[governance] The dawning of Internet censorship in Germany

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

This op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal Asia is relevant to this
discussion and may be of interest:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124525992051023961.html

Best,
Rebecca

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Daniel Oppermann
<dan.oppermann at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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-- 
Rebecca MacKinnon
Open Society Fellow | Co-founder, GlobalVoicesOnline.org
Assistant Professor, Journalism & Media Studies Centre, University of Hong
Kong

USA: +1-617-939-3493 |  HK: +852-6334-8843
Mainland China: +86-13710820364

E-mail: rebecca.mackinnon at gmail.com
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