Slashdot Mirror
German Search Engines Self-Regulating
Philipp Lenssen writes "Heise reports the German search engines Google.de, Lycos Europe, MSN Germany, AOL Germany, Yahoo.de, T-Online and T-Info today in Berlin announced the forming of a self-regulating organization (Babelfish version) under the hood of the German FSM (the "Voluntary Self-Control for Multimedia Service Providers"). Their combined goal is to streamline the process of censoring content ruled illegal under German law, so that a user's search results are stripped from such items."
What's stopping someone in Germany from just going to Google.com instead of Google.de? Would they not then get uncensored results?
Who doesn't like free music?
...where you can get fined for saying "fuck" on public radio. Was your post irony or hypocrisy?
One thing listed was " glorification of violence".
Wouldn't that mean web sites and game servers for half the games out there could be considered illegal?
Reasonable laws quickly become unreasonable when they're written too vaguely.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
MSN already banned searches for "Adolf Hitler" from it's German search engine, which does of course make a lot of sense, as only Neo-Nazi scum would search for something like this.
People like me who are interested in history would never entertain even the thought to search for "Adolf Hitler" or "Holocaust" on the web.
After all we might stumble on sites like this:
http://www.holocaust-history.org/
Now wouldn't that be terrible...
so, the search engine folks have the choice of self-censoring, or getting slapped for breaking German law... in other words, they're already responsible for the things they link to, at least as far as "offensive speech" is concerned...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
Seems fair to me. I'm all for free speech, but not when it entices crime.
Define "crime."
Speeding is a crime. In many parts of the United States, for example, exceeding 65 MPH is a crime, and on most urban expressways, exceeding 55 MPH is a crime.
The song "I can't drive 55" (1980s crapola music, but nevertheless) arguably incites one to commit a crime. Under the law you just cited, that would be censorable material.
As would many discussions here on slashdot in opposition to existing copyright law, patent law, and in support of many peer-to-peer networking technologies.
I can understand why Germany finnds such speech annoying and offensive, but censorship isn't the answer, and I'm afraid Europe (and perhaps most of the western world) is about to get a lesson in just how bad an idea censorship, even of offensive material, really is, and exactly how much worse such a cure is than the disease it's intended to address.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
There's a different view on what is acceptable in Europe and the USA. Europeans ban violence, the USA ban nudity and sex.
In Germany there's also an historical aspect to this. After the horrible things which were done by germans from 1933-1945 I find it very understandable that we have laws banning anyone to say it was cool murdering all those people or that it never happened. And somehow it is even expected from Germany to act this way. Every nation has it's radicals and idiots. But when our local idiots march again there's an outcry in the press in e.g. France or Israel : "Look, it's happening again!".
while (!asleep()) sheep++
If the content filtered out from the search results is really illegal, the authorities should go after those who put the contents online.
And if the german authorities cannot stop the contents because it is located in other contries, this kind of censorship is no better than the censorship done by countries like Iran and China. The only difference is that it is called "voluntary". Please note that Germany has a history of banning both extreme rigth-wing and extreme left-wing political speech.
Denying the holocaust is considered infringing on the right of the remaining jewish community.
Why? It's a crackpot opinion and I'd rather have those denying it stating it in public than in the shadows. It's simply a free speech issue, let people deny the holocaust it's the same as people who come online and try to say 2+2 = 5 or that Planet X is coming to kill us.
Denying the holocaust isn't hurting anyone, it's just like the moron professor who is running around saying that the people in the twin towers got what they deserved. It's insenitive, stupid, and detached from reality. But by giving these people freedom of speech you are giving them the rope to hang themselves with.
Why you can still argue if the German law is a good or a bad thing in that case, most ranting slashdotters should think about the reason why the founding fathers&mothers of the Federal Republic of Germany installed this law in 1948/49.
It was because they were still under the impression of the horrifing death the Weimar Republic experienced in the late 1920 and early 1930, leading to the birth of the 3. Reich.
Nazis came to power because of their demagogic methods, what is called "Volksverhetzung" (special form of sedition) today and the Communists paroles of that time werent much better only on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
Critical, sensitive, rational thinking didnt reach the masses (voters) at that time. And the founding fathers feared that the masses could be blinded again.
So like USA citizens see it as an important right to own weapons because of their history and people of other nations might think it is strange, Germans might see it as important to censor Volksverhetzung in any kind because of their own history.
Keep that in mind.
For all who want to know more about the background of the dying Weimar Republic this book is perhaps the best:
Sebastian Haffner -- Defying Hitler: A Memoir
--- censored
Searching is not a crime. Period.
Hosting and posting illegal content is (at least in some countries)
Trimming search input in the hopes of curbing "hate crimes" and pr0n is a dangerous precedent. I'd wager that policies like this make it easier to propagate 'revisionist' history.
one better than mcleodeight
I dunno. I'm not for nazi ideals nor what they stood for, however, they ARE a part of history, a big part of Germany's history. Isn't it often said, those that don't learn from the past are destined to repeat it? Well, if you try to completely eradicate parts of the past, and censor it into oblivion, then how can future generations learn from it to avoid it?
Same with racial topics....even in the US we deal with this (though not governmentally regulated yet). Movies like Song of the South, by Disney never see the light of day. Sure, they have racial stereotypes from the past, that are not the norm today, however, it IS a picture of history of many ideals held in the past not only when the movie was made, but, of the time period it portrayed. People need to see this, to understand where and why things are the way they are today. The old Disney and Bugs Bunny cartoons of the WWII era...mostly propaganda, with caricatures of Japanese and Germans in them...totally gone from TV (I remember seeing them in the afternoons after school, and I'm not THAT old)...this is history.
While you may not agree with the way people thought and acted in the past, it is important NOT to whitewash history, and re-write it, less it be forgotten, and have a future generation hit upon these old ideas as new ones...and have them possibly start up anew in ways to destroy any progress we have made over the years.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........