Censorship in the Internet covers representative the publication from certain contents in the legal sense procedure of states or in the broader sense procedure of influential organizations and/or those to to control suppress or steer in the own sense. Above all messages, artistic expressions and expressions of opinion are affected by it. The censorship in the Internet differs thereby not in principle from the censorship of other media, usually refers to the World Wide Web.

Problem of the missing state borders

From the fact that in the Internet no state borders exist, results a high complexity of legal questions, since incompatiblenesses between juridical systems are not solvable. Governments and national organs can hold the citizens of other states by closing from web pages, which lie in their right range, also from these information, however they cannot prevent that the citizens provide entrance to illegal information, which lies abroad.

In Germany are for example the glorification of the LV war crimes or also the denial of the Holocaust forbidden. On servers of the USA however these things can be spread unpunished, since they are taken off in the US right by the liberty of opinion. A raid toward censorship there was 2001 by the district government Duesseldorf (see to Bssow), which with small technical knowledge was go aroundable, legally however judicially by several instances existence found. Already in the year 2000 the Federal High Court a basic judgement had met, after which an Australian can be also e.g. made liable citizen for a holocaustleugnende Website, which is gehostet in Australia, in Germany. Heise on-line: '' Updates: Denying the Holocaust in the Internet after German right punishable ''. intern.de: '' BGH widens competence of German courts out ''.

Examples of censorship in the Internet, practiced

China is the most well-known example of strong censorship in the Internet. Like that the appearances of religious and political groupings, which the Chinese government regards as harmful, are as well as renowned intelligence services closed apart from pornographischen sides. This concerns among other things the BBC and since 18 October 2005 the Wikipedia.

On 23 January 2006 it became admits that for many other search machines also Google China manipulates the search. In arrangement with the Chinese authorities for the Chinese public explosive sides are not indicated to topics such as Tibet or Taiwan.

In addition, many other countries limit the access to Internet.

Also in Europe and the USA censorship is in the Internet a topic:

• The US-American Project for the new American Century, whose members appeared in the government Bush (since 2001), published a document in September, in that the Internet a great importance in the modern war guidance and information politics and - procurement comes (the creation OF "“US space Forces"”, ton dominate space, and the totally control OF CyberSpace ton prevent "“enemies"” using the Internet against the US).
• The European parliament and the advice of the European union agreed 2003 of a continuation of a plan of action for the safe use of the Internet. It is to be proceeded more strongly against illegal and harmful contents.

  Heise on-line one: '' European Union against "“illegal and harmful contents"” in the Internet ''. 
  

In addition, non-governmental groups try to prevent with legal means critical information; for example the sparkling wines Scientology sect. Also search machines such as Google have and to use the possibilities for the censorship. Web pages, which are not specified in a search machine, can be found also only heavy by the user. Both is however no "“censorship"” in the legal sense. Also with Wikipedia e.g. contributions deleted without this a "“censorship"” would be.

In February 2004 censored the Internet service tenderer Freenet.de web page, which expressed itself critically to the enterprise, by returning a part of the users of its service, who tried, to call the enterprise-critical sides on other web pages. Technically this was realized by a transparent Proxy.

See also

• Internet right

Sources

Literature

• Zelger, Christian: Censorship in the Internet. An argumentation analysis on basis of the nature right and the human rights., Berlin 1999, ISBN 3897000636
• Scholz, Stefan: Internet politics in Germany. Of the myth of the Unregulierbarkeit., 2004, ISBN 3825876985

Related links

• PC-Intern.com - Internet: You are Raus - suitor admission for
• Possibilities of the evasion of Internet censorship

Google censorship in China

• Message to Google censorship in China from 25 January 2006
• Message to Google censorship in China from 27 January 2006
• Message to Google censorship in China from 2 February 2006

Articles in category "Censorship in the Internet"

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