The German parliament has just passed a bill which will “require web hosting companies to post ’stop’ signs when internet users try to access child pornography sites.” The bill is not yet law, but will be very soon once some final aspects are hammered out. Some in parliament say that the bill might not even be obstructive enough to child porn browsing. Once it is in law, however, there will be a sunset clause in place, which will put the law up for review in three years.
Let’s get something straight. Child pornography is bad, but killing net neutrality is not the answer. The point of this law is to disrupt the market for child porn. The theory, as best we understand it, is that if people are informed “Hey, you are about to look at child porn, and you really should consider not doing that,” they’ll realize they’re being monitored and thus browse away, lest they end up in jail. The theory has good intentions, but not necessarily working applications. It would be wonderful to see an end to child abuse, but it does not seem that a bill which monitors what you’re doing online is the best way to go about this.
The other problem is that this is a gateway drug for more limitations on what people can do online. I did a more detailed piece on it a while back, but the idea is that once you have one piece of legislation down making it OK to block off part of the internet, more can follow suit pretty easily. That puts a pretty heavy damper on free speech, and bans on free speech are how dictatorships get started.
