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In September 2022, the Niedersächsische Landesmedienanstalt (Lower Saxony media authority – NLM), implementing resolutions of the Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht (Commission on Licensing and Supervision – ZAK) of the state media authorities, filed complaints concerning a total of three advertising infringements by private television broadcasters: one concerned the RTL channel operated by RTL Television GmbH and two were directed against the teleshopping channel CHANNEL21. Firstly, the Hanover-based authority criticised a split-screen advertisement for a smartphone,...

Following its meeting on 22 September 2022, the Broadcasting Commission of the German Länder published a resolution on the current state of public broadcasting in Germany. The Broadcasting Commission provides a permanent forum for the state and senate chancelleries of the Länder to discuss issues relating to media policy and legislation in and for Germany. In its resolution, the Broadcasting Commission agreed that recent events within individual ARD broadcasting companies, including RBB (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg) following allegations against its former director and the former chair...

In a decision of 8 August 2022 (case no. OVG 11 N 64.18), the Berlin-Brandenburg Oberverwaltungsgericht (Higher Administrative Court – OVG) ruled that reasons must be provided for a decision restricting the time a programme could be broadcast on account of youth protection infringements. The dispute followed an objection by the Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg (Berlin-Brandenburg media authority – mabb) against the television broadcaster ProSieben. ProSieben appealed to the courts against the objection and won. In the latest decision, the OVG Berlin-Brandenburg upheld the first-instance...

On 7 September 2022 (case nos. 13 B 1911/21, 13 B 1912/21 and 13 B 1913/21), the North-Rhine Westphalia Oberverwaltungsgericht (Higher Administrative Court) prohibited the distribution of pornographic content by two Cypriot website providers. It therefore confirmed first-instance rulings issued by the Verwaltungsgericht Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Administrative Court) on 30 November 2021 (case no. 27 L 1414/20). The importance of protecting minors was the main factor behind the court’s decision. According to the first-instance rulings, the Landesanstalt für Medien Nordrhein-Westfalen...

In a ruling of 6 January 2022 (case no. 907 Ds 6111 Js 250180/19), the Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt am Main District Court) decided that the distribution of videos promoting Nazi ideology and images from the Nazi era via WhatsApp status constituted the punishable offence of incitement of the masses. It fined the defendant EUR 750. In 2019, the accused uploaded to his WhatsApp status a video that could be viewed for a period of 24 hours by anyone who had saved his phone number at the time on a device suitable for installing WhatsApp and had WhatsApp installed on that device. The first...