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Altenbockum, Jasper von
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2 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Old parties helpless against Pirates
The Pirate Party in Germany has been accused of not distancing itself properly from right-wing ideologies. Only recently Martin Delius, leader of the Pirate faction in the Berlin city-state government, compared the meteoric rise of his party with that of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazis). This may give the established parties serious ammunition against the Pirates, writes the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, but they should concentrate on keeping the discussion objective: "The party is wading through a 'brown [Nazi] swamp', the opponents complain, adding that it doesn't know how to deal with the 'far-right' and can't explain its ties to right-wing extremism. Even if the Berlin Pirate Martin Delius goes through the whole ritual of apologising for all the 'absolute nonsense and rubbish' he said - this won't help him or his party. It has been put in a corner where everyone knows it doesn't belong, but they also know that it's the place you put those you want to get rid of. ... You don't need tricks to get the better of the Pirate Party, the parties should be able to explain the point of laws, rules, rituals and representation. They've obviously forgotten how to do that."
» more information (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Germany
Courts give Web victims too little protection
The European Court of Justice and Germany's Federal High Court have bolstered personal rights in the Internet with two recent rulings. In future the operators of a website will also be liable if users of the website in another country infringe personal rights. The conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says this doesn't go far enough: "Among bloggers, who are fond of setting standards which they don't apply to themselves, anonymisation is a popular invisibility cloak, or fool's cap, one could say. If it is abused the person whose rights have been violated would have difficulty defending himself - if it wasn't for the 'Störerhaftung' (Breach of Duty of Care). Yet the Federal High Court has aimed its judgement against Google, as the accused blog host, in two directions: the American operator can hardly hide behind Californian laws and the bloggers can't claim that only freedom of opinion and press freedom apply for them, but not protection of privacy. But the court also made it clear that not every complaint automatically puts a blogger in violation of the Duty of Care, but rather the burden of proof lies with the person who lodges the complaint. This will be insufficient to curb the dreadful damage anonymous defamation is causing."
» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Online media, » Europe
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