Slashdot Mirror
German Publishers Want Censorship Talks With Apple
An anonymous reader writes "The association of German magazine publishers has sent a letter to Steve Jobs (Google translation; German original here) demanding talks about censorship by Apple. The move draws attention to growing concerns about freedom of the press when a single unelected commercial entity has worldwide control over what gets published for the iPhone and, especially, the iPad." While the magazine publishers may rightly be concerned about private control of a platform that many of them are counting on for their long-term salvation, the German state is at the very least ambivalent about the subject of censorship. This is the country that has banned Wikileaks, sought a ban on violent games, and voted to censor child porn (only to have the president kill the ban as unconstituitonal).
I'd like to posit that Apple doesn't have complete control over what content is available for the iPhone/iPad, because it has a web browser.
Still, I'd be happy to see an alternative to the App Store or some compromise on their approval process.
Long live the BSD license
Germans usually tolerate porn and other adult content more than in the US. In contrast vandalism, violence, nazism, or other cultist movements are censored in Germany.
"This is the country that has banned Wikileaks"
Damn Nazis.
"A single unelected commercial entity has worldwide control over what gets published for" the PS3.
"A single unelected commercial entity has worldwide control over what gets published for" the Wii.
Are they pushing Apple to do the same as Sony and Nintendo, or are they pushing for special privileges?
What's stopping them from simply publishing their content as web pages?
Why would they want special applications?
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
Except they didn't. wikileaks.de was disabled because the guy who own this domain (and nothing else related to wikileaks) didn't pay his bills. He was also involved in some fraud so his ISP didn't want to do business with him any more. They informed him 3 or 4 month before killing his account, he just forgot about it.
Good thing the word sought is there. The conservative hardliners have been talking about it for 20 years now and so far not much has happened. Preemptive censorship by the publishers is far worse.
Except he didn't, he signed this law. It's just that everybody (including half the people who voted for it) hoped he wouldn't because a few month after this law was voted on the pirate party gained 2% in the federal election (5% is the minimum to get seats, which they did get in some regions). The last thing any of the established parties want is yet another party to worry about so internet topics suddenly because important. The ministry of justice has instructed the police to treat this law as the most unimportant one of all (i.e. not enforce it) and the parliament is actively working on replacing it with a law that does not allow filtering. All in all, awesome summary.
Today's experiment
Well yes, we *have* problems with censorship and freedom in germany (as probably any other country has these days), but this summary is so wrong it hurts really bad...
As mentioned in comments before:
- the internet censorship stuff has not been banned by President Köhler, he just did not sign immediately. He did later, but after an election and a shift in government partys, the law has been stopped by the new government
- the "violent video" thing has been discussed by many hardliners, but there never has been a broad support for that
- wikileaks was not "banned" or anything. The stupid domain owners just did not take the proper steps to keep the domain
So, one will find other, definitely even worse crimes against humanity in Germany, but this list is, well... sort of "outdated and overcome".
Oh, and on topic: the publishers have some valid points here, and we might see some regulations for Apple in Germany. Porn is not illegal here, mind you ;)
The iPad is l33t, anyway.