Polish Internet users have scored a major victory in their fight against a law that would have blocked certain Web sites deemed to have dangerous content. Under the weight of their online protests, Prime Minister Donald Tusk decided to abandon the proposed law, which was originally designed to block gambling sites.
The government decided to scrap the register of banned Web sites after talks between Tusk and nongovernmental organizations, according to a statement on the prime minister’s Web site Thursday.
Now Tusk will be successful in damage control after what turned out to be a major public-relations disaster. Still, it could become a major legal embarrassment, since the legislation introducing the register already had been sent to the Constitutional Tribunal. In recent days, the Parliament received expert opinion that clearly stated the government’s plan was unconstitutional.
This ruling majority’s track record of silliness is quite small compared with that of its predecessors. The Solidarity in the late 1990s, for example, wanted “the enthronement of Jesus the King” as King of Poland. It was also responsible for a useless bill on the purity of the Polish language and socialist-style legislation overregulating landlord-tenant relationships, just to name a few ideas straight from the 19th century.
But over the past two years, the Tusk administration has proposed ideas that could potentially be as damaging. Internet censorship was one of them, but concepts that would effectively outlaw anonymous HIV testing were just as dangerous.
This shows that the Tusk government, which enjoys great popularity in financial circles and a large part of the Polish society and media, can make mistakes, too. Fortunately, unlike some of its predecessors, it’s also willing to admit them before major damage is done.
But there’s yet another conclusion from this story. On this blog, we sometimes write about the rapid generational change happening in Poland as the people who don’t remember the communist era hit the job market, become taxpayers and more informed voters. The massive protests against online censorship were initiated by those very people.
Twenty years since the fall of communism in Poland, it looks like the critical mass for a working civic society has finally been achieved.
http://blogs.wsj.com/new-europe/2010/02/18/poland-abandons-internet-censorship-plans/
