If they succeed, it will improve communication between the hearing and Deaf.

THIS ARTICLE IS PRODUCED AND FINANCED BY SINTEF.^[One of 80+ owners of Forskning.no; their communication staff deliver content to Forskning.no. This article is marked to clearly separate it from independent content.]

The 430 million Deaf or hard-of-hearing people in the world often experience difficulties when communicating with the hearing. Researchers have now investigated a solution which uses machine learning to instantaneously translate sign language into written text or machine-generated speech. This solution can make dialog simpler, contributing to a greater inclusion of Deaf and hard-of-hearing people in society.

AI proposed collaboration with researchers

It was Tone Ervik and Pål Rudshavn of Statped [State Special Pedagogical Service] in Trondheim who had the idea of using AI to translate sign language to text or machine-generated speech. They saw that AI was continuously improving at translating speech to text, so maybe AI with new language models could also be used to translate sign language?

—"I asked ChatGPT about how we could get further with this idea. It suggested that we should contact Sintef, so that's what we did," Ervik says.

The researchers immediately jumped on the idea of building a tool both very useful for society, yet simultaneously technologically challenging to develop.

—"We saw this as an amazing opportunity. With how quickly AI is progressing, we wanted to use the technology for something that can actually make a meaningful difference in society," says Costas Boletsis, supported by his colleague Zia Uddin.

With support from the Dam Foundation [Stiftelsen Dam], they started the project AI-based Norwegian Sign Language Translator [KI-drevet Norsk Tegnspråkoversetter] in February of 2024.

US-based researchers have come a pretty long ways with their own tool, which can interpret sign language in real time with the help of machine learning. Norwegian Sign Language, however, is unique, and therefore a new model must be developed for and in our own country.

16,500 people communicate using sign language in Norway, according to the Norwegian Association of the Deaf.

Boletsis and Uddin decided to start with getting a computer to automatically recognize the Norwegian Sign Language signs for the numbers 0 to 10, following advice from Statped.

—"We focused on the numbers 0-10 because we had to start somewhere, as Norwegian Sign Language is different from other sign languages. It could've been any other 11 gestures," Zia Uddin says.

He explains that they can expand the system with supplementary analysis. The basic approach will remain the same, just at a larger scale with more complex algorithms.

Tested the system in real time

Through their own tests, the researchers have found that the system they have developed is showing good results. It has a test accuracy of 95%, and the researchers believe this shows that the solution can handle variations in style, speed and camera angle.

We're meeting the researchers one year after the start of their project. It is now finally time to test the AI-based system in real time.

Twelve signers have arrived at Statped's offices, and one after another they stand in front of the computer and produce the signs for the numbers 0-10. The computer program uses hand and mouth markers to distinguish between signs with identical handshapes, such as the signs for 3 and 8.

Although the model performed generally well during this demonstration, it still conflated a few signs. The researchers will use this information to make improvements.

—"The aim is to develop a learning app for real-time recognition and evaluation of NSL. Users will get an immediate translation using an avatar. This will help signers communicate with hearing people in settings like grocery stores, hairdressers, airports et cetera. The results of today's test indicate that this will be a very useful tool in the future," Costas Boletsis says.

The researchers say that further development should focus on expanding vocabulary, and that the system should be tested in different situations, such as different lighting, camera angles and speeds. The system should furthermore use more types of sensor data to get a better spacial awareness.

The goal is an app

—"When the scope of our project is so big, it's only natural that the work will take several years. Artificial intelligence will evolve in parallel at the same time. The core of this type of project is data. We need to develop a dataset, a corpus, where we have a lot of information and many videos for each and every sign in use," Zia Uddin says.

He explains that they can then begin using AI models at a large scale. They can train the models effectively and investigate if they can handle a much broader range of expressions than what they've been trained on thus far.

The researchers' dream is an app or software which could be installed on e.g. a mobile phone, and which can instantaneously translate central words and phrases of sign language.

—"Sign language is extremely important for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people. With the progress being made in AI, particularly in photo and video analysis, we believe we can make a tool which can make a big difference for many people," Zia Uddin says.

