Document.no

Document.no began publishing as a blog on 14 January 2003. It moved from having the form of a blog to being a news site, as more authors as Christian Skaug, Nina Hjerpset-Østlie and Hanne Tolg joined the editorial team. Today it is referred to as an online newspaper. By 2011, the website reached an audience of up to 40,000 unique visitors every week. By 2018 the site had over 400,000 monthly readers. In 2015, Wales-based blogger Hanne Tolg was investigated for alleged anti-Muslim posts on the site, and quit her job at a fire service in North Wales as a result of the investigation. In 2016, Tolg's articles twice topped the list of most-shared articles on social media in Norway. According to fact-checking organization Faktisk.no, Document.no's content is primarily shared by an overlapping far-right echo chamber on social media that is among the most widely shared in Norway. but in 2020 Document Forlag published a book by Jensen about the Breivik case. Document.no has still sometimes been identified as part of the counter-jihad movement. Government blasphemy bill The website has been cited as the main player when for the first time in Norwegian history, in 2009 "bloggers" were credited for successfully setting the national political agenda. Document.no had criticized a government "blasphemy bill", a proposed extension of §185 with regard to "hate speech so that the provision protects the need for a criminal law protection against qualified attack on religions and belief." The proposed bill was met with nearly no exposure in the mainstream media, until close to a month later, although it had been criticized as an attack on democracy in Danish newspapers. Eventually the bill became criticized as attacking freedom of speech, and an online petition against it was supported by numerous notable figures and organisations in Norway. The pressure caused the government to later retract the proposal. Anders Behring Breivik Document.no received global media attention after the 2011 Norway attacks when it became known that terrorist Anders Behring Breivik had contributed comments to the site (among over 40 websites including Stormfront, Minerva, VG and Aftenposten), attended one of its events and been in contact with its owner Rustad over a possible cooperation. Breivik posted numerous posts on Document.no (mainly in 2009) and praised the founder Hans Rustad. He also attended an open meeting of "Documents venner" (Friends of Document), affiliated with the website, in the fall of 2009. Breivik reportedly sought to start a Norwegian version of the Tea Party movement in cooperation with the owners of Document.no, who initially expressed interest but ultimately turned down his proposal because he did not have the contacts he promised. Breivik eventually became disaffected with the website because he found it to be too moderate for his views, When Breivik was named as the arrested, the website became unreachable due to an extreme increase in traffic. Rustad expressed bleakness with inevitably having to be associated with Breivik, while maintaining that Breivik had disguised his extremist views through relatively moderate, non-violent user comments (which were compiled and made available on the site). The case was gradually rolled up by other commentators and gained widespread reporting in mainstream media, causing a major scandal for NRK. NRK later apologized for broadcasting the feature. ==Reception==