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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."
So that means no more Hitler...or anything remotely linked to WWII...i feel bad for the German student writing the book report about WWII's causes...that's gonna be pretty odd...
Have you seen the arrow?
Isn't part of the EU constitution a bit about free speech?
How does that affect these national laws which prevent us from expressing hate openly?
While this is only my first post here, I still happen to think that it's smart of them to regulate themselves instead of having the government come in and do it. Censorship (self-imposted or otherwise) sucks any way you slice it, true, but at least if it's self-imposed they will be able to ease or lift it entirely once the political climate improves. Much the same way that the comic book industry censored themselves, and then eased the the enforcement of their standards when adult comics such as the vertigo line became popular.
"Your admirers in the street
Got to hoot and stamp their feet
in the heat from your physique" -King Crimson
Yes...but .de is in a language they know. .com may not be...and, for those who don't know how to use preferences to switch Google to l33t/german, aka the common man, .de would just be more convenient...and would show results in German
Have you seen the arrow?
When I was in Canada last, I noticed google automatically redirected you to Google.ca, presumably based on my ISP. That being said, I didn't care enough at the time to try to get around it, so google.com may have been perfectly available.
OK, I'm replying to my own post, but:
:)
"Forbidden in Germany and restricting the freedom of speech are child pornography,
Agreed.
right wing extremist "hate" sites
Not so much. Not a big fan of the state deciding what's hate and what isn't.
incitement to commit crimes
But crimes are fun.
race discrimination
I might not like it, but..
treasonable conduct as an agent for sabotage purposes
Do they have that many websites advocating the theft of German state secrets?
glorification of violence
NFL.com: outlawed.
or offence against the law for the protection of the youth.
Protect your own kids. You don't need to ban content, you just need to CHOOSE NOT TO VIEW IT.
- I am a german, but I am not a nazi. I belive in a democracy and don't want to change that.
I am not for censorship
The neonazis say "Die Nazis haben nie Gaskammern gebaut, alles eine Lüge" (Translation: "The nazis never built gas chambers, that's a lie!"
If you use google.de, you will get the "censored" results. For example links to informations/documetation websites that explain why this was a bad period in german history....
I think there will be no links to any websites of Garry Lauck"
If you use google.com you will get "the american version" of the results.
My opinion is that you can not surpress other "beliefs" but you can inform that these beliefs are bad or caused people to behave barbarous against other people.
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
> 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
That's definitely not what German laws against Nazi propaganda try to do. You can discuss history quite freely, provided that you don't promote Nazi ideals, or claim that there was no mass-murder on Jews, etc. In fact, even outright Nazi propaganda pieces like the movie "Jud Süß" can be shown if it's done in a proper context, like a history exhibition. My 10th grade history textbook quoted passages from "Mein Kampf"... quite effectively showing what a paranoid nutjob Hitler was.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Yes. According to Riane Eisler, this is because the US has a "blade" culture and Europe has a "Chalice" culture.
Huh? My responses were:
Good
Bad
Bad
Bad
Bad
Bad.
Anytime I used the word 'Fine' (except when it applied to kiddie pron...I followed it up with a reason that it may look fine on the surface but it could be repressing important freedoms. My whole point was on the surface these things are worded to sound ok and many will not oppose them but lead to oppression and may have an effect that the Germans aren't looking for.
If you're about freedom of speech none of it is "fine" including that ever so easily demonized first entry.
Posting pictures of abused children isn't 'speech' or 'freedom of speech'. If someone wants to post a NAMBLA rant that is fine too, let them tell the world how fucked up they are. Like I mentioned in another post, giving wackos freedom of speech is like giving them the rope to hang themselves with.
Cowardice and hypocrisy
Just because you don't agree with my opinions doesn't mean you have to resort to name calling, bitch ass. (Now that was hypocrisy)