Techdirt Deemed Harmful To Minors In Germany
from the ah,-censorship dept
Hanno alerts us to the news that Techdirt has apparently been deemed harmful to minors in Germany. The German Media Control Authority has apparently been pushing internet "youth filters" to protect kids from dangerous things online. So far, it has officially approved two internet filters. Hanno got his hands on one and discovered that Techdirt was one of many blocked sites (Google translation from the original German) -- as the filter declares that Techdirt has pornographic images and depictions of violence. We do?Hanno reached out to a spokesperson for the JusProg filter, and got the usual runaround. "We do not want to censor political opinions." The spokesperson claims that the system is automated and looks at links. When asked why Techdirt was blocked, it was explained that since we use certain words "perhaps twenty times" in discussions about pornography and censorship, the system deemed us clearly a danger. Apparently, we can appeal to JusProg, but it appears that might require some familiarity with German... So, in the meantime, let's just hope that we haven't already damaged the youth of Germany too much.
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In other news...
Of course, some of those looking for freaky German porn were notably confused.
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Well, you did post pics of the TSA and Police forces in action...
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Lost!
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Re: Lost!
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Re: Lost!
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=violence
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best shut down the entire internet as well as immediately stopping everyone from using any of the inventions from the last 200 years!
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Depictions of violence: US Congress.
Blacklisted.
Next up: ICE takes down the site because people are infringing each others quotes.
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It's not a bug, it's a feature.
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Apologies all around
I can say only this in my defense: at that point in time, it really seemed like the best idea I'd had in my life.
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Re: Apologies all around
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Techdirt has pornographic images
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Its also proof that automated system FAIL.
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seriously, everybody here in Germany who has at least 3 working brain cells thinks for over 3 decades this institution is just a fucking joke
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Oh, wait. You are hiding your whois information (for whatever reason) and Tucows likely didn't accept anything for you or forward it on.
Perhaps you are now learning a lesson in why hiding your whois isn't the best idea (plus may create additional liabilty for you in Canada, where you are not located).
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You do realize that whois information is the number 1 resource for phone and email spammers?
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1. There was no legal action.
2. We are very reachable.
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Like that isn't salacious! I need an adult!
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The government's mission should be towards truth and accuracy, not "control notwithstanding objections".
This highlights the problems with these systems, wherein the default is to try to lockdown information. Fortunately, most of these systems are inept and easily circumvented. I doubt it's stopped much access from Germany, and in general has not stopped kids from getting dirty and/or violent images.
All systems like this do is waste people's money.
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In case you missed it, the article is about how automated censorship protocols have collateral damage. If Techdirt can be blocked because it supposedly contains porn and violence then it's entirely possible that other legitimate sites are government censored to 'protect the kids'. This type of collateral damage is just unacceptable.
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Really? You should try reading the actual story. Might help you look less stupid.
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Perhaps you should stop commenting, if you're not even reading what you're commenting on... Or perhaps you should just realize why nobody takes you seriously, since you don't even care about accuracy as long as you get to bitch.
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Once again, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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That sounds automated to me, and if that's not, then why would using words x number of times deem it bad
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Especially when according to the US armed forces, anything that isn't missionary (work?) is sodomy...
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Sounds automated to me..
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also 'looks at links'?
they could bring down ANYTHING with comments etc enabled with that simply by having people PUT those links there.
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"The body" being a private filtering company? Um... no, you're completely wrong (as per usual) on this one. The filtering companies does not send "multiple registered mail notices to the site owner."
Oh, wait. You are hiding your whois information (for whatever reason) and Tucows likely didn't accept anything for you or forward it on.
Again, no. I turned on private whois 2 weeks ago to cut down on the spam we get. If they sent us messages before that, we would have received them. They did not.
Care to take back your clueless assertions?
Perhaps you are now learning a lesson in why hiding your whois isn't the best idea (plus may create additional liabilty for you in Canada, where you are not located).
Funny, then, that .ca automatically does the same thing and hides whois as a default.
Hiding your whois is pretty standard these days to avoid spam.
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http://www.bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/information-in-english.html
As for your whois, the private protection was on there quite a while ago. I seem to remember this being a point of discussion in the past. You have have turned it on and off, but I can remember it being a point of discussion quite a while back. Sadly, your search on this site isn't very good, so it's hard to find anything.
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100% false.
Thanks for showing how you make stuff up though.
