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Beuth, Patrick
2 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
EU wants Internet censorship
The EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, wants all member states to be obliged to block websites containing child pornography. This would be a great mistake, the left-liberal daily Frankfurter Rundschau writes: "Firstly, hiding online images of abuse and rape behind a curtain rather than erasing them won't help a single child. ... Secondly the possibility of blocking websites will create the infrastructure for a censored Internet.This could lead to the blocking other types of content that have nothing to do with child pornography. We have seen this in Finland and Australia. And in Germany several politicians want gambling sites, filesharing sites and online killer games blocked. The promises that only illegal content would be blocked are therefore implausible. A political class that thinks only in the short-term can't be trusted to keep such promises in the long term."
» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Online media, » Media policy, » Europe
Speed and networking torpedo traditional journalistic values
Were the state parliamentary elections in Germany improperly influenced? A good 90 minutes before polling stations closed the first prognoses on the parliamentary elections were on the Net in the microblog Twitter. For the left-liberal daily Frankfurter Rundschau there is no way of keeping exit poll data under lock and key: "All it takes is a single busybody and the news is all over the world. Speed and networking, the major strengths of a service like Twitter, here torpedo traditional journalistic values. Not even a possible fine of up to 50,000 euros for deliberately violating election secrecy acts as a deterrent. That's why any attempt to enforce stricter controls on the use of exit polls by legal means will no doubt also prove ineffective. 'Information wants to be free' said the author Stewart Brand at a hacker conference in 1984. That is true enough. But it doesn't stop us from making responsible use of the information at our disposal. In all freedom, of course."
» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Online media, » Media policy, » Elections, » Germany
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