First signs of Internet censorship in Europe?

27 June, 2009, 22:59

A fierce debate is raging in Germany after the Bundestag passed a bill imposing censorship of certain pornographic websites.

Civil liberties groups and internet activists now fear greater government attempts at internet censorship.

Last Thursday, under the remit of protecting children against child porn, the German parliament passed a bill imposing censorship of certain websites. The bill requires the country’s federal authorities to maintain a list of websites accused of containing child pornography. The list will be distributed to German internet service providers (ISPs), which will then be required to block access to these sites with stop signs.

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A laudable aim, it would seem. Protecting children against this ghastly trade in content is unquestionably a progressive move. Surely only the pornographers themselves would oppose such a move?

Indeed, John Shehan of the American-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, welcomed the development: “This is a positive step forward. Child sexual abuse content knows absolutely no boundaries on the Internet and the content can be hosted in any country. This is not a new concept and it is one that is already in production elsewhere. In many other countries, this is done on a voluntary basis by the ISPs and does not require law.”

And yet thousands of German citizens took to the streets, arranged online petitions to the government and loudly voiced their disapproval of what they see as an infringement on civil liberties and a step toward providing the government with the right to censor the internet.

“We believe that the issue of child porn was a very good way for the government to bring in net censorship infrastructure,” said Markus Beckedahl, a German activist and lobbyist. “That is something we are totally against.”

Underlying such concerns is a fear that with this law in place, the government will have greater power to block other content deemed questionable. This could be Islamists websites, forums of discussion where the government is criticised – or even sites with poker games. The main issue, as Beckedahl and others see it, is that the fight against child porn will be used as a smoke-screen to allow the government to exert control over information on the web.

“We started an online petition to oppose this law, the digital rights community and internet users began to say ‘we oppose this!’, the petition got 135,000 signatures ( the most successful e-petition ever in Germany) – you need 50,000 signatures to be officially heard in the parliament, and we reached that within three and a half days,” continued Beckedahl.

It is not just the digital rights community that has issues with the new law. Many others fear that the law hands over too much power to the government, will be hard to enact, and is ultimately an ineffectual way of combating the issue at the heart of the matter: the protection of the victims of child pornography.

Donald Downs is a professor of political science, law, and journalism at the University of Wisconsin, and is known widely for his work on the First Amendment.

“It’s one thing to have laws against child porn in principle, laws against it are obligatory – but setting it into a system of prior restraint like in Germany, rather than after-the-fact prosecution, would never wash, in the States at least,” said Downs, who expressed some major concerns with the developments in Germany.

“My two major concerns are that the definitions for questionable content could be vague and broad and the government could end up censoring a lot of material that is perfectly legitimate,” Downs said. “If the law empowers authorities to restrain child porn then it could also restrain political opposition.”

“It is giving a lot of power to the government,” he continued. “I’m not surprised by the move, but that does not mean I think it’s justified. My legitimate concern here is that the German government has overshot its concern.”

Beckedahl agrees, and is quick to point out the flaws in the bill.

“Police here are not allowed to go to other countries and order them to shut down websites containing child porn,” Beckedahl said. “They have to block the site, then a file will be sent to EUROPOL and they forward it to INFOPOL, and they in turn send it to the government of the host country, who in turn get the ISP to take down the site. Two months can pass for all this to happen.”

In an attempt to highlight this drawn-out process, Markus and other internet activists showed how they themselves could shut down sites within a few hours. They simply isolated sites with child porn and emailed the ISP directly. They closed down a total of 60 sites over a few days last month, enjoying more success than the German authorities had in the same time period.

While it is clear that any laws dealing with the internet automatically enter a minefield of debate on freedom of expression, at least both sides are united in trying to stop vile images of children being circulated. Neither side wants to allow this trade to continue, but the manner in which the German authorities are seeking to rectify the situation may not be the appropriate one.

As Downs puts it, “We get so afraid of the internet, we sometimes end up going overboard.”

So where is the common ground? Perhaps Sarah Robertson, of the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation, has the answer:

“Internet blocking is just one tactic, it’s certainly not the answer,” she said. “By itself it’s not getting much done, but if you combine it with forced removal of sites and investigation of those behind it, then you can be far more effective.”

Ciaran Walsh for RT