Germany Legislates For Mandatory Web Filters

An anonymous reader writes "Germany's Minister for Families has announced a legislative initiative to force ISPs to implement a government-mandated block list (in English), which will be updated daily. The BKA (Germany's equivalent of the FBI) will be in charge of generating and maintaining the list. As usual, this is being brought in under the 'fight child porn' guise. The minister is quoted as saying: 'We must not water down the problem' in reply to being challenged that this law and technology could be used to censor other content. She then went on to say: 'I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop.' She has agreed the principle of the legislation with the interior minister and the technology minister, which in German coalition government terms means it's pretty much a done deal."

Comments

Re:The world had its taste of freedom...

[LWATCDR]

The thing is that if the list is public and they try and slip in a site that shouldn't be blocked then people in an other country will find out and post it on news sites. If the German government blocks Slashdot, Digg, or CNN then you will know that they are censoring political speech.
"Because there's no such thing as "correctly." The whole point is to take discretionary power away from the people and put it into the hands of government."
The Government is elected by the people in Germany at least. The people of Germany have decided that some speech isn't protected. Actually a LOT of political speech is not protected in a lot of EU countries. Things like pro Nazi speech is a good example. I kind of have a mixed feeling about that. While a world without Nazis really makes me smile it is still political speech even if it is ugly, nasty, stupid speech.
But that is my opinion and frankly it really has no standing. It is up to the people of Germany to decide what is best for them. What I think and what you think if you are not a German citizen really doesn't matter.