7 Sep 2011 | News and features
As a twelve-year-old, my life consisted of watching re-runs of What’s Happening, planning my wedding to Justin Timberlake, and playing unhealthy amounts of Grand Theft Auto and DOOM. Then came the tragic 1999 shootings at Columbine High; sparking a heated debate about the role of violent video games in the actions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, both players of my favourite game, DOOM. My parents used it as an excuse to pull the plug on my pixelated carnage. The link between video games and violent shootings was raised again after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, and more recently, the Anders Breivik killing spree in Norway.
Germany, known for having a stringent videogame market, restricted the sale of DOOM and DOOM II to select adult video stores back in 1994. Both games were named on the official “List of Media Harmful to Young People.” Games on the list cannot be “sold, advertised, or displayed to minors in the country”, putting them in the same category as pornography.
After seventeen years of restrictions, the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (Bundesprufstelle) has decided to lift restrictions on the videogame after an appeal from Bethesda Softworks, which owns DOOM. The change was made because of advances in the quality of graphics in videogames, rather than a concern about preserving free speech.
While it might seem silly to think that games like DOOM, with its hilariously bad graphics and hideous Martians on bad stereoids could actually stir a player’s dormant killer, some nations have taken measures based on the assumption that playing such games could lead to violent behaviour. The shootings in Norway led a major retailer to pull violent video games from their stores, viewing the murders as a negative effect of playing such games. Gore might be more realistic in today’s games, but much like graphic images in film or books, restricting the sale of such items would not change the outcome of such tragedies. What leads someone like Breivik to kill cannot be reduced to his hateful blogging or his love for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
If you are under sixteen and in Germany, purchasing either video game is still restricted. While the US Supreme Court ruled that a California law on the sale of violent video games to children violated the First Amendment, it does not appear that Germany will be taking the same measures any time soon. Luckily, the game can be easily found online, probably because we all passed it around on floppy disks in the 90s. Happy playing!
22 Aug 2011 | Uncategorized
The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is pressuring websites to remove the Facebook “like” button, designed to link their content to the social networking site, by the end of September or face a fine of up to €50,000. Thilo Weichert, the spokesman for the regional office for data protection, has claimed that the button breaches German and EU privacy laws.
Weichert argues that the button permits Facebook to trace users’ internet activity and opinion of pages counts as illegally filing a collection of their browsing activity. “Facebook can trace every click on a website, how long I’m on it, what I’m interested in,” he told the Deutche Presse Agentur (German Press Agency). He also claimed that the US-based company would even collect data on those surfing who weren’t Facebook members, although how or why they would then use the “like” option is unclear.
Weichert has neglected to address precisely how the state is going to tackle this issue: will only sites based in Schleswig-Holstein be required to do this? An overall impression of Schleswig-Holstein as far from being an internet-hotspot (surely most sites have their servers or bases abroad?) doesn’t dispel the problem that policing this problem may require more of an intrusion into individual privacy than the “like” button supposedly presents in the first place. Schleswig-Holstein has further neglected to point out why the rest of Germany or the EU are yet to be up in arms about this; perhaps because most German or EU citizens realise that cure may be worse than the disease.
Facebook, for its part, defended itself by saying that the button is able to transport user data such as IP addresses, but that this data is kept for the 90 days that the industry permits, not permanently, and that all of its plug-ins comply with EU data protection law.
There is also the matter that the Facebook “like” button seems like a rather arbitrary target. This is a function where users are relatively well versed as to how it works, as the choice of when to it is made clear, rather than the altogether more invisible Google Analytics, which monitors users activity before and after clicking on websites and collects far more “intimate” data, such as the length of time spent on the page and the number of clicks. Granted, this doesn’t match up with a personal profile, making the data anonymous, so if privacy concerns are at the forefront then it would seem less pernicious at first glance. However, the data is given away entirely unawares, anxieties over which are really the crux of a privacy concern in the first place. If users volunteer their data, which they are already doing in droves to the anti-privacy behemoth that is Facebook, then surely concerns over privacy are null and void.
Privacy concerns are frequently the stick that the German government uses to beat the internet with, a cultural hang-up from the dark days of the GDR or even Nazi 20th century where extensive collection of individual data was the lynchpin of both oppressive regimes.
Ruth Michaelson is a freelance journalist living and working in Berlin
22 Feb 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
Marcus Hellwig and Jens Koch, the German journalists imprisoned in Tabriz have been released, after the government reduced their 20 month sentences for reporting on the case of a Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery in 2006.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has defended criticism of the foreign minister’s meeting with Iranian president, saying it was necessary to secure the journalists’ release.
16 Feb 2011 | Index Index, minipost
David Beckham’s libel case against In Touch magazine has been thrown out of an American court. Beckham brought the £15.5m lawsuit over an article which alleged that he had paid for sex with a prostitute. He sought USD25m in compensation. The judge accepted that the article was innaccurate but could not establish malice on the facts of the case. This is required under US law, although a German court has found in their favour and awarded damages. He intends to appeal the decision.
