censoring ogrish.com is something that's happening in many ways in germany. i had my dsl provided by german telco arcor for the last 3 years until new year. i could not browse to ogrish.com because it was blocked. now that i've changed my isp, there are no problems anymore... cheers, rol

Very interesting post. Thank you for the analysis and insight.

What's is frightening is that google has been doing this for quite some time. How much of information is being "distorted" by thru the lens of google ? Secondly , is it right for a public company to operate like this ? Yes and no. The problem here is that the the general public are not aware of such issues until they are being brought to the light by exrEme measures!!

The main Ogrish.com site certianly doesn't glorify violence like Rotten.com. Ogrish simply posts images and videos and the facts about the images. There is rarely, if any, opinion posted with the content. However, the content on the Ogrish blog does contain opinion.

Hi,

I'm the press officer for Ogrish.com, I haven't come here to defend or sell our site, I'm actually just pleased to see such a level headed discussion of the issues.

This latest run in with German pressure groups may not hurt us as an organisation, but we do find it worrying on an entirely different level. Our URL is now apparently illegal for Google to offer as a search result in the very heart of Europe even though our site in no way contravenes German law.

The news recently reported that in China the rules pertaining to Google would be extremely strict, almost draconian if the press is to be believed. Yet if someone in China searches Google for 'Ogrish' they get our site.

I notice, however, that whilst these pressure groups deem our site to be harmful to children (let us not even get into parental responsibilities) it would seem pornography of almost any nature is perfectly acceptable.

As the poster above me states, we at Ogrish do not glorify nor sensationalise violence. We merely show the world what other mainstream outlets will not.

Thankyou for your time in reading this, and thankyou for raising the discussion in this manner.

pressogrish.com

> there’s a part in German censorship laws which says violent imagery is only
> illegal if it’s glorifying violence.

That part is not really true. I mean what kind of image is glorifying violence and what kind is not? It would seem every image on Ogrish/Rotten is of the same category. You are probably talking about the censorship law that forbids written 'violent' text.

This same law has been made for sites for images/videos/nontext, and all what matters is if its fit for kids. I think Germany wants to create some child-save internet But, of course, they cant tackle porn because this is a much too big industry. (especially in Germany hehe)

I'd think theres a huge lists of websites blocked, but the organisation won't make any lists public because they consider even that advertsising.

Reading this probably makes it clear how they operate:

The first two works indexed by the BPjM were Tarzan comics. The rationale for this was that they would affect young people in a "nerve-inflaming and brutalizing way" and "transport them into an unreal world of lies".

And finally a link with more information about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespr%C3%BCfstelle_f%C3%BCr_jugendgef%C3%A4hrdende_Medien

-some ogrish forum member

And here's some English information on the BPjM:
http://www.bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/information-in-english.html

At the moment, according to their statistics, their blacklist contains 2,939 movies, 423 video games, 820 magazines, books or comic books, 514 records, 1.098 websites, and 1(!) flyer. I'm not 100% sure they are the ones pushing Google.de to censor Ogrish.com from their results, but it's certainly likely.

I found this PDF on the BPjM homepage – an official German state release. This is from '99, my translation:

<<Of at least temporary success against extreme right-wing sites is a measurement recently taken by Yahoo. As there was an explosion of hate propaganda since January 1999, Yahoo removed the websites of 37 racist groups that were being distributed through this provider. Certainly some of that content will reappear in other places in the name of "free speech" by being mirrored. Still, Yahoo is sending out a clear signal here.>>
http://www.bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/redaktion/PDF-Anlagen/bpjs-jahrestagung-99,property=pdf,bereich=bpjm,rwb=true.pdf [PDF]

They are actually putting free speech in quotes, as if there was no such thing in reality. Google is not yet mentioned in this text (it's '99, after all), but the site being talked about among others, Stormfront.org, to this day remains censored in Google.de.

They just updated that site info..

I guess I was wrong about porn:

The spreading of pornographic content and other harmful media via the internet is a criminal offence under German jurisdiction. A pornographic content on the internet is legal only if technical measures prohibit minors from getting access to the object (AVS = Age Verification System or Adult-Check-System).

So basicly they do want to make a child-safe web for Germans and every site that can be classified 18+ without AVS/ACS is doomed. But putting AVS on a site like Ogrish/Rotten/Stormfront is of course complete nonsense (and will do more harm then good), everyone knows this... I think the German government just found a smart way to censor the web for Germans under the excuse of "protecting kids". It also wouldnt suprise me if they'd force this "index" on ALL German ISP's.

Censoring is evil. Soon people in Germany will try to get to the forbidden fruit. Let the Germans study about facism, watch the movies and then make an opinion for themselves. Censoring is not a good method.