Based on the expe­ri­ence with the atro­ci­ties of the Nazi regime, human rights in Ger­ma­ny are pro­tec­ted exten­si­ve­ly by the con­sti­tu­ti­on and the courts. Ger­ma­ny has rati­fied most inter­na­tio­nal human rights trea­ties. Reports from inde­pen­dent orga­niz­a­ti­ons such as Amnes­ty Inter­na­tio­nal cer­ti­fy a high level of com­pli­an­ce with human rights.

Moni­to­ring com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on and “cen­sor­s­hip” of media by government or courts is allo­wed only in a very restric­ted man­ner to guran­tee free­dom of expres­si­on. Pri­va­cy and Data Pro­tec­tion is stron­gly pro­tec­ted by law.

Accord­ing to the “Repor­ters Without Bor­ders Press Free­dom Index”, Ger­ma­ny is cur­r­ent­ly ran­ked 18th (USA: 20th) out of 175 coun­tries in the world in terms of press free­dom. But: the inter­net chal­len­ges the Ger­man laws regar­ding pri­va­cy and the pos­si­bi­li­ty of natio­nal law enfor­ce­ment. Due to poli­ti­cal sym­bo­lism and hel­pless­ness, a ten­den­cy can be noted to limit the free­dom of inter­net more than would be con­si­de­red with regard to clas­sic media.

I was invi­ted by the Ger­man Minis­try of For­eign Affairs to give a lec­tu­re on the Inter­na­ti­on Blog­ger Tour about the LEGAL FRAMEWORK CONDITIONS OF ONLINE COMMUNICATION IN GERMANY.  The pre­sen­ta­ti­on of the speech can be down­loa­ded by cli­cking on that link.