German Pirate Party Wins Seats In Fourth Straight State Election

from the it's-becoming-a-movement dept

Mon, May 14th 2012 10:19am — Mike Masnick

It now seems pretty clear that the German Pirate Party is a legitimate player in that country. A week after its third straight win in local state elections, the German Pirate Party appears to have won a similar percentage of votes in the country's largest region, North Rhine-Westphalia. The estimates are that it will end up with 18 seats on a little under 8% of the vote (Update: more final results are now showing 20 seats, so it's an even larger victory). In Berlin, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein, the party was able to get similar votes as well, suggesting that this isn't a regional thing and has become a recognizable force -- especially among young people in Germany. The real question now is if it can use this to create some momentum going into the national elections next year.

Separately, it's worth pointing out that this result came about after it was noted a few days ago that the German Pirate Party's website was being censored in state schools, by a filter that claimed that the site was about "illegal drugs". It seems like pretty blatant censorship to block a political party's website -- even if it was "accidental" -- for daring to question the prevailing law enforcement regime around certain banned substances.

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Filed Under: censorship, election, germany, pirate party

30 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 10:28am

Its a good thing they're in Germany. In the US, a single claim of involvement with "illegal drugs" would automatically come with legions of sodden-pantsed uniformed tools overrunning and seizing every bit of property those people ever looked at.
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- Drizzt, 14 May 2012 @ 11:03am
  
  Re:
  It was an automated filter system and its web crawler took offence at the drug policy parts of the election manifesto. Other parties � like the winning SPD - were also affected. This only shows how ridiculous a "Think about the children!" (Cleanternet version) approach is. And that censorship is always overreaching.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 11:20am
    
    Re: Re:
    Not that internet should be filtered for the nation but schools require certain content to be blocked in the US. Working with that system is complicated and ever changing. We try to keep most content open but block what is required by state such as porn, weapons, drugs, etc. Sometimes we will come across a site that should be open and sometimes it should be blocked. The only thing to do is to change the filter's policy on those sites. It isn't a keyword filter and most of the time it does a good job but no system is perfect.
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    - Ninja (profile), 14 May 2012 @ 12:39pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      It really does not matter if it does its job well or not. There shouldn't exist any censorship.
      
      If a site teaches how to use bombs find who built it and arrest that person. If a site shows and/or advocates pedophilia do the same. Hiding the site won't make the real criminals magically disappear. Actually it'll make them harder to catch.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 1:03pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Privately, on ones own internet connection I agree, but with a school district and limited funds it is better to deny access to certain sites to avoid being litigated by an angry parents. Even if the school district wins the lawsuit, it still loses with the time and money lost defending. Besides the school internet is used for educational reasons. Extra curricular activities can be done at home.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 1:35pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I didn't know knowledge was illegal...
        
        Yes, by every means, lock up the guy who coordinates and encourages violent acts... it just absurd to think we could actually stop the dissemenation of knowledge, or recipes.
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      - William Chambers, 14 May 2012 @ 2:49pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Yes, because kids should be looking at porn in school. No, enough. Schools are one very reasonable place to have a level of filtering.
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Drizzt, 14 May 2012 @ 10:57am

Official numbers say 20 seats, not 18
Minimal research would have yielded the official (preliminary) results: and they show 20 seats for the PIRATEN
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 14 May 2012 @ 11:04am
  
  Re: Official numbers say 20 seats, not 18
  Minimal research would have yielded the official (preliminary) results: and they show 20 seats for the PIRATEN
  
  That's great. I'll update the post.
  
  As for the "minimal" research, I wrote the post last night when it was at 18. Please do not assume laziness where a perfectly reasonable explanation might suffice.
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  - Drizzt, 14 May 2012 @ 11:09am
    
    Re: Re: Official numbers say 20 seats, not 18
    Those numbers were only for quite some time... 18 was circulated somewhere during the first projections. Even most newspapers I've seen had the 20 seats already. Anyway, I was more irritated by the missing primary source than the difference. But I could have toned my post done a bit.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 11:03am

But, but, but.....piracy, terrorism, pedophilia....won't someone think of the children.
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- Drizzt, 14 May 2012 @ 11:05am
  
  Re:
  Was all tried (and still is), but that tactic failed so far. ;-)
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- Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 11:07am
  
  Re:
  Of course we're thinking of the children!
  
