Today, they both held a joint press conference at noon, wich was streamed via Bambuser(sv/en). There was some chaos prior to that though when for some unknown reason all servers belonging to The Pirate Party(en) suddenly went offline. It turned out a a fan in a firewall had made its last revolutions and thus caused the whole thing to overheat. So PP’s coverage of The Spectrial had a slightly rocky start.

Something that has been a bit of a deal in the days leading up to the press conference was that due history between TPB and certain news media in Sweden, three large ones where banned from the press conference. TV4 a commercial TV channel and Aftonbladet a Swedish tabloid where banned for their unprofessional handling of the controversy surrounding the Arboga murders.

Another newspaper, Metro was banned for a series of articles claiming that TPB hosted child pornography, but when asked by the TPB crew for the links so that TPB could hand the issue over to the police, metro refused.

The press conference itself seemed to work out well from what I could tell from the Bambuser feed (Ankata sure likes to interrupt people though). But journalists of Olde Media(sv) where probably a bit startled when it turned out they where, in accordance with the R/W Culture of the web, expected to participate right of the bat and ask questions.

Right now it feels like the calm before the storm. Olde Media have just started pushing out content from the press conference, pirates are gearing up across the board and tomorrow all hell will probably break loose. My experince of the media coverage of the FRA-Law tells me that tomorrows papers will be much akin to Highlander, in that there can only be one subject on the front pages. P3, one of the national radio channels will interrupt its normal programming to send a SIX hours special(sv) on piracy, copyright and the trial. Pirate author Anna Troberg(sv) will be on the show(sv), no big suprise to any of the regular daytime listeners of the channel perhaps. The host of the special has had Anna on radio several times already.

Swedish national TV will broadcast the audio feed live (Swedish constitution prohibits video recordings of trials), a historical first.

Its going to be a hectic two weeks to be sure. And regardless of the outcome in this instance, which will pretty much be decided by the roll of a die, sweden will yet again evolve the relation between the social and olde media. Great things happened in the wake of the FRA-Law and this trial will change media landscape again. And I’m certain, it will be for the better.

Images from the Spectrial Press Conference (also of the S23k mobile press center)

martinloquist

“Dear member of parliament,

With this email I protest the FRA-law.

If my email crosses Sweden’s borders, FRA will have access to monitor it. You are one of the MP’s that voted to allow FRA to monitor not only this email, but all traffic crossing Swedish borders in cables. It is my opinion that it is unjustified that a protest email to a MP risks being monitored by FRA and therefor I demand the law to be scrapped.”

Nothing spectacular by itself, but when news broke of the Moderate MP Olov Lavesson preferred to be unaware of the opinions of the people he represents, and therefor started forwarding all his emails to Expressen, the think tank Limbo offered this email to Lavesson:

“Dear Expressen,

With this email I protest the citizens of Sweden.

If the citizens continue to protest the FRA-law I will be unable to steam roll them. It is my opinion that it is unreasonable for citizens to not only engage themselves politically, but also to have the media assist them in doing so. Democracy, by definition, is to allow MP’s to make all decision for the people, as the people are too stupid see what is good for them.

If this revenge on Expressen wont make you come to your senses, you leave me no option but to break out the party whip and pay you a visit. Then I promise you you will see my view of things.

You should think twice before ever criticizing MP’s again!”

I laughed at least.

Now following up on this tidal wave of protest emails (actually, maybe we should contact Guinness?) I found this article on Expressens portal. It interviews previous chairmen/women of the different parties in the coalition, all slamming the bill and the handling of the issue by the government. Towards the end though, there is a quote by Thomas Mattsson, editor-in-chief of Expressen Digitala Medier. Apparently FOUR MILLION emails have been sent so far! And they will keep the script available for a a few more days. I cant help but think that this is in fact a reply to the “challenge” issued by another Swedish newspaper a week or two ago, where they established that the FRA-law still wasn’t the issue that generate the most emails to Swedish MP’s.

On another note, Peter Sunde, spokes person of Sweden’s famed The Pirate Bay, has posted a stamp of approval for the Swedish Pirate Party on his blog. TPB are also engaged in the FRA-law, rolling out encryption on the TPB, and are considering using their contacts to urge ISP’s around the world to blacklist Sweden to protect their customers.

I for one would like to see how our government responds to being the cause Sweden is banned from the Internet.