The heads of government of the federal states decided on a further reform of the State Treaty on Youth Media Protection (JMStV) at the Prime Minister's Conference in Berlin on Thursday. The aim is to install porn filters at the elementary level on PCs, laptops and smartphones and to introduce age labeling for websites and apps.
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According to the revised paragraph 12, providers of operating systems must always ensure that they have a “parental protection device”. Such a filtering system, it continues, “must be able to be activated, deactivated and adjusted in a simple, easily accessible and secure manner”.
Windows in child mode
The amendment to the JMStV, which has been controversial for years, is part of the 6th Media Amendment Treaty. Parents or other authorized persons should therefore be able to set an age information in the child protection device. When connected, the devices are automatically set to a corresponding child or youth mode.
Manufacturers of operating systems must then ensure that “only apps can be used that correspond to the age stated or that have been activated individually and in a secure manner”. The installation of programs should only be possible via sales platforms such as app stores, which take age ratings into account and have an automated rating system recognized by the Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (KJM).
The use of common browsers such as Chrome, Firefox or Safari will only be possible in special mode if they have a “secure search function” or unsecured access is activated individually and in a secure manner. In general, the use of browsers and programs should be “excluded individually and in a secure manner”. Only apps that have a recognized youth protection program or a comparable suitable means can be accessible, regardless of the age level set in the parental protection device.
Mandatory labeling of websites and apps
Section 5 of the JMStV already stipulates in its current version that providers of content that potentially impairs the development of children or young people into “self-responsible and socially capable personalities” can provide an age label. Basically, they have to ensure that young people between the ages of 6 and 18 “usually” do not notice such content. The age classification should be readable “by suitable youth protection programs”.
The Prime Minister ultimately refrained from an explicit requirement that apps or websites be provided with an age information that can be recognized by the operating system. However, if his relevant offers have not been marked accordingly, it must be expected that his content will no longer be displayed if the child protection device is activated.
The expanded paragraph 5c JMStV also contains explosive material: According to this, providers of telemedia “for films, series and game programs” that they offer as their own content must indicate an age classification “by means of a clearly perceptible label at the beginning of the offer”. “The main reasons” for the rating and “threats to personal integrity” must also be explained. This should also apply to moving images or games “that have wholly or essentially the same content as the evaluated offer”. In an earlier draft, this clause was even broader and basically also applies to operators of websites and subpages.
Forced filter without practical added value?
IT and media associations as well as voluntary self-regulation institutions ran a storm against a similar initiative in the summer of 2021. During the new attempt, the eco association of the Internet industry complained that a de facto obligation to label even unproblematic content contradicted the principle of youth media protection. Such a requirement is “neither sensible nor proportionate”. The Voluntary Self-Regulation of Multimedia Service Providers (FSM) criticized that filters as a new, additional legal level for technical youth media protection brought “no practical added value”.
Germany “today has the highest level of protection for children and young people in Europe,” explained Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Alexander Schweitzer (SPD). New approaches need to be taken to protect young people on the Internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hatred, hate speech and misinformation.
“So far it has been tedious and sometimes overwhelming for parents to set all the different protective functions in every app on their device,” added Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU). “In the future, a single password-protected entry will be enough so that children and young people can travel in the digital world in an age-appropriate and safe manner.”
The Prime Minister wanted to introduce a requirement for labeling Internet content with an amendment to the JMStV in 2010. This ultimately failed because of North Rhine-Westphalia. The current reform also still has to go through the state parliament. The heads of government expect to be able to sign the draft “by their conference on March 12, 2025”. Ratification by the state parliaments should then take place.
Blocks should be more difficult to circumvent
The Prime Ministers also want to strengthen federal media supervision when it comes to tackling illegal content such as freely available Internet pornography through new legal enforcement instruments: In the future, state media authorities should be able to prohibit banks from making payments to providers abroad.
The amendment puts a stop to circumventing blocking orders through so-called mirror domains – i.e. the distribution of identical content under a website address that has only been minimally changed – from portals such as xHamster, Pornhub, YouPorn and MyDirtyHobby. The North Rhine-Westphalia State Media Authority in particular takes action against such sites.
In the future, self-control institutions should also set up concrete requirements for youth media protection with the KJM and decide for themselves whether the systems presented meet the requirements. The FSM welcomed this to heise online. However, it remains to be seen whether the youth protection device to be provided in the operating system will have the desired effect. Parents already have access to “simple and, above all, flexible tools” that are often not yet sufficiently known.
(vbr)
