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
"This is the country that has banned Wikileaks"
Damn Nazis.
We just don't think of nudity as porn.
"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