flights are
dirt cheap (return ticket to Ireland for €100), with easy access to Russia too
(visa free 3 day trips to St Petersberg by ferry).

Not to mention Tallinn is one of the most amazingly relaxing old towns packed
with coffee shops with free fast wifi.

Finland (next door neighbour) also has awesome broadband/free wifi
penetration, only the MPAA's paw marks have been left all over their courts
recently (The Pirate Bay is blocked by several major ISPs in the country)

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fla
Switzerland. As stated by the government :
[[http://www.ejpd.admin.ch/content/ejpd/fr/home/dokumentation/...](http://www.ejpd.admin.ch/content/ejpd/fr/home/dokumentation/mi/2011/2011-11-30.html)]

Unfortunately the document is not available in English.

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drsintoma
The press release is:
[https://www.ige.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/Juristische_Infos/e...](https://www.ige.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/Juristische_Infos/e/press_releases/Medienmitteilung_Savary_e.pdf)

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drucken
Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Japan.

Numerous other small countries, often financial havens too.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_by_country>

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prajjwal
Whoa! Thanks for the link, have an upvote.

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ayers
What about the Netherlands.

Net Neutrality:

[http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/255296/dutch_n...](http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/255296/dutch_net_neutrality_to_become_reality_after_senate_approves_law.html)

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sans-serif
Net Neutrality has little to do with "censoring" the Internet

~~~
ayers
I thought it did. How do you think they differ?

Taken from Wikipedia: Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet
neutrality) is a principle that advocates no restrictions by Internet service
providers or governments on consumers' access to networks that participate in
the internet.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality>

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codesuela
Germany has been successful in shaking of attempts to censor the net. Also the
pirate party is gaining support every day and is at 11% on the federal level
and entered a couple state parliaments.

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silvestrov
But Germany do censor a lot, they're #2 in Google 'Censorship' Rankings:
[http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,690569,00...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,690569,00.html)

A lot of YouTube videos cannot be played in Germany.

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rmc
_A lot of YouTube videos cannot be played in Germany._

Part of that is due to music licencing laws and not allowing it to be streamed
in Germany. More of a copyright case than free speech.

Though Germany does have some laws, like it's illegal to show the swastika, or
to deny that the holocaust happened, etc.

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robotmay
Iceland and Norway are probably safe bets, though I hope you like fish.

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onli
Iceland is a special case here, as they built that into their constitution as
part of their fight against the EU-attempt to control the country during the
financial crisis. Or so I read. But as wikipedia is stating that icelands ISPs
censor the internet currently[1], I'm not sure about the current situation
there. But still, maybe a country to look further into.

[1]<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Iceland>

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goblin89
I wonder why only Europe is discussed here at the moment. What about
Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan? South American countries?

(Myself, can only comment on Russia or Ukraine. Not aware of any Internet
filtering in these two.)

~~~
nicholassmith
Australia has some Internet Censorship issues
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Austral...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia)),
but I don't live there so not sure how bad it is on the ground.

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rprime
Romania is OK so far, plus it has cheap internet with great speed. There was a
discussion to add some sort of (low) monitoring but haven't heard anything
about this for some time, but so far no blocks or other internet limitations.

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darkestkhan
Poland is quite good, but we have to be wary of our government as it tends to
pass laws that we just hate (and they wonder then why tens of thousand ppl are
on the streets protesting against those laws [they worry more about being
reelected next time than about IP rights so they take them down]). But we are
also most invigilated country in entire European Union. Though who knows what
will be happening soon, as it seems that we will once more end up on US
Watchlist (this time because of big pharma).

From what I know Iceland is very good place in this regard.

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tomp
Slovenia currently has no bans, no filtering, nothing. Broadband widely
available. However, this might not be guaranteed in the future (but right now
the government has too many other issues to deal with).

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specula-nest
Not in India anymore. Vimeo, YouTube even Facebook are being targeted.
[http://torrentfreak.com/india-orders-blackout-of-vimeo-
the-p...](http://torrentfreak.com/india-orders-blackout-of-vimeo-the-pirate-
bay-and-more-120504/)

[http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-21/socia...](http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-21/social-
media/31082762_1_social-media-kapil-sibal-google-and-facebook)

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mbenjaminsmith
Thailand censors the net. They're very bad at it (reload a page a few times
and you'll usually get through) but it's law nonetheless.

It's interesting to note that they don't censor sites for copyright
infringement or piracy. They censor for moral reasons and violations of the
country's lese-majesty law.

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nicholassmith
As a counter point it doesn't matter too much if you live in a country that
doesn't have SOPA, if America ever brought it in it'd still ripple across the
net for every country.

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elssar
AFAIK the Scandinavian countries have a good record in this matter, well
better than most other countries.

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ZeroMinx
Perhaps they're not censoring much, but in Sweden you're constantly
wiretapped.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law>

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adestefan
Just remember that the attitudes of any country can change in the drop of a
hat.

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AlexFromBelgium
Not Belgium...

