[governance] The dawning of Internet censorship in Germany

[Daniel Oppermann]

Unfortunately filters do not protect children from abuse. And this is
one of the main arguments of the filter's critics. They are mostly
hiding some websites but not doing anything about the business behind
it. Besides that a big part (maybe the biggest part) of child porn
trading does not happen via websites. Which means the filter has no
effect at all about that.

I understand the interest of politicians and some NGOs (like Save the
Children or others) to do anything to protect children (and getting
votes and/or donations). But using Internet filter is not the right way.

Over 134.000 signatures in a few weeks is the highest amount an
e-petition has ever gained in Germany (the second biggest has about
52.000 and deals with social security reforms). One important reason why
this topic got so big in Germany is the fact that there is quite a high
sensibility in some parts of the German population regarding privacy and
restrictions of access to information and governmental control in
certain areas. Besides the historic experiences from the time of
dictatorship in the 1930s to 1940s this has also partly to do with the
students' movements in the 1960, the experiences of governmental
controls in the 1970s (era of terrorism), the national discussion about
a population census in the 1980s, the fall of the East German regime in
1989, and the 1990s discussion about the surveillance activities of the
East German secret service (this discussion lasts until today).

Concluding this I want to say that arguing about the possibilities that
a censorship regime could be installed by this filter can successfully
mobilize a bigger group of people. And as all German online media have
reported quite critically about the filter in the last weeks, signing
the e-petition was just a click away. 


Best, Daniel




Am Mittwoch, den 17.06.2009, 14:56 -0700 schrieb Sylvia Caras:
> I send an alert about this to a colleague of mine who does human
> rights advocacy in Germany.  Her reply very strongly supports the
> filter, that protecting children from abuse trumps any other
> interests.
> 
> I was surprised in Athens at how strong the 'save the children'
> presence was.  I felt like one issue, information freedom, had been
> co-opted by another, protection and that the field was not at all
> level.
> 
> Sylvia
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