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.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: censorship, election, germany, pirate party

30 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 11:03am

But, but, but.....piracy, terrorism, pedophilia....won't someone think of the children.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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"?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Drizzt, 14 May 2012 @ 11:05am

Re:
Was all tried (and still is), but that tactic failed so far. ;-)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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. :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
dukeofgaming, 14 May 2012 @ 5:08pm

Yarr! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta-Z_psXODw
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2012 @ 5:17pm

Re: Re:
I see a trend "Pirates steal from everyone". :P
Thanks
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2012 @ 5:17pm

Re: Re:
I see a trend "Pirates steal from everyone". :P
Thanks
[ link to this | view in thread ]