REFERENCES

Zia Uddin, Costas Boletsis og Pål Rudshavn: Real-Time Norwegian Sign Language Recognition Using MediaPipe and LSTM. Multimodal Technol. Interact, 2025. Doi.org/10.3390/mti9030023

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Also, if you use an anime tracker like Anilist or MAL: Once Upon a Time... Space was a co-production with the Japanese studio Eiken. The series was released in Japan under the title of Galaxy Patrol PJ ({銀|ぎん}{河|が}パトロールPJ Ginga Patorôru PJ) and is reportedly seen as a cult classic by anime fans in Japan. This means in any case that this show is actually included in many anime databases!

• https://myanimelist.net/anime/11307/Ginga_Patrol_PJ
• https://anilist.co/anime/11307/Once-Upon-a-Time-Space/

What are we watching?

Episode titles: "The Planet Omega" — "The Saurians" — "The Green Planet" — "Towards Andromeda" — "The Cro-Magnons"

Series description: Once Upon a Time... Space tells about the confrontation of many big galactic powers. Among them there is the Omega Confederation, of which Earth is a member; the military republic of Cassiopeia led by General The Pest; and a powerful supercomputer which controls an army of robots. The show follows the adventures of space police members Pierrot and his friend Mercedes ("Psi") and adapts elements of Greek mythology and other mainly European folklore. Some episodes concern topics such as the balance of political power; man vs technology; and the existence of God.

Content warnings

I have never watched this show before so I don't know what to expect from it in terms of content warnings, although this series supposedly contains "little to no violence" except against wild animals.

The previous show in this series, Once Upon a Time... Man, for which Space is technically a continuation, had the following content warnings, if nothing else: Death incl. murder — sexual assault — nudity — animal gore — disease — racist caricatures — religion presented as fact — Eurocentrism

So you know how in American English, the word vase is often pronounced /vɑz/ when describing an expensive or elegant item, and /vejs/ when talking about something more everyday and cheapo?

Well when I was a child I did the same thing with sew, using the spelling pronunciation /su/ — which I perceived as fancier or more old-fashioned — when talking about expensive or elegant needlework or whatever, and the conventional pronunciation /sow/, which I frequently spelled sow, when talking about more everyday needlework. So I might've said a hand-{sewn|/sun/} dress for the fairy tale princess but a {sown|/sown/}-on button on my second-hand jeans — though keep in mind that these weren't necessarily strict and absolute distinctions, just overall tendencies.

My running theory for how I ended up inventing this distinction "out of thin air" is that I had conflated the words to sew and to sow: a seed drill and sewing machine after all both move over a flat surface to make holes in it at regular intervals, into which they quickly insert something, so people kinda do sow fields with seed in the same way as they sow shirts with thread. And then because I already believed these to be the same word, then seeing the same word with both a spelling that makes sense and a spelling that doesn't, caused me to rationalize the irregular spelling as representing some sort of archaic variant pronunciation — which I could then use when I wanted to sound fancy.

And yeah, once you make that sort of rationalization, then confirmation bias can take you a long way. But with time I did end up getting corrected and eventually I just stopped making the distinction.

Which is maybe a bit of a shame, because it would've been pretty cool to make that kind of distinction.

YuruYuri season 2 episode 11 @ 21:05.

• Part 1
• Part 2

You can check those posts for discussions and glosses of other anime, which might help you decipher these. Like the previous two parts, the plot descriptions here are based on those from Anilist, so consider using that site for reference; you can also use things like title structure, character names, and occasional numerals to help you figure things out.

Last time, only one of the three anime were deciphered, so I will reprint the two unsolved ones with glosses of the "solved words" now.

Unsolved from the previous post

A few hints

With that out of the way, let's get into the new titles to translate! Please spoiler your guesses.

