IP: Germany's justice minister demands global ban on "hate speech"

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 13:11:50 -0400
>To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
>From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
>
>
>[A nice touch: "Self regulation" has much the same effect as government 
>censorship, but is harder to challenge in court. And it sounds so much 
>kindler and gentler, no? Perhaps next we'll see European ministers call 
>for "self regulation" of sites that expose ethnic groups to hatred 
>(anti-Irish joke lists and late-night comedian home pages, for instance), 
>inspire dislike of the government or some other such nonsense. But it's 
>"regulation," a good thing, right? --Declan]
>
>
>http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0%2C1283%2C37251%2C00.html
>
>Germany Wants Hate Crackdown
>Reuters
>
>7:00 a.m. Jun. 27, 2000 PDT
>BERLIN -- Germany's justice minister Tuesday called for global rules 
>against hate speech on the Internet and urged stronger self-regulation by 
>Web companies to beat racism and xenophobia.
>
>"What is forbidden offline must be forbidden online," Herta Däubler-Gmelin 
>told a conference in Berlin on hate speech on the Web.
>
>"Given the global character of the Internet, our goal must be to achieve a 
>global value consensus and to agree an international minimum level of 
>regulation."
>
>Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal 
>Center, said the explosion of extremist websites in the United States 
>proved the need for action.
>
>"We have gone from one hate site on the Internet in 1995 to over 2,000," 
>he said. "There are dozens of sites that teach people how to build bombs."
>
>[...]
>
>She also said that Internet companies had an obligation to make sure they 
>did not sell extremist books or music, while service providers could block 
>websites promoting hatred.
>
>[...]
>
>She noted that the majority of extremist websites originated in the United 
>States and said it was a shame that U.S. representatives had not turned up 
>at the conference.
>
>[...]
>
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