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In case any non-German Dakkites are interested in this, I'll give a short summery in english:

Germany's minister of family affairs, Ursula von der Leyen has plans introducing a new law for German Internet users. In the beginning, it was supposed to be step against childpornography. When German Internet users would somehow through chance land on a website containing child pornography, instead of seeing said website, they would only see a digital STOP sign. This, so said Miss von der Leyen, would be a devasting blow to the child pornography industry (which is a myth, btw.).
Now, besides the fact, that this only covers the issue up instead of doing something usefull, like working against the hosts, there has been a small change in the proposed law. Now, it no longer about childporn, but pretty much anything else and porn is just listed as an example. If this law passes, anything could be blocked! First it's only child porn. Then it's regular porn. What comes next? English videogaming sites which talk about games that are forbidden in Germany??? Dakka???
What we can see here, is a recepi for governmental cencorship of the worst kind. Internet cencorship.

So please, I know there are a few German users on this board (I already contacted Symbio Joe via ICQ), please, sign up and vote for this official online petition!!!

Not a german, but that's what governments do. They use children as a way and a means to further their agendas. Gun control, censorship, etc all have "what about the children" as a common cry. Child pornography is bad, but anyone who signs that petition will probably be seen as a pedophile even if they aren't. Good luck to ya in your fight against total censorship though.

Censorship isn't supported here, so we will bring those "ideas " down swiftly.

Using software for elections got down the drain and this expansion of an "security" software too.

I'm sorry but whoever bans "Vroom Vroom Party Starter!" has my vote

Frazzled wrote:I'm sorry but whoever bans "Vroom Vroom Party Starter!" has my vote

I don't get it

Its a commercial here. Some late night talk show host goes to a small norweigan country to do a bad commercial and he sees his image in a leopard suit in Times Square going (in bad German accent) "Vrrroom Vrrrooom Party Starta!"
Ah the miracle of youtube


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HazUvFXY2X4

Eh, Childporn should be blocked in my opinion... I mean its pretty easy to find on Google and if Google can block things for the Chinese I would assume they can block things for other people as well.

As to censorship, somethings should be censored, most however are simply things in bad taste. Like white supremacists sites and such. So personally, Childporn, b8, most other stuff, not so much deserving.

And this is when anarchism seeems like a smart idea. Sadly, governments are a nescessary evil. At least till the Nuclear Holocaust.

Which buttons do I click to sign up for this? Censorship sucks in pretty much all it's forms, and this is a way I can step up.

Now, while I am all for banning child porn and things like the BME pain olympics, I think Germany's so-called 'child protection' is way OTT. I mean, just how many games and movies are banned over there?

At first I thought Australia was bad because we didn't get the uncut version of GTA IV, but that actually seems halfway reasonable.

Cheese Elemental wrote:Now, while I am all for banning child porn and things like the BME pain olympics, I think Germany's so-called 'child protection' is way OTT. I mean, just how many games and movies are banned over there?

At first I thought Australia was bad because we didn't get the uncut version of GTA IV, but that actually seems halfway reasonable.

seriously, any frikkin movie gets cut these days for no appearent reason.
and then they sell the farking dvds with a big stamp on it that says: uncut version.

uncut my a$$

Cheese Elemental wrote:
At first I thought Australia was bad because we didn't get the uncut version of GTA IV, but that actually seems halfway reasonable.

Mainly because Australia MAKES better games than ANY of the GTA series.

Blocking CP, sure. Just about anything else, get ed.

Golden Eyed Scout wrote:Which buttons do I click to sign up for this? Censorship sucks in pretty much all it's forms, and this is a way I can step up.

I think you'd have to be German citizen to sign that petition. It's all official and stuff, on a site from the government.

The Problem with videogames here is, that even Mature-rated games have to be cut sometimes, because IF a child would see/play them it COULD damage them.....

Anung Un Rama wrote:... because IF a child would see/play them it COULD damage them.....

As my grandfather used to say:

Overboss's Grandpappy wrote:
If the ocean were whiskey
And I were a duck
I'd dive to the bottom
And never come up

That's a load of bull.

IF a child went outside, the COULD hurt themselves
IF a child went to school, they COULD be murdered by insane kids.

Tell your government to shove it up their ass.

Tell your government to shove it up their ass.

They never reply to those kind of letters

Usually I write one letter, where I try to describe the issue at hand as serious as possible, then I get a letter where they basically just tell me what I just complained about adn totally ignore everything I said.
The I write a 2nd letter, a little more angry then before. They never answer to that one.

OverbossGhurzubMoga wrote:

Anung Un Rama wrote:... because IF a child would see/play them it COULD damage them.....

As my grandfather used to say:

Overboss's Grandpappy wrote:
If the ocean were whiskey
And I were a duck
I'd dive to the bottom
And never come up

That's a load of bull.

IF a child went outside, the COULD hurt themselves
IF a child went to school, they COULD be murdered by insane kids.

Tell your government to shove it up their ass.

Just out of interest, what are the odds of this happening, compared to having an older sibling living at home who owns said mature games or in fact movies? I think you will find that your listed examples are considerably less likely to happen than a child stumbling upon inappropriate material at home.

I realise that you come from a country that is built upon allowing it's people to do what they want, but me, I think 90% of people are selfish idiots who do need to have some rules put in place to protect them. However although I believe this I also believe that all citizens need to keep an eye on their leaders and the rules that they make to make sure that they don't walk all over us.

