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On 22 May 2024, the German federal government approved a draft amendment to the Gesetz über Maßnahmen zur Förderung des deutschen Films (Act on measures to promote German film – FFG-E). The Federal Government Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs (BKM), Claudia Roth, had previously tabled a bill in February (see IRIS 2024-4:1/21). The cabinet draft contains numerous editorial amendments compared with the February bill, e.g. including the use of gender-neutral language. In terms of its content, the cabinet draft extends the remit of the Filmförderungsanstalt...

On 30 April 2024, the Landesmedienanstalten (state media authorities) published its 11th monitoring report on private media accessibility in Germany. The report notes a rise in the number of accessible services. Particular progress has been made in the area of subtitling, while the use of audio description, sign language and plain language remains less common. The report also looks ahead at broadcasters’ plans to improve accessibility in the future. Both the expansion of accessible services and their monitoring by the state media authorities are based on provisions of the Medienstaatsvertrag...

On 11 April 2024, in a legal dispute concerning a tweet by journalist Julian Reichelt on the X social media platform, in which he claimed that the German federal government had paid millions of euros in development aid “to the Taliban”, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court – BVerfG) ruled that the lower court had wrongly classified the tweet as a false statement of fact without taking the context into account and that its decision should therefore be overturned. The lower court had ignored the importance of freedom of expression in relation to criticism of...

On 23 April 2024, the Landesmedienanstalten (state media authorities) updated their guidelines on the key principles for election advertising in the form of political party election broadcasts by national private broadcasters. The guidelines contain information on broadcasters’ obligation to allocate airtime for election broadcasts, the need to guarantee equal opportunities, authorised parties and other political organisations, admissible content of advertising spots, the calculation of appropriate airtime, broadcasting slots, labelling of election advertising and reimbursement of costs....

On 21 March 2024, the Bundestag (German federal parliament) adopted the draft Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (Digital Services Law – DDG) to regulate the single market for digital services and promote fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services. The Bundestag vote followed a recommendation by the Ausschuss für Digitales (Committee on Digital Affairs). The DDG aims to bring German legislation into line with the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) and clarify some outstanding questions regarding its implementation. The DSA and DDG are primarily designed to combat...