Distributing Nazi propaganda and pornography on the Internet just got harder in Germany, as Chancellor Helmut Kohl's cabinet approved a bill Wednesday to ban electronic distribution of forms of hate speech and indecent material.
"No one should think that special technologies put them beyond the reach of the law," Education and Research Minister Juergen Ruettgers told Reuters. The law specifically states that acts already illegal in Germany - such as denying the Holocaust and distributing hard-core pornography to minors - will also apply to the Net.
The new German law places responsibility on the loosely defined "suppliers," though details on regulation and penalties are unclear. The law could go into effect in August 1997, before the planned deregulation of European telecommunications in 1998, Reuters reported.
The new law comes just as news is circulating on the Net that in neighboring Austria, Wolfgang Frohlich has been jailed for operating a "World War Two revisionist site." Frohlich could face up to 10 years in prison under an Austrian law criminalizing Holocaust denial.
Last January, Deutsche Telekom, the largest ISP in Germany, blocked access to 1,500 sites located at Web Communications in California because Zundelsite, a Web site that refers to the Holocaust as "an Allied propaganda tool concocted during World War II" is located on the server.