~~1: YeĆapeyniv Ňátaňski~~

~~U. H****ő ňa pe-2-a so huynav tmocka ušat́ade korobev xaynanske na dohe dum pedećka... No yakruňeyneyvša ňa ariḱi so yayavša kruňta mpe! So šo, ńe : ňátaňdri... u yériḱiv 5 buhi ňa leňi — no ńe na može u kruňnǒni, šo uńet́ide teney na yebzev haymožej́este! Kože, šo yadogav anska yayḱav H****ő ňa siňet́a yeýerev yetǒy?! Yaspinav buha ňa uŕav graymej́eska na yakye-havfa so yetǒyv ňátaňski yǒynev N****ǒ dum yaňavša!~~

~~2: Spinzine~~

~~Yénime-dećte "Spinzine" ňa rámat́ev suske yejájév yespinzinev yeriniv 3 to draste — PKE-i N. M*ǒ, A. Y**ǒ, u M. M*ye — šo xampet́ev śeske yéxivńe so yáxeyv huyna Ś******ya: yedredre "H***śe", yedumaŕe N**ǒ yepedeynevše, u yeńevńe sulske štraske S******ǒ. Spinav buha he, yeziniv yéynivfi 6 so yeziniv yéyniv ňeni yerefarevńe ňa u yelanev zinev crske u eranstev tayze. Kot́i kruňuyne čay, kanet́ide tusun̋ǒv sulske čay, so rini bubut́i čay, so šo sint́i yakruňruňa pesiret́a gode čay suli ňa hiḱav spinav ana va yeziniv no crey yežuňiv yénime-dećte "Spinzine".~~

3: ROḰAV SVITA

Kav anskagunska he, ariḱiv 5 ńehke dećte so bubǒv xayede lo ńeklit́e óre va hiḱe na dećte, va, ka he, moževńe šehkev moḱske dećte, yéne so yegune. Fe xi žariv 2 he, A*ye, Ś****é, E*é, M**é, u M***ŕe ňa, yepsev yedoňiyev dećte ko yeruňivńe ňa: hiḱe nay u he bubǒ, hiḱe nay yohkske žo u žo, so šo vure nay u he vure va bant́e nódi.

Na šo, A*ye ňa yeyḱevše dum roypedeyne kliňket́i še, Ś****é ňa kliňkećke koto ňenbeni, M***ŕe ňa ran poĺa, M**é ňa sǒnt́e u šehkede remeynev SR-e, so šo E*é ňa menremeyne so spindogev bőśke. Yezinivńe dum yeĺenivńe kay? Nay! No ńenamožet́e na zídet́e svite kay? Nay la! Dećte ňa boni fat́ede he u he, fat́evde braškede lo buhe!

May be sent to a women's prison

"Oh dear, don't tell me this is some TERF screed... Well, it could also be the opposite, right? But I'm smelling a dead dove here..."

The perpetrators were three men, two of them transgender

"Either this is a very progressive way to cover two trans men, or a very regressive way to cover two trans women."

Identifying as women

"Yahari."

[interview with some TERF calling the Norwegian state's respect for the women's gender a "parody of political correctness", accusing trans women of being men trying to sneak into women's spaces, repeatedly emphasizing how the SA was penetrative using their "male organs"

"Eugh......."

[doesn't even interview anyone who isn't a TERF, leaving that person's stances completely unchallenged]

"Yup, it's manufacturing consent time!"

This wasn't some obscure publication, either, this was Nettavisen — Norway's first online-only news publication, founded in 1996, owned by the conglomerate Amedia, with a revenue of some 171.3 mln NOK (2021), so it's in fact one of the most popular news publications in the country.

News in this country has been increasingly embracing TERFism and other transphobia. I'm getting a bit worried about it.

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And so, we finally reach season 3, the only "single-cour" or "half-length" season of MLP:FiM (see "65 episode rule"). This incidentally also means that it's now T-14 days until we watch Equestria Girls (2013), and I am more hyped for that than I perhaps should be.

—But in any case!

What's the chef cookin' tonight?