  That's why we're trying to make a future where they aren't controlled by corporations. :)
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BentFranklin (profile), 14 May 2012 @ 11:04am

Who do you think will be the first President to go to Berlin and say "Ich bin ein Pirat"?
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- harbingerofdoom (profile), 14 May 2012 @ 11:51am
  
  Re:
  i would so totally do that..
  
  that is, if i were electable to begin with... which im not.
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- Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 1:39pm
  
  Re:
  Who do you think will be the first President to go to Berlin and say "Ich bin ein Pirat"?
  
  None, as in this case, "Ich bin ein Pirat" may actually be grammatically correct.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 11:26am

not surprising really. the Dutch Pirate Party is being subjected to censorship over TPB. i bet there are some seriously worried politicians around atm! i wouldn't be surprised by further blocks for the party in other countries as well, especially if the entertainment industries can see their grip on the corrupt slipping away!
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- harbingerofdoom (profile), 14 May 2012 @ 12:05pm
  
  Re:
  you should really read rick falkvinge's write up on that specific subject if you have not done so already. the other parties have nothing to worry about at the moment as they are not openly rejecting the current status quo from the media outlet overloards.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 11:28am

I am surprised of where the voters seem to have come from. The Conservatives is not the first place I would look. The left wing party seems to have lost a lot too. Guess a good deal of protest-votes went their way in the previous election.
The Greens are a pretty new party politically. I would have thought that they would bled more to the pirates than they did.
It was expected that CDU lost a lot of voters since they went for the "austerity is king"-tactic. Could be Die Gr�ne gaining a lot from CDU and loosing about the same to Piraten.

Would love to hear a German giving reasonings for how the things went as they did.
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- Drizzt, 14 May 2012 @ 12:11pm
  
  Re:
  A lot of votes came from people who didn't vote in other elections (called "Nichtw�hler"), which aren't be confused with first-time voters. Other parties lost almost equally.
  
  See e.g. this analysis for the election in NRW.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2012 @ 5:17pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I see a trend "Pirates steal from everyone". :P
    Thanks
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  - Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2012 @ 5:17pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I see a trend "Pirates steal from everyone". :P
    Thanks
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 11:53am

You know that your political opponents are too powerful when they decide to go the censorship route to prevent you from educating others about your political agenda.

Just look at Texas, and how their state education board butchered US history, doing things like making Joseph McCarthy into a hero, and claiming based on widely debunked evidence that most of the lives his communist witch hunt ruined were actual communists, which makes what he did perfectly ok.
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mudlock (profile), 14 May 2012 @ 12:07pm

Proportional Representation
Mike, you seem surprised that they got so many seats with just 8% of the vote. Well, of course they got that many seats; 20 is 8% of the legislature, and Germany uses proportional representation. Every party that gets at least 5%, gets a proportional percentage of the seats. And that's the #1 reason that the Pirate Party has been able to have these successes.
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 14 May 2012 @ 4:02pm
  
  Re: Proportional Representation
  Mike, you seem surprised that they got so many seats with just 8% of the vote
  
  No. What gave you that idea?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 3:46pm

If the school permits general internet access to political sites, it's discrimination and possibly illegal to deny access on a selective basis.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 4:37pm

Great, sounds like Germany is headed to become one of those fractious, feckless European governments that can't do anything. Look at Greece, hows that working?
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dukeofgaming, 14 May 2012 @ 5:08pm

Yarr! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta-Z_psXODw
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The Moondoggie, 14 May 2012 @ 7:33pm

Germany is doing it right...
Nice to know Germany is setting a very good example and is owning.

Compared to OTHER WESTERN countries, full of whining citizens afraid to do the same thing.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 7:41pm

this is a great precedent for the young people to set for the rest of the world and this example of leadership should be noted by young people everywhere.
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