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I'll see if someone I know has access to look at the whois history. Domaintools does say your whois changed recently, and has had at least 24 significant changes. I don't intend to pay to dig up the historical records.
I do notice that you moved to an anti-DDoS host. Having problems?
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No wonder people call you names.
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It is so hard at time to read your posts completely
Then, like two minutes later, you say to Mike:
Oh, and how nice of you to ignore the rest of my post.
No wonder you have been here for years and yet have been unable to rise above the status of "laughingstock"
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Oh TAM, weren't you supposed to be leaving Techdirt forever?
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No its not, he knows its just one day short of the ideal length of copyright.
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I am just an anonymous poster. Of course, if you want to use your admin powers to violate the anonymous standing, you might know who I am. But then again, that would be a serious violation of the principals protected by Techdirt's founder and head koolaid mixer.
So which way you want it? Are you willing to accept that I am not who you think I am, or are you willing to violate the basic rules here to prove yourself wrong?
Look around, you have once again painted yourself into a corner Marcus. Will you ever learn?
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So - are you denying that comment on the new year's post was you? Shame... it was a damn good comment, one of the few times you actually made your points well. It would have been a great note to actually leave on: kind of a kick in the teeth to all of us, showing that maybe you weren't a complete moron, despite acting like one 99% of the time. We would have had to accept that buried in all your bullshit were a few salient points worth examining and discussing. It was right around the time that one of your comments won Most Insightful too, I believe. Then you did disappear for a few weeks at the beginning of 2012, but suddenly returned and were back to same old dickhead TAM.
So sorry, no: we all know you who are, and I find your attempts to evade that pretty amusing - especially since you are clearly admitting that I'm right at the same time as saying I'm not, just in the hopes of catching me on what you (but nobody else) thinks is a violation of principles.
Look around: you have once again declared a victory that only exists inside your own deluded head. Will you ever learn? Will you ever grow the balls to keep your word and stay away from this blog that you hate so much? Sadly, I doubt it...
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I'll ask: who are you? I know you're one of the drooling idiots who tries to attack everybody here regardless of factual or logical basis. But which ones?
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That and the whois. Classic stuff from Mr Denial in California.
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I'm shocked - SHOCKED - that Mike did not respond to such harsh, concrete allegations.
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Yeah, and also wrong.
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So sorry if that is not the case, but I have seen these people in action and understand the implications.
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Keep dreaming, weirdo. At least you'll get marked funny.
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It's Mike's fault
Then it's perfectly ok
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Mental Imagery?
Now I have to watch my potty mouth. I hate having to watch my potty mouth. I was taught not to look at the keys.
People are so sensitive whilst they impose their moral boundaries onto others.
Bad words are bad.
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Re: Mental Imagery?
NSFW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqvLTJfYnik
(does this qualify as mental porn?)
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I found the reason...
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let me guess....
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Fun fact!
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Re: Fun fact!
A quick edit of /etc/hosts fixed that.
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Re: Re: Re: Fun fact!
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: techdirt.com
Address: 208.53.48.153
Name: techdirt.com
Address: 208.53.48.129
Name: techdirt.com
Address: 208.53.48.36
Name: techdirt.com
Address: 208.53.48.13
Name: techdirt.com
Address: 208.53.48.33
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Think of the children!
Given TechDirt's occasional downtimes recently, and slowness at other times, I had feared that TD might have been declared a "rogue" website.
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TechDirt IS a danger to minors...
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If TechDirt can be censored . . .
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Re: If TechDirt can be censored . . .
Not only will Hollywood effectively be censored, but more importantly: all the clueless politicians comparing piracy to "child porn" (that's the phrase right there!). This way only the legitimate politicians will reach out to all the internet users.
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Now jokes apart, it's censorship "for the children". I honestly fear for my children (if I ever have any and I plan to) because every time some idiot do or says something "for the children" something good gets broken and we the adults and our children lose another piece of our freedom and of our culture. But of course it's everything for the children. I wonder if Hitler ever said anything about cleansing the world for the pure German children.....
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From Germany...
But just a few mins ago it started to resolve again with m-net.de.
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Re: From Germany...
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Re: From Germany...
Yeah, it was a DNS glitch. We had some DNS problems yesterday...
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This is exactly the targeting of political speech that everyone fears with this sort of thing.
