Before reading the following text, consider these events going on in my country right now, and think a while about the question I pose:

Child Pornography is a very delicate topic, and the vast majority of people finds it disgusting and wants to see every possible action taken to fight it. Especially the Internet plays a huge role in this topic, as there are many servers up and running where one can download or watch videos of children getting abused.
In order to fight Child-Pornography, the German Minister for Family Affairs, Ursula von der Leyen has asked the ISPs (Internet Service Provider) to block sites based on a list provided by the BKA, which is an institution similar to the American FBI. Not even a month ago, major German ISPs agreed to this site-blocking.

What is your opinion on the blocking of such sites?

There is something interesting happening in Germany right now. Actually, it is not only Germany, it is also other countries in the world in which a – in my eyes very dangerous concept – is gaining more and more acceptance.

You might know the old saying “Knowledge is power”. Phrased by Sir Francis Bacon, an Englishman living in the 16^th century, this sentence holds very much true. What many people though fail to realize, is that the absence of knowledge also yields enormous power. If you have read about the blocking of child porn sites in Germany and thought about it, then I am sure some of will agree that it is a good thing, as such things like Child Pornography should not be accessible in the first place. Blocking them does no harm to anyone who has no interest in those matters anyways, and those who do search for it will have it harder, and maybe even get caught by the police in doing so.

I talked with my mother about this topic, and she had the same opinion. And it kind of shocked me. My mother is an intelligent person, she works as a doctor, yet she thought this way of treating a problem like Child Pornography is a good thing. You can’t follow me why I think it’s bad? No problem, I will give you my thoughts.

From my point of view, censorship, no matter how noble the initial thought, will never be acceptable, especially if it going to be the censorship of the Internet. Understand that I am not saying there should never be secrets, or information that is withheld from the public by governments or other institutions. What I want to express is sincere fear that people might at some point accept limits to their access to the Internet under false pretense of such noble causes as to protect them from Child Pornography, or to soften the pain that such abused people must feel.

And why would people allow such cuts into their rights? Because of their absence of knowledge. If you are not too familiar with the ways of how the Internet works, and what you actually can do and what not to prevent criminal sites or activities, you might be fast led to believe that censorship is a viable option, like my mother thought. If you however do know a bit more about those things, not only do you see that this angle of fighting against unwanted websites is not working very well (it can be circumvented pretty easily, for example), it also holds enormous potential for abuse.

In the case of the German ISPs blocking the hosts, the list is to be held and managed secretly by the BKA and enforced by the ISPs. No other person has the right to view the lists, and no one can guarantee that only sites get onto this list that really belong inaccessible. The technology used, although at the moment quite insufficient, could also be used to censor other sites, such as gambling, political sites, religious sites, the list goes on.

I hope you get my drift. I know that censorship is not a just recently surfaced issue. Countries like China have very strictly censored Internet (check out http://chinachannel.hk/ if you want to see what it is like) but I find it very alarming that the idea gets more and more accepted by the broad public, and I think it is mainly because of the absence of information that most people have on this topic. Politicians often need some strong topic to gain voters, and the topic of fighting Child Pornography is almost perfect for it.

Funny enough, a real shutdown of those servers, which are often located in Europe and thus in the reach of European authorities does not seem to be an option worth considering for many of our politicians.

The moral of the story is not new, but I think one should be reminded of it every now and then:

Think for yourselves, especially if something is going to go against the very basic rights of a community, such as free access to information and the Internet.

Feel free to leave your opinion to this topic.