• "The Crystal Empire" introduces us to a new and somewhat confusingly-named recurring location, which is Totally Not Just a Toy Tie-in. We also meet a new bad guy, who we will see again... But not for a pretty darn long while!
• "Too Many Pinkie Pies" is a very fun (fun! fun! fun!) episode in which Pinkie Pie becomes the very thing she sought to destroy in the season 1 episode "Swarm of the Century", and also maybe dies.
• "One Bad Apple" reminds you that Bronx is just one letter off from Brony, as Apple Bloom's cousin from Manehattan (who will be seen later, but is nonetheless underutilized) comes to visit. However, things do not go as planned, and things end with yet another reason to call the Cutie Mark Crusaders the Ojamajos of Equestria.
• "Magic Duel" sees the Great and Powerful Trixie — Everypony's Favorite Itinerant Transgender Mare — return to Ponyville more greater and powerfuller than ever before.
• "Sleepless in Ponyville" is an episode about ghost stories, and a key episode in Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo's relationship.

Content warnings

• slavery ("The Crystal Empire", "Magic Duel")
• PTSD ("The Crystal Empire")
• claustrophobia or isolation from the outside world ("The Crystal Empire", "Magic Duel")
• a character falls down stairs ("The Crystal Empire")
• implied murder ("The Crystal Empire", "Too Many Pinkie Pies")
• identity theft ("Too Many Pinkie Pies")
• bullying of a child ("One Bad Apple")
• child endangerment ("One Bad Apple")
• African witch doctor zebra ("Magic Duel")
• mild body horror ("Magic Duel", "Sleepless in Ponyville")
• mistreatment of animals ("Magic Duel")
• somewhat fascistic looking iconography ("Magic Duel")
• ageism and beauty standards? ("Sleepless in Ponyville")

Is there anything I should change about or add to this list? Please tell me!

♫ Uniting nations at the speeeed of liiiiight ♫
[epic sax solo]
♫ Station of the '20s — TV☆3SIS! ♫

The Open Sign Language Animation Project (OSLAP, Esperanto: Aperta Signolingva Animacia Projekto, abbrev. ASLAP; Japanese: {自由手話|じゆうしゅわ}アニメプロジェクト, romanized Jiyū Shuwa Anime Purojekuto) is an official partnership between the Japanese state-owned animation studio Musashino Animation and Locotian public broadcaster PDS (formerly PBS), to create publicly-available Blender files and other free animation assets based on popular anime films and TV series, for the purposes of creating sign language versions of these anime. OSLAP pioneered the techniques of slubbing ("sign language dubbing"); these techniques have since the beginning of OSLAP been used by other groups to create sign language versions of other films and series, both animated and live-action.

The Open Sign Language Animation Project was first announced on March 1, 2061, and was initiated by PDS for the purposes of creating programming in Hand Talk, a sign language which was designated as Locoti's primary national language the previous year. PDS had prior to OSLAP only dubbed films and series into Esperanto — Locoti's second national language — with only a Hand Talk interpreter in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The idea of completely remaking films and TV series in sign languages, rather than simply showing an interpreter on screen, came about from a belief that sign language remakes would be more immersive, legible and accurate, more effective as language learning resources, and would increase the prestige and public awareness of Hand Talk and other sign languages. The decision to remake classic anime specifically was primarily motivated by practical concerns.

Most of the anime remade by OSLAP are critically-acclaimed or extremely and enduringly popular across all age demographics and genders, particularly films and series created 50+ years ago. OSLAP slubs are released together as "golden collections"; as of 2080, these are the Studio Ghibli Golden Collection, the Animated Auteurs' Golden Collection, the Rumiko Takahashi Golden Collection, the World Masterpiece Theater Golden Collection, the Kyoto Animation Golden Collection, and the Magical Girl Golden Collection.

Although OSLAP follows the Coordinating Body's Sustainable Computing Guidelines, the project's use of motion capture technology, machine learning technology, and other technologies which increase the water footprint, electricity consumption and render times for the animations, have raised sustainability concerns among some critics. At the same time, although OSLAP has been praised as a mainstay of a new "golden age" of Deaf representation and sign language in popular media, the project has also been criticized for not involving the Deaf community enough in the animation process.

