Germany joins online censor club
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Germany is the latest country to decide its mandate includes online censorship.
It’ll soon be dishing out blacklists to ISPs, German news sources such as Der Spiegel report, says Blogoscoped.
Australia’s Labour government wants a Net ‘filter’ scheme and UK culture secretary Andy Burnham is demanding online X-ratings, a mandatory time-limited ‘take down’ requirement for sites such as YouTube, and new libel laws, said p2pnet recently.
“New standards of decency” need to be applied to the web, The Telegraph had him saying, going on:
“He is planning to negotiate with Barack Obama`s incoming American administration to draw up new international rules for English language websites.”
In Germany, “This move is proclaimed to only filter child porn,” says Blogoscoped. “In about 6-8 weeks the dealings with the ISPs should be finalized, German family minister [Ursula von der] Leyen (right) said, expecting the technical implementation to go live this year. Already, German regulatory offices have been working with search engines like Google to block content based on a blacklist. (Google Germany, for instance, bans certain Holocaust denial material, as that is illegal in Germany.)”In regards to objections that, once such censorship technology is in place, other areas outside child porn might be blocked too, Leyen said child porn is easy to be separated from other things. She admitted, however, that she wasn`t able to say what future politicians might do with the censorship technology.”
Von der Leyen, a mother of seven, “has long made the fight against child porn a priority, and said she had recently enlisted Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and Economy Minister Michael Glos to help hammer out a telecommunications law that solidifies the obligatory block in addition to the existing bans on child pornography,” says The Local, adding:
“But critics of the new system say that officially blocking one subject even one as universally condemned as child porn could lead to censorship of gambling or pirated music sites, for example. Von der Leyen rejected claims that the project could limit freedoms in the future, though, saying critics should not ‘water down the point’.”
Blogoscoped – German Government Wants to Start ISP-Based Censoring, January 16, 2009
Net `filter` scheme – Oz Net Censorship plan still on track, December 27, 2008
p2pnet – Radical UK Net censorship plan, new libel laws, December 27, 2008
The Telegraph – Internet sites could be given `cinema-style age ratings`, Culture Secretary says, December 27, 2008
The Local – Germany to implement obligatory block on child porn sites, January 16, 2009
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January 22nd, 2009 at 4:40 am
Yeah… because the block list worked wonders here. And was never used for anything else than intended. Idiots with e-literacy problems make the rules. Don’t start a blocklist that don’t do anything except piss off your critics. Do something about the problem. Inform the ISP’s to take down the sites. Most countries have laws against child porn. USE THEM YOU FUCKING E-IDIOTS!
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:33 am
These things are so easy to work around anyway with an ounce of technical knowledge, or without it if you have a good guide and some common sense.
They are pathetic, useless, and only act as something the politicians in question can use to censor whatever they personally find objectionable.
Censorship has no place in a free society. None whatsoever. If there is censorship it will be abused by those in charge of it.