What the federal states are planning will change the internet forever
The federal states want to reform and significantly expand the youth media protection treaty. The mandatory installation of a youth protection filter directly in the respective operating system is planned. That would affect PCs and smartphones alike.
Porn filter: Politics wants to get into the operating systems
According to the will of the federal states, manufacturers of PCs, smartphones and tablets should do so be obliged to preinstall a youth protection filter. The aim is to block websites that offer content that is not suitable for children and young people. Only those pages that have a corresponding label will not be filtered according to the plans.
The background to this is a reform of the youth media protection treaty. Although the first discussions on this have only just begun, there is already criticism from all sides. IT organizations already complain that the concept “neither feasible in terms of content” nor “technically feasible” be. Over-blocking is feared. The list of critics is long and ranges from the Bitkom industry association to self-regulatory bodies such as the FSK. There is also criticism from JusProg, the manufacturer of a youth protection program, such as heise online reported.
Should the federal states enforce their plan, the providers of operating systems will be held responsible. You would then have to block “large parts of the Internet” because the vast majority of websites do not support age restrictions based on the German model.
Current tech topics summarized in Video:
Protection of minors: Operating system should save age
The draft states that operating systems available in Germany should “provide technical programs” for which all users are generally considered to be younger than 18 years of age become. Only when a corresponding age verification has taken place should the filter no longer work.
Larger websites and portals should also have an interface that the operating system’s filter can access. The age of the user should be transmitted anonymously and then deleted again. Website operators, in turn, have to classify their content by age, according to the plan. Not only German providers should be made responsible for this.