Process

Each slub begins with a planning stage. In this stage, which commonly employs crowdsourcing, anime are checked for considerations unique to that film or series, and the individual scenes are checked for the following^[non-exhaustive list]:

• mid-sentence cuts
• close-ups
• props or walls obscuring a character's hands or face
• narrators or other disembodied voices
• characters speaking out of frame
• characters with their backs turned to the camera or each other
• characters being spoken to while their eyes are closed
• scenes in low lighting or cramped spaces
• characters moving quickly or chaotically while speaking
• characters thinking
• characters speaking with both hands full
• characters wearing mittens
• deformation of a character's face or hands
• characters attempting to get each other's attention
• important sound effects whose sources are out-of-frame or not visible to the characters

The findings from this process are compiled into a report on whether the anime is considered to be "viable" for slubbing, and if so, what challenges must be overcome and which changes must be made. This report informs the script and storyboard, which are generally created by Deaf people or CODAs. Hearing characters in slubbed anime are often rewritten to be Deaf.

OSLAP slubs will generally reuse as much as they can from the original spoken-language version of the anime, including sound effects and music, background art, special effects, other animation and assets, and parts of the script and storyboard which can remain unmodified. A few other tropes are commonly employed to minimize differences between the spoken and sign language versions of an anime, such as presenting a disembodied narrator as a person in front of a projection screen; presenting a character's thoughts using a shoulder angel or a "team in the brain"; or using a "bubble in the corner" to depict a character or sound off screen without needing to change the camera angle. Talking animals are often rewritten to communicate telepathically.

The characters themselves will use 3D models, often fan-made, with an array of shaders and other effects to make them appear two-dimensional and as close to the original art style and frame rate as possible. These effects constitute the bulk of machine learning technology use in OSLAP slubs, although machine learning may also see limited use in background art, storyboarding, and other stages of the animation process. Amateur slubbers using OSLAP's files may disable some or all of these effects to reduce render times.

Most character animation is not done by Musashino Animation itself, and is instead done by PDS' in-house slubbing studio — or by other professional or amateur slubbing studios around the world — using motion capture technology.

-ende forms many (but far from all) ordinal numbers, and sju means "seven" and tjue means "twenty", which means that sjuende means "seventh" and tjuende means "twentieth".

...Now as you might figure from the slightly different spellings, these two words are pronounced slightly differently in more conservative dialects, differing really only in the place of articulation of the first consonant. The distinction between these two sounds is however highly unstable and lost in many younger speakers, myself included, leading these two words to only be distinguishable in context, if that.

The cardinal numbers sju and tjue remain distinguishable by number of syllables, since tjue has a little schwa on the end; however when slurring, or speaking quickly in a noisy environment, this isn't always a reliable distinction, either.

All is not lost, though! For there are still the variant forms syvende for seventh and tyvende for twentieth, from the variant cardinal numbers syv and tyve. These number words can feel kind of stilted for me to use, they come from the Dano-Norwegian of old and can therefore feel a bit old-fashioned outside a few set phrases (like "{til syvende og sist|to seventh and last}"^[equivalent to "at the end of the day"] or "{syvende far i huset|seventh father in the house}"^[an old man, esp. if stubborn; in reference to a fairy tale]).

At the end of the day, though, it's generally better to be clear in one's speech than to avoid using old people words.

My own idiolect also mergers /i/ and /y/ and has completely collapsed the pitch accent system, and also deletes some schwas here and there. These features may be a result of growing up bilingual. These idiosyncrasies of my speech lead me to merge words such as {tidlig|early} and {tydelig|clearly}, {å sykle|to bike} and {å sikle|to drool}, and more problematically I have merged the names of the letters I and Y, which makes it a bit harder to spell things out loud.

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Also note that we're starting half an hour early this time, since we're watching six episodes rather than five this time, including the series finale.

Episode titles: "America" — "The French Revolution" — "The Awakening of the People" — "The Belle Époque" — "The Crazy Years" — "Once Upon a Time... The Earth (and Tomorrow?)"

Content warnings: Death incl. murder — sexual assault — nudity — animal gore — disease — racist caricatures — religion presented as fact — Eurocentrism

NOTE: Do not treat a nearly 50 year old cartoon as a definitive source on world history! This show was inaccurate even when it was made! We are watching this show to be critical of our nostalgia, understanding it as a product of a particular historical and material context, and understanding that it reproduces harmful narratives about history.