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Harmful
Techdirt Harmful, Considered Harmful
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Sounds so..... tyrannical..
lol
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NZ has a Chief Censor.
he has an office with a fair number of staff.
best part is, things banned by the Chief Censor's office outside of wartime, to the best of my knowledge: one HIGHLY offensive T-shirt (generally offensive, not religions or ideology based or anything like that.), one apparently extremely offensive book that, among other things, denied the holocaust took place, said book's author (not a citizen, not allowed in the country, and from memory that wasn't just because of the book)... and a bunch of porn to extreme even for the R18 lable here.
other than that they just assign ratings to movies and games (of which only R13, R16 and R18 have Any actual restrictions, and that is only that they may not be provided to individuals under those ages. the R13 is also basically obsolete as it has almost 100% overlap with the current top end non-restricted ratings), and review books (or anything else of similar nature) that they get actual legitimate complaints about. (generally speaking things only get banned if their production is causing actual harm (such as child porn), or if they are so morally reprehensible by current standards that failure to do so is likely to cause major public outcry... which is rare.)
that's legitimate censorship by a dedicated government body for that purpose. it's widely known about, generally accepted, non-partisan (except for the fact that it's about the only job where a question of someone's morality is a valid reason to reject their appointment reguardless of whether they have ever actually been caught doing anything wrong or the like and sometimes people find certain appointments suspect as it's Definitely a job in the 'if you want it you're unsuited for it' catagory and they find the individual's morality questionable and/or not to line up with their own. and even then it's not exactly Partisan, so much as it tends to shift voters around a bit.) and you'd basically have to buy out the entire government in order to bribe the guy to do something contrary to what he's meant to without it being found out in fairly short order and the guy being fired, his decision reversed, and i think the penalties for such things are probably pretty harsh.
then there's all the Other censorship that comes from powerful people abusing the law, the courts, and other government bodies. though there's a lot less of that than in the USA, it's still an issue. That's the one that's an actual problem.
Actual Censorship of political opinion and the like is caused by the latter. (save the rare occasion when said political opinion is both known to be false and likely to cause riots and the like.)
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Their longterm end gamme .......censorship of free speech on a platform that can do real harm to certain (read corrupted) individuals........ the internet
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Maybe your site should only function at night in order to abide by the german law...
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The war is on
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IM PROUD OF GERManY
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heck, large parts of the western world have always Had this... they just used to be a lot better about not Using it on things and people that the public cared about.
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Could be.
Could also be the "bow-chicka-bow-bow" music that plays in the background.
Oh wait. That's from a different browser window open on my computer. Never mind.
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It's All True
Ironically, these tags are almost always used in the context of censorship: either censorship of violent video games, or the prevention of pornography as an excuse for censorship provisions in overly-burdensome copyright laws.
It would be idiotic to claim that Techdirt doesn't discuss violence and porn; so don't be an idiot. Instead, use this as a teachable moment, about how filters can't distinguish between ACTUAL violence and porn and public DISCUSSION about the issues of violence and porn, making their use a dangerous assault on free and open speech.
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Re: It's All True
Use of the words alone should never trigger a ban. There may be other reasons for considering Techdirt dangerous to minors. Concepts like free speech and open discussion in a public area.
Now THAT could be dangerous!
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Filter Aggravations
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This is news?
I get to read about how Congress and the music industry are trying to f*** the internet until it dies.
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^ clearly a danger
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A German by any other name is still a…
Why do the Germans have such "cute" names for Goose steppers?
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Re: A German by any other name is still a…
while NZ's Cheif Censor's Office is all nice and layed back and spends most of their time Actually tracking down people making and distributing child porn and bringing them to justice, and the rest of their time assigning ratings to tv programs, movies and video games. (this is NOT a voluntary rating system, mind you, but the most restrictive, R ratings, are only limited to not providing the product in question to people under the listed age, and you're looking at basically child porn or some sort of weird realistic torture based game or something before it gets outright banned. I'm not entirely sure where cartoons of a similar nature fall.)
this contrast amuses me.
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Or pointing out the horrible laws that force the accused to prove a negative.
Or pointing out that people without computers are forced to pay fines for having downloaded a movie they never knew of.
Or pointing out GEMA and its love of censoring Nina.
Nope it has to be because we said the words porn to many times.
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The what?
Have they not learned from history over there??
You don't have a state-run "media control authority" unless you're either hoping to end up in that very bad place again, or else really, really stupid.
And yes, I consider the US FCC, to the extent that it tries to constrain content rather than just allocate spectrum, to be stupid too. But at least the FCC has no authority to mandate Internet filters or censorship!
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