Comment German gov. response regarding "Zensur" (Score 2, Interesting) 261
Actually this is old news (11/21/01), but I haven't seen this being mentioned before in this discussion about the German site banning. A member of the German government (SPD) responsible for new media has released a statement regarding the matter at his website, here (German)
In short, he calls that local politican in NRW a "Schaumschlaeger", which is basically saying "that guy has no clue, acts like he has no clue and just wants to get some attention for the next election". He also says, that banning sites is very dubious in the eyes of the law, whereas DNS banning is not just dubious but technically impossible. Such action would only increase the popularity of the targeted sites, and would also create mirrors, which in turn would ridicule the action. He also states, that DNS banning can be circumvented by the easiest of methods by every user.
He concludes, that instead more concern should be focused on teaching young kids how to cope with the medium in a responsible way, and that the state should focus on "fighting" the creators of such Nazi, child porn etc. sites - instead of fighting the internet as such.
He also mentiones, that banning is generally unrealistic, as there is no way to decide in consent which sites should get banned and he mentiones something like a filter, which could be used by parents not by the state.. etc.. (Sorry, for my humble English, it's not my primary language and it's rather late over here. :P)
In short, he calls that local politican in NRW a "Schaumschlaeger", which is basically saying "that guy has no clue, acts like he has no clue and just wants to get some attention for the next election". He also says, that banning sites is very dubious in the eyes of the law, whereas DNS banning is not just dubious but technically impossible. Such action would only increase the popularity of the targeted sites, and would also create mirrors, which in turn would ridicule the action. He also states, that DNS banning can be circumvented by the easiest of methods by every user.
He concludes, that instead more concern should be focused on teaching young kids how to cope with the medium in a responsible way, and that the state should focus on "fighting" the creators of such Nazi, child porn etc. sites - instead of fighting the internet as such.
He also mentiones, that banning is generally unrealistic, as there is no way to decide in consent which sites should get banned and he mentiones something like a filter, which could be used by parents not by the state.. etc.. (Sorry, for my humble English, it's not my primary language and it's rather late over here.
