
Freedom of speech
ENDitorial: Regulating online media in Azerbaijan?
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Deutsch: ENDitorial: die Regulierung von online-Medien in Aserbeidschan
I was invited last week to a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan by the Council of Europe that organized together with the local National TV and Radio Council in order to discuss some issues related to the regulation of online media.
The meeting took place on 4 June 2009 and the first part was dedicated to the local authorities (Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies or National TV and Radio Council) local Internet actors (The online news agency lent.az, or APA news agency) and NGOs (such as Azerbaijan Internet Forum or IREX Azerbaijan).
Although the authorities and private partners sat at the same ta
Finland: Complaints not allowed for the Police child-porn censorship list
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Deutsch: Finnland: Beschwerden über die Kinderpornografieliste der Polizei nic...
The Helsinki Administrative court decided on 20 May 2009 that complaints lodged in regards to the child-porn censorship list maintained by the Finnish Police are not allowed.
The case originates from one Finnish activist's "battle" against the censorship list maintained by the Finnish police and originally the censorship law passed by the Finnish Parliament in 2006, meant to combat child pornography.
The dawning of Internet censorship in Germany
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Deutsch: Die Internetzensur dräut über Deutschland
Germany is on the verge of censoring its Internet: The government - a grand coalition between the German social democrats and conservative party - seems united in its decision: On 18 June 2009, the German Parliament is to vote on the erection of an internet censorship architecture.
The Minister for Family Affairs Ursula von der Leyen kicked off and led the discussions within the German Federal Government to block Internet sites in order to fight child pornography. The general idea is to build a censorship architecture enabling the government to block content containing child pornography.
French courts give clear decisions for hosted content
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Deutsch: Französisches Gericht trifft klare Entscheidungen bei gehosteten Inha...
Several decisions taken by the French courts lately recognize the principle of non-liablilty of some web 2.0 sites for the content hosted. The new interpretation is putting things back on track, after some earlier strange decisions of the lower courts.
Dailymotion, the French video sharing site, has recently benefited of three decisions in its favour, in each case the site being considered as a mere hosting site and thus not liable for copyright infringement.
German Government forces ISPs to put web filters
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Deutsch: Deutsche Regierung verpflichtet ISPs zur Einführung von Webfiltern
Macedonian: Германската влада ги принудува интерн...
The German Government, through Germany's family minister Ursula von der Leyen as well as the head of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), Jörg Ziercke, signed on 17 April 2009 "voluntary" contracts with 5 large ISPs (Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone/Arcor, Hanse Net, Kabel Deutschland and Telefonica O2 that have 75 per cent of the German Internet access market) for child pornograph filtering via DNS.
At the same time, a draft bill on the same topic has been in
European Parliament ITRE committee votes against the 3 strikes
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Deutsch: ITRE-Komitee des Europäischen Parlaments stimmt gegen die 3 Treffer
The ITRE - Industry, Research and Energy Committee of the European Parliament (EP) has voted in the evening of 21 April 2009 on the Trautmann report and has reintroduced amendment 138.
ISPs asked to block child porn sites on the Internet
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Deutsch: ISPs werden aufgefordert, Kinderpornografieseiten im Internet zu sperr...
In Germany, based on the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), the government has had discussions for several months now on how to block child pornography sites hosted on servers outside of the country.
European Parliament asks for respect of human rights on the Internet
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Deutsch: Europäisches Parlament fordert Respekt für die Menschenrechte im Int...
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Macedonian: [Европскиот парламент бара да се...
