Re:Germany is pressuring Neocities to censor a disclosure of...
by pgeorgi on Tuesday July 15, 2014 @04:45AM
(#8035389)
What they desperately try to prevent (since about forever) is that the index becomes a "shopping list" among minors.
The offline index was effective while being locked up in their office or other places where age controls can be ensured: publishers and stores mostly try to avoid the fines that they get for advertising index-material "to the youth" (ie. outside adult-only areas).
The online index needs to be installed to routers to be effective and thus have to leave the BPjM's control. That's why they veiled it, and why they're now so furious that the descrambled list is available on the net (and in the news, too).
This is about a group of lists called index. They're created by the BPjM (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons). They're kind of the strictest level of an age rating.
You're still allowed to publish the stuff to people that are over 18 years old. However you're also only allowed to advertise to people over 18 year old. There are lists where they suspect it's actually illegal to publish (child porn, porn with animals, hate crime like the game KZ Tycoon, ...), however it's up to the courts to decide if it is illegal if someone publishes this stuff.
So what does this mean for websites? You can still go to them if you type in the addresses, there's no DNS blocking or something else in place. Links to those websites however are considered as advertisement and thus not allowed for websites reachable by minors. This is the reason the list of URL's is separate from the other lists and is kept secret.
Also note, that websites doing a real age check (not just clicking yes I'm 18) shouldn't be on the list.