Thoughts of things that hit the reef…

Hej, actually I wanted to write more about international politics. But we have elections this year coming up and therefore it is a lot going on in German politics lately. So I am going to talk about the Internet blockades, they are not only a topic in Germany at least.

The last few month the legislature tried to install a law to block web pages with child pornography. I already gave a short summery in another articel. The German law passed the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, our two chambers of legislative, and should have been signed this Friday by the Bundespräsident. Unlike Presidents or Primeminsters of other countrys he has only few rights. One of these few is, that he has to sign bills after they have been accepted by the Bundestag and Bundesrat in order to become law. But the new bill, which should be in order as of August the 1st, wasn’t signed, because it was not ready.

That is not because of the many protesters against this law, it is because our government is fearing the EU government. The EU has released guidelines for such laws and our government is not sure whether the passed bill match that mandatory guidelines or not. If it wouldn’t match the EU guideline, the law would by unlawful and therefore laps. In fact both instances have maybe passed an unlawful law. It is not only violating EU law it may also violate our beloved Grundgesetzt (our Constitution).

But to the facts, the bill was introduced by Ursula von der Leyen she is Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Yes that’s a real name). In in her position to watch over the German youth, she herself has seven children (which is about 18.9% of the German youth population [round about]), she wanted to protect the German Internet from showing child pornography.

Okay, let’s take short break here. Child pornography is a serious problem, along with many other issues. What it makes about the worst crime is, that it affects innocent and defenceless children. There is no good reason why we shouldn’t forbid, people watching child rapes in the Internet. What we can discuss is, what else can we do to prevent such bad things and what has to go along with the Internet blockage.

For starters, Ms. von der Leyen has created this bill probably for only one reason. Power. In this case reelection. They may be the issue of protecting children, almost all of her “facts” has been proven wrong. She claimed, for example, that there are 160 states with laws against child-porn and 95 nations without any law of that kind. First there are currently only 193 sovereign states. Then lots of those nations without any law against child-porn has laws that forbid pornography in general. Beside the USA and Somalia all nations have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which also prohibits child-porn. That would only leave Somalia, but they have currently other problems.

Ms. von der Leyen made in many points clear why she has almost no idea about the Internet and why such a blockade is a bad thing for many Internet users. She antagonized many lots of people with her reckless accusation, that many experienced Internet users who can by-pass the blockade were potential child-porn consumers. Of cause the current Internet community is to young to be a target group for election campaign, also many “off-liners” also agreed with her plans, without really knowing what are they about.

Under which circumstances could I personally tolerate a Internet blockade and life with it?

First, the list of blocked sites must be freely available. The argument, that this would prevent the prosecution of the content suppliers, because they would then know that they are being watched, is stupid. In the moment, the blockade is active, the website admin would know that it. Because if from one day to another the access statistics from one country drops to zero you would see it. Even more if the website is commercial motivated. And, by putting the website on the blocking list, we would admit, that we can’t do anything about it.

Second, the blocking can not be the only corse of action. German executive has to enforce, the remove of the website and the prosecution of the operator. Which means, asking the hoster to delete the page, asking to remove the DNS entry if possible, asking the local executive to prosecute the operator. I not only mean, sending a nice mail. They have to check if there action cause any changes. If not they have to try harder, call higher instances if possible.

Third, ONLY BLOCKING CHILD-PORN content. In the last days, Ms. von der Leyen is claiming that the Internet is lawless area. That’s wrong, the websites under German jurisdiction, fall under German law. If you are mobbing, insulting or molesting someone. You can be prosecuted. The first voice call already for blocking Nazi-pages. One can say that’s good, because Nazi are stupid bastard, in my opinion. But what would be the next step? Left extreme pages? Religious organizations? Unpleasant comments? Parties? We have laws to prosecute Nazis, laying a blindfold over the peoples eyes will not make them go away.

Fourth, it is zenzorship. We dont like every thing, whats in the internet. Many people don’t understand what the internet is. Many people don’t understand our new culture. We should show them some symathy and try to explain them how it works. Eventually they will understand, or not.

For now, Internet blockates are just a cheep way to get votes.In my Opinion, it can lead in two directions. A real Internet Zenzorship which cloud maybe lead into a absolutistic system or, and thats my favorit direction, into more understanding between on-liners and off-liner where such blockates are not neccesary.

It’s late, if you find any errors, keep them.