Germany

[DE] First indexing of material on the Internet which could pervert the young

IRIS 1996-9:1/26

Wolfgang Closs

Institute of European Media Law (EMR), Saarbrücken/Brussels

other texts are available yet. On a motion from the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the Federal Board of Examiners for Literature Likely to Pervert Young Persons has, for the first time, placed Internet material on the index of literature tending to pervert the young.

This Internet material concerns several WWW pages issued by a neo-Nazi based in Canada, the contents of which glorify violence and deny National Socialist crimes. The Federal Ministry regards this as infringing the provisions of the Criminal Code, in particular Article 131 of the Criminal Code ( Strafgesetzbuch - StGB - glorification of violence, incitement to racial hatred). A dissemination and advertising ban is connected with publication in the Bundesanzeiger or Federal Law Journal (Articles 3-5 of the law on the dissemination of literature tending to pervert the young). This law provides that material tending to pervert the young must not be offered or made available or accessible to children and young people. According to the Federal Ministry, in the special case of the Internet this means that such material must be kept off the Internet completely or that technical solutions must be made available to protect children and young people.

The competent Federal Ministry points to the urgent need for operational, voluntary self-censorship of the Internet at a national and international level and the establishment of international youth protection standards.