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Germany to repeal law that allowed web porn warnings
Apr 6, 2011, 11:15 GMT
Berlin - Germany is to repeal controversial legislation that attempted to fight sexual abuse of children by blocking access to child-pornography sites on the internet, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said Wednesday.
She had led protests by German libertarians against the legislation, which was was passed in 2009 but never implemented.
Opponents contended that it opened the way to web 'censorship,' since it set up tracking mechanisms that could also be used by a dictatorial government to block politically offensive websites.
Internet service providers would have been required to obstruct an initial page request from a web user for child porn and to instead display a 'stop' sign on the user's computer screen.
Advocates said it was the only conceivable way to prevent illegal images from foreign servers being shown on German computer screens.
The minister said German police were now coping with the problem differently, tracking down servers with child-porn images and demanding that the server owners delete the images.
German federal police have a web-porn department that tips off foreign police forces about child-abuse websites.
Officials said the German parliament would soon be asked to repeal the law.
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