Following countries such as Netherlands and France, also in Germany plans for the foundation of a digital rights organisation have been made public. Markus Beckedahl, one of the organisators of the blogger conference re:publica, will announce its establishment this Wednesday on the opening of the conference in Berlin. The issue of online rights and censorship has been discussed recently – only last week, the German government has withdrawn from a policy of blocking child online abuse websites.
„We would like to offer a kind of construction kit for online campaigning“, tells Beckedahl the magazine Der Spiegel. Other fields of interest of the organisation comprise copyright issues, open data, internet blockades, lobbying transparence and net neutrality. „We want to create an open and free digital society“ says the text on their domain – their website is scheduled to go live this Wednesday as well.
Also the European dimension is important to Beckedahl: „I could imagine to work together with the Dutch organisation „Bits of Freedom“ and „Quadrature de Net“ from France.“ Both organisations have been dealing with digital citizenship for quite a while. But also in other European countries digital rights organisations are active.
Only last week, the German government has withdrawn its policy to block websites containing online child abuse material. After fears of spreading censorship on the internet and an alleged lacking efficiency – the blockades could be easily doged – the government has now announced to delete these websites. The move has met with satisfaction among many digital rights activists, nevertheless many still fear an ongoing erosion of web freedom by political parties.
image: timtim.com free non-commercial use
