( CNN ) -- The European Parliament recently voted on a bill titled `` Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in the EU . '' A laudable goal , for sure -- but activists characterized the bill as a Trojan horse with chilling effects on free speech and opinion . The response from the European Parliament left much to be desired in terms of respect for democracy and voters . The bill looked great on the surface -- almost idealistic -- but a closer inspection revealed things that went beyond the appropriate . For instance , the bill called for a blanket ban on any and all forms of pornography -- arguably including anything on the Internet -- as well as concrete measures to enforce the ban . Regardless of whether one thinks pornography has a place in society or should be a protected form of expression , the bill encompassed far more than most would term `` porn . '' The language was so vague , and so broad , that it could even criminalize text messages with an ever-so-slightly sexual overtone between husbands and wives . Furthermore , it called for Internet Service Providers ( ISPs ) to police ordinary people 's communications and for dissent against the ban to be criminalized , with `` effective sanctions '' the penalty for opposition . The term `` effective sanctions '' usually means fines or jail . Upon realizing the legislative impact of what had initially been a laudable goal , activists ' cries of a Trojan horse did n't seem so far off the mark . Had a bill that criminalized dissent really been voted through all committees and made it as far as the floor of the European Parliament ? Several people in parliament discarded the bill and the discussions of it as `` not important '' because it was n't the final vote in the legislative process , and at this stage was non-binding . Free-speech activists started contacting their representatives en masse though . The message was n't so much `` do n't take away our porn ! '' as `` you can not possibly think this bill , as it is written , is compatible with any kind of fundamental rights . '' About 250,000 email messages were sent to the European Parliament on the morning of March 7 . Then , something odd happened . Around lunchtime on March 7 , the email messages stopped coming into parliament , despite still being sent by individual activists -- hand-typed , individual messages of concern . It turned out that some Members of European Parliament ( MEPs ) -- to this day , it remains unclear just who -- had complained to technical staff about the amount of constituents seeking contact with their representative on a current issue , and succeeded in having technical staff classify the messages as spam , so they never got through . The notion that one or a few MEPs could use parliamentary technical staff and infrastructure to prevent constituents from contacting any part of parliament on a current issue is jaw-dropping . Not just shutting themselves off , but shutting their colleagues off as well -- shutting off the entire parliament off from its constituents ' opinions . Swedish media estimated that one million e-mails were prevented from reaching their representatives . The bill was finally voted through on March 12 , but not before the parts that criminalized dissent and turned ISPs into communications police had been taken out . There were still calls for enforcing a blanket ban on pornography , but nothing likely to have a real political effect . It is also impossible for people to hold their politicians accountable on this issue , as the European Parliament did not use a `` roll call vote , '' meaning there is no record of how individuals voted . The idea that a vote can be deliberately constructed in a way that prevents office-holder accountability is astounding . If activists had n't made a lot of noise on the matter , the parts of the bill that criminalized dissent and turned ISPs into morals police would quite possibly have passed too . I ca n't help feeling a very bitter aftertaste from the European Parliament 's demonstration of how little it cares about the people it represents -- deleting one million attempts by constituents to contact Members of European Parliament , and then declining to create any kind of voting record . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rick Falkvinge .
European Parliament recently voted on ` ` ' ' Equality in the EU '' bill . Bill calls for blanket ban on any and all forms of discrimination , including on Net . The bill 's wording concerned free speech activists who described it as ` ` vague ''