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German Government Now Exporting Anti-Porn Surveillance Tool
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14th February 2024
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| See article from xbiz.com |
A moral campaigner who has been waging a one-man War on Porn in Germany, and who developed an AI tool that scans online content to identify porn images, has now exported that technology for use by a Belgian media censor. Tobias Schmid, director of the
State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia, announced the tool after supervising its development himself. He named it KIVI, a word play referencing surveillance. A spokeswoman for the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia confirmed
to NetzPolitik that there were exploratory talks taking place regarding expanding the use of KIVI across Europe. Last week, it was confirmed that Belgium's Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) is also automatically searching the Internet, looking for
freely accessible pornography, among other things. KIVI was developed for Schmid by Berlin-based Condat AG and is currently being used by all 14 state media authorities in Germany. In addition to pornography, KIVI is also trained to detect categories
like extremism, hate speech, swastikas or the glorification of drugs. Belgium's CSA is now scanning X.com for adult content, Meineck reported, noting, From September to December 2023, around 5,000 suspicious activity reports were collected. Examiners
viewed around a fifth of it, and around 90% of this content was 'clearly' pornographic, and thus should not be accessible without strict age controls. |
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Germany considers more comprehensive internet censorship to target porn websites
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| 16th November 2023
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| See article from xbiz.com
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German authorities have introduced a proposal to block adult websites deemed to have inadequate age verification systems, and also to prohibit financial institutions from providing payment services to those sites. Germany's Broadcasting Commission of
the Federal States released its draft proposal to reform the State Youth Media Treaty (JMStV). The proposal is now open for consultation until Dec. 7. The new proposal would allow the media regulator to turn off the money supply to targeted
adult sites, explained NetzPolitik reporter Sebastian Meineck, who has been covering German efforts to censor the internet. Meineck told XBIZ that there is a regulation in German media law concerning online gambling, which has a similar structure to the
JMStV and includes a similar authorization to prohibit payment transactions in objectionable cases. The proposal also simplifies the process for the state to order network blocks. The media regulator, Meineck wrote, is already allowed to issue network
blocks for porn sites that resist the mandatory age controls. A network block means that Internet providers such as Vodafone, 1&1 or Telekom must prevent customers from accessing a website as usual. In order to achieve such a block, the supervisory
authority currently has to carry out time-consuming administrative procedures, some of which are ineffective. The proposed change would make it easier for the government to more easily target mirror websites that host content similar or identical
to sites that have already been ordered blocked, without another complex procedure, as the draft comments clarify. |
2nd December
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| New German law requires websites rate themselves with an age rating
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as a mental exercise, would anyone like to suggest what rating MelonFarmers should be. It features items generally supportive of adult entertainment without having any 'turn on' sex material or violent imagery or whatever. Based on
article from techeye.net
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In Germany, a few blogs and websites have already decided to throw in the towel before a new law comes into effect from January 1, 2011. The so-called Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (JMStV) will task anyone operating a .de domain with adding an
age certificate to his or her website. Sounds like a dumb idea, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it is set to become reality due to politicians ratifying the law in the parliaments of Germany's 16 federal states. Age verification processes are
already in place for German porn sites, which require users to have their age and identity checked to make sure they're not simply using dad's credit card. Verification using Deutsche Post's Postident identity check is the preferred method. As a
consequence, popular German blog VZlog.de has said it will go offline on New Year's Eve. VZlog.de states it doesn't have the resources to check all of its content and comments, nor does it have the technical resources to slap an 18 certificate on it,
make certain its readers are 18 and above using Postident, or simply put the site online at midnight and take it offline again in the early hours. It seems the only people set to profit are lawyers, who are going to have a field day next year.
Lawyers are expected to start sending out cease and desist letters to websites, telling them they're breaking the law and have to pay a couple of thousand euros.
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16th September
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| Google.de has banned porn video sharing sites from its search engine
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Based on article from redherring.com
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A Google Groups poster has revealed that Google's German site has censored the online porn video-sharing site RedTube.com, amongst others.
Also banned from Google.de are PornoTube.com and YouPorn.com.
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11th December
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| Age verification law requires mass block on foreign sites
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From X Biz see full article
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A German adult website operator has filed in the district court in Frankfurt to force the German ISP Arcor to block Google.de and Google.com in order to prevent the display of adult images without age verification, which is prohibited under German law.
The request was filed by Huch Medien GmbH, the company that owns and operates AmateurStar.de.
In its filing, Huch Medien reportedly said it would not simply sit back and watch as Google's image search displayed pornographic images to
users of all ages, including “clearly prohibited animal pornography.”
Huch Medien Executive Director Tobias Huch said that he's merely trying to get the German legal system to clarify the scope of the liability exemptions offered to ISPs under
the German Telemedia Act.
Huch asserted that since Germany blocks sites like YouPorn.com — as the court ordered Arcor to do in October — then the country theoretically should block all websites that violate relevant German and/or European Union
law.
If Germany is going to maintain such a legal posture and engage in blocking sites in widespread fashion, then we should not complain when China blocks a large number of websites, Huch said.
According to German attorney Daniel
Koetz the German law requiring age verification applies to all websites that can be accessed from Germany.
Koetz told XBIZ that the Telemedia Act requires all sites bearing content presumably harmful to minors such as pornography to have an
age-verification system. Such an age-verification system has to ‘secure that minors cannot access the site. Koetz said that under the law, German authorities and courts only deem an age-verification system to be secure if the system forces end users
to have personal contact with a third party who verifies their age.
One of the problems with that system, Koetz said, is who wants to go through all that hassle to enter a porn site, and who wants postal clerks to know you're a pervert
watching porn? Koetz said that as a result of the law, traffic to German porn sites is low because everybody goes to other countries' sites.
Those foreign sites, however, are subject to being blocked by German ISPs by order of the
courts, Koetz said — as Huch has requested that the Frankfurt court to Arcor to do with Google.
Koetz said that Huch's request was filed in order to demonstrate the perversion of all this.
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