As the controversy around the party's posters on the Oslo Metro has blown up over the past few days, I translated three articles from various news sources about the developing situation yesterday:

• NRK: Norwegian government committee will investigate financing of Peace & Justice Party ad campaign
• ABC Nyheter: Peace & Justice Party's website is down
• Aftenposten: Peace & Justice Party ending controversial ad campaign early; Oslo Tram Workers' Union distances itself from the campaign

Now, NRK reports, along with the host of Debatten Fredrik Solvang on his own Instagram account, that Peace & Justice will disclose the ever-mysterious source of their funding, for their strikingly large campaign for such a small party, on Debatten on NRK1 @ 9:15 PM CET. The party will further be explaining their stances on the War in Ukraine and Norway's role in it as part of the program.

I'm not going to translate Solvang's reel or the attached video in the NRK article, because there's a lot of "Russian propaganda????? Foreign influence????? Just look at the Romanian election!!!!!" type talk that just gives me a fucking migraine; but at the end of the day, by hosting Peace & Justice, NRK/Debatten is taking the oh-so-"edgy" narrative of "OK, but what if — get this — people can be opposed to sending weapons to Ukraine without being Russian assets?", which to me seems like it might be kind of a big deal?

We won't know how this will go until the show runs — whether tonight's episode of Debatten will be a part of a transition in Norwegian bourgeois media to favor withdrawing support for Ukraine, or whether having Peace & Justice on Debatten is really just a formality to again try to grab a hold of the narrative and push it back towards the status quo.

We also won't know how Peace & Justice itself will handle this opportunity, but in any case the Oslo Metro posters controversy reminds me of a previous "scandal" I've translated for the news comm, namely the Red Youth fake parking tickets controversy about three months ago. Like the ongoing Peace & Justice posters controversy, the Red Youth controversy three months ago involved that organization doing something potentially illegal, and keeping their lips sealed about it until they could reveal their big idea on Debatten.

Pretty much from the moment the Peace & Justice posters scandal broke out, I was thinking this may have been their strategy, going on Debatten to reveal the information they've been so conspicuously keeping secret for the past few days.

And yeah, if my sleep-deprived Swiss cheese brain could figure out that this was the party's endgame almost immediately, then surely actual news organizations would've realized it as well, right? Now average Joes filming themselves vandalizing the ads and posting their acts on social media, thereby giving the ads way more exposure than they would've had otherwise — that doesn't necessarily warrant much thought, I don't think, 'cause that's just standard viral marketing based on the premise that average people are not always the brightest and will do anything for likes. But actual news organizations? They have agendas and short and long term interests to balance, right?

With regard to those average Joes, though, I'm wondering if that's why the party originally planned for the campaign to last as long as a week, because they didn't have confidence that their virality would be so huge and immediate.

It is very amusing in any case that so many people keep thinking that the party is basically vandalizing and DDoSing itself for attention — no, I really just think they just know how to use what they have to their advantage. People I guess can't stand to think that the party is winning because it's so despised.

My own thoughts on Peace & Justice is that they seem like yahoos, I appreciate that they're critical of Norway's support for Ukraine but I don't really like how they're pitching this idea to the people of Norway as a matter of "look how we could spend the money we save on Ukraine on ourselves" — that to me seems like a bit of a selfish and "miserly" framing of it. But I guess things will go as they go and I don't have much power to change it. Shôganai.

Because this is a developing situation and the article keeps changing and I've already translated two articles about Peace & Justice today, I didn't feel like translating this Aftenposten article in full... Though I guess my summary of the article is arguably complete enough that it counts as a translation "of sorts"...? I dunno.