So, just in case anyone is interested in this, the law got through. All they need is the "Bundespräsident" to sign it.
So the official Internetpetition I posted a link to, was rather useless altough it was the biggest official online petition in Germany ever with over 130000 votes.

And yes, altough the law was only supposed to be used against child pornography, there are already a lot of members of the CDU (which are kinda like Republicans I guess from what I heard) which want to block "online killergames" as well.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124525992051023961.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

In Germany, Internet users and civil liberties groups are fighting proposed legislation mandating a national censorship system. The Bundestag votes today on a bill authorizing German police to establish and maintain a list of Web sites that Internet service providers would be required to block. In a petition against the bill, German civil liberties groups call it "untransparent and uncontrollable, since the 'block lists' cannot be inspected, nor are the criteria for putting a Web site on the list properly defined." These concerns aren't unfounded: Some German politicians have already suggested extending the block list to Islamist Web sites, video games and gambling Web sites, while book publishers have suggested it would also be nice to block file-sharing sites too.

It is times like these that I flirt with the idea of Anarcishm.


So what do you do for a living?

I destabilise governments and structured organisations.


Sounds nice.

So it got through? That is really, really crappy and frustrating.


How many people here (in Germany) actually think this is a good thing?

That depends on how you ask...

See this is how things start. Britain has a similar system called the IWF whereby if members of the public find a site that is hosting CP they can report it (I know because I reported a forum I used when I found out some users where using it to trade pictures of underage girls, not a pleasant experience finding out that).

I don't mind such systems in principle after all CP is a horrible scourge, I agree about there being no industry, my brother in law works in IT forensics for the police so sees the aftermath of anti CP operations frequently. The vast number of perpetrators are enthusiastic amateurs. Anyway I digress!

What I do object to is when such operations are carried out with no clear rules and can then in theory block whatever they feel like. I recall one hacker found the filter list for his respective country (Germany I think) and published it on-line. The reason he did this was because less than half the blocked sites where related to CP, the rest where blocked for other reasons, mostly due to dubious political reasons.

So I don't disagree with it existing per say, but the rules on what it may or may not black need to be *crystal* clear and related only to sites engaging in illegal activity.

I heard from that published list. It wasn't Germany though. The Law just got passed last thursday. I think it Finnland or something up there.
The rules weren't that crystal clear when it started out, but politicians were talking about blocking more sites only an hour after it was decided.

Anung Un Rama wrote:I heard from that published list. It wasn't Germany though. The Law just got passed last thursday. I think it Finnland or something up there.
The rules weren't that crystal clear when it started out, but politicians were talking about blocking more sites only an hour after it was decided.

Ah I stand corrected. Anyway the point remains that unless the rules are watertight then give them an inch and they will take a mile!

What also terribly annoys me about this whole situation that the people who support the blockiing always say "the internet is not a law-free space" like it's something that everyone who's against the blocking doesn't know.

I weep for Germany's loss of 4chan.

Jimi Nemesis wrote:

Cheese Elemental wrote:
At first I thought Australia was bad because we didn't get the uncut version of GTA IV, but that actually seems halfway reasonable.

Mainly because Australia MAKES better games than ANY of the GTA series.

Blocking CP, sure. Just about anything else, get ed.

Yeah like... Wait what games come out of australia again? I guess 2k australia? Thats the only big one I know of.



You can't censor things on the internet. Child pornography are just jpegs and videos on reletively untraveled sites. A computer can not identify the contents of the images it is showing and the nature of these sights are that they are fly by night affairs that come up and down quickly. This is just a BS anti porn law that won't work.

I should probably rephrase a bit more specifically, I don't have a problem with child porn being blocked and combated (I think it should be, although Shuma raises a good point that it can be difficult, for various reasons). I do however have a big problem with censoring any other sort of internet content.

The government should not be doing that kind of crap. Government censorship doesn't benefit anyone except for those in power.

Wolfstan wrote: .......I think 90% of people are selfish idiots who do need to have some rules put in place to protect them.

See.... I very much doubt that it's the government's job to protect people from themselves. Especially since most laws that are in place for this reason are just thinly disguised operations for revenue generation. For instance, seatbelt laws, and helmet laws. I agree that mandatory seatbelts and helmets for children is a good idea; Children have underdeveloped logic skills, and can't be trusted to make informed decisions for themselves. However, once a person is considered legally responsible for themself, the government's responsibility for their personal safety is annulled and should shift to the person in question. Everybody I know agrees that a person should be free to do what they want as long as they aren't harming anybody else, but there's BIG money in 'government assisted' decisionmaking, not to mention those people who seem to think that it IS their business to make sure everybody toes the line, even if that line infringes the right to make our own mistakes.

Wolfstan wrote:I realise that you come from a country that is built upon allowing it's people to do what they want, but me, I think 90% of people are selfish idiots who do need to have some rules put in place to protect them.

Wow.

All right, first of all, how is it selfish to cause yourself harm? Second of all, who's more self absorbed: the person who lets others make their choices according to what they think is important (so long as they don't harm others), or the person who thinks they need to forcibly intervene into the lives of others so that they make decisions according to their values and desires?

And who is the idiot: the person who defers judgement of what's best for an individual to the individual in question, or the person who presumes to know what's best for strangers they've never met? (And probably defines what's best based on what they themselves care about.)

I think Lordhat's crazy some of the time, but I have to agree with him here.