Associations sharply criticize planned compulsory filters

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The youth media protection contract is about to be amended. The state governments see compulsory filters as the means of choice – associations are on the other hand by storm.

Operating system manufacturers for devices of all kinds should be obliged to install rigid youth protection locks in their systems. By default, this should block all websites that are either unsuitable for people under the age of 18 or marked as unsuitable.

The blockade should apply until the relevant user of the system has gone through an age verification process in the course of which he or she has proven to be at least 18 years old. This would initially block almost all websites worldwide on a freshly installed system.

Because the compulsory filter would only exist in German law. This means that, during an introductory phase, it could be expected that German site operators will ensure that their website is labeled for young people in a timely manner – on the international stage, however, a similar expectation is likely to be disappointed. However, the state governments actually want providers who make their pages accessible to German users to attach the label – or to be blocked.

Curiously, the countries see themselves in consensus with the IT and media associations and the institutions of voluntary self-regulation. It is agreed that the filter approach developed “can be technically implemented with a reasonable amount of effort,” said Oliver Schenk, head of the Saxon State Chancellery, in a published in March Message to the best.

The representatives addressed can only shake their heads at these statements. The consensus sworn by Schenk never existed, they claim. On June 8th, they wrote a joint letter to the state chancelleries of the federal states and expressed their displeasure.

The signatories of the letter include the associations Bitkom, Eco, Game, Vaunet and ZVEI as well as the leading organization of the film industry (SPIO). The self-regulatory bodies FSF, FSK, FSM and USK, as well as the manufacturer of the youth protection program JusProg, have also signed the letter. The letter lies Heise Online in front.

In it, the signatories complain about the initial “overblocking” as neither appropriate nor effective. In addition, it is “neither technically feasible nor feasible in terms of content”. Rather, the German go-it-alone operating system manufacturer would “oblige to a de facto blocking of large parts of the Internet – namely in the starting point on all devices”.

The draft for the reform of the youth media protection treaty is very clear. The filters to be used should “include the age level ‘under 18’ in the basic settings, unless the user has proven that they are older”. It should be possible for legal guardians “in a simple and safe way” to “set the child at a younger age”.

In addition to the operating system manufacturers, the site operators are also exposed to increased effort. You have to have a software interface ready that allows the operating system to transmit the age level of the user anonymously and you have to ensure that this data is deleted immediately after each access.

In any case, this applies to the so-called high-reach providers of telemedia with editorial responsibility, who have more than 100,000 users per month. They also have to use software to ensure that development-impairing offers are only accessible in accordance with the appropriate age groups.

Platforms with more than one million users per month should be obliged to set up and operate systems that allow users to report inappropriately labeled, inadmissible and development-impairing offers.

The discussion about forced filters is not new. It was as far as it is now in 2010 when an introduction failed due to resistance from North Rhine-Westphalia.

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