The gist of it is that the Peace & Justice Party's posters on the Oslo Metro, which say that the money Norway spends on Ukraine should instead be spent on welfare, keep getting vandalized, and the party has thus decided to end its contract. The official statement from the party, via party leader Marielle Leraand's Facebook account:

Press statement from Peace & Justice (FOR): End of advertising contract in Oslo's public transit network

Oslo, May 19th, 2025

The Peace & Justice Party has resolved to terminate the contract for advertising posters in Oslo's public transit. The cause is that Sporveien [who operate the Oslo Metro] has not been able to uphold the contract due to systematic, politically-motivated vandalism of our posters. The vandalism comes from actors who support NATO's proxy war in Ukraine, and reveals a disturbing intolerance for freedom of speech and democratic debate.

Historically, the foundational idea of fascism was a blind support for national participation in war, where resistance to democracy was justified with the desire for political unity in war time. The aggressive response to our pacifist campaign shows how easily offended and nervously aggressive the cross-party consensus on war financing is. Our posters, which challenge Norway's role in the conflict, have clearly struck a nerve, and the vandalism shows a democratic deficit when people try to silence critical voices.

The Peace & Justice Party will now spend the resources we are saving on the advertising contract on furthering our pacifist message in other arenas. This will be a test of the strength of Norwegian democracy: Will we be able to express ourselves freely, or will the attempts to silence us continue? We would like everybody who values freedom of speech and open debate about Norwegian foreign policy to support our work.

JC Decaux Norway, who are responsible for the ads on the Oslo Metro, do not believe that the vandalism campaign constitutes a breach of contract on Sporveien's part. CEO Gisle Holst Roness explains that the contract would have JC Decaux install new posters, but Peace & Justice would have to pay for the replacements; the party apparently paid for half of the posters in advance, and by canceling now they won't have to pay the other half. Roness does not wish to comment on whether the party's cancellation of the campaign may be connected to the mounting costs of having to constantly replace the posters.

Sporveien's communications manager Gina Scholz states that the vandalized posters have been noted, and that the company is considering whether to report the vandalism to the police. She urges passengers to have respect for the party's campaign even if they don't agree with its message. At the same time, the Oslo Tram Workers' Union (Oslo Sporveiers Arbeiderforening), which represents Sporveien's employees, has distanced itself from the ad with a declaration that reads,

OSA distances itself from divisive political ad

The Oslo Tram Workers' Union (OSA) has previously advised Sporveien not to accept political ads which run contrary to the values of the labor movement for display in public transit. These sorts of messages trash the city's image, not just visually, but politically and socially as well. Our members and passengers should not be caused distress by the ads they see on public transit.

Our country's parliament has granted money to Ukraine with broad consensus. The support is not for the purpose of fanning the flames of war but for the purpose of defense against an aggressor, and contributing to national reconstruction and democracy.

We are proud members of the Organization for Norwegian-Ukrainian Solidarity in the Labor Movement (Stiftelsen Fаglig Solidaritet Norge-Ukraina) and we stand with the Ukrainian people and their labor movement.

We believe that the phrasing of these sorts of ads now circulating are populist, divisive and indefensible. They undermine important values like international solidarity, and the fight for peace and democracy. The OSA has always had a clear line: we do not support hateful rhetoric or campaigns that pit groups of people against each other.

We support solidarity in Norway and internationally.

The article then continues with some quotes from Oslo's governing mayor, Eirik Lae Solberg (Conservative), saying that although he strongly disagrees with the campaign, and is "concerned" about Peace & Justice's refusal to disclose how they paid for the campaign, and is accordingly glad that the party is now under investigation from the government; that he does not think it's right for the Oslo government to ban the ads. A previous version of this article, which unfortunately does not appear to have been archived, included a quote to the effect of "That would be political censorship, which doesn't belong in the liberal society we want to defend"; this quote is however still included in Nettavisen's article, which also quotes Solberg as saying, "Democratic parties must tolerate being looked into, especially when their message is so strong and controversial."

The Aftenposten article concludes with some quotes from an associate professor at the Department of Public and International Law at the University of Oslo, Anine Kierulf, who has "expertise" in freedom of speech, basically just confirming that Peace & Justice's ads are within the bounds of free speech, and that the idea of banning expression of opposition to Norway's support for Ukraine has up to this point never been a point of discussion ("aktuelt", lit. "relevant")