How far does censorship go? Where does 'protecting our kids' start? Some of these sites contain stuff that is clearly illegal here in Germany. Is prohibiting something always 'censorship'? I'd say no, it is a matter of fine adjustment which has to be carefully established and controlled.
It starts with parents, who's responsibility it is to supervise their children and educate them about how to use the Internet responsibly. If you're reliant on easily-circumvented blacklists to protect your kids, you're doing it wrong. Specifically, the responsibility (with regards to Internet content) does not rest with a government.
> Is prohibiting something always 'censorship'?
Yes (at least when the thing being prohibited is information). That's what censorship is.
One can validly argue about whether or not a particular instance of censorship is right or wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still censorship.
There would be absolutely nothing wrong with this censorship list if maintained by a private entity and voluntarily applied by individuals to their own Internet connections.
The German populace was generally supportive of this censorship in the post-war period to mend the ideological rifts that drove society apart in the early part of the cold war. While views are certainly changing in the "information age," if the German populace changes its views on censorship then it needs only to change its own laws.
(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
(2) These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons, and in the right to personal honour.
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In theory, it is quite easy to fix the problem: Remove (2) and you are done. In reality, no politician would ever try to do that. "You are against keeping children save?", "You are against honour?" and so on. Still, it would be for the best to remove it ... the government uses it to push every shit they want in regards with censorship - after all, basically everything can be restated to be "for the protection of young persons".
In this case, this is hardly a misunderstanding in values as you argue. Most of the URLs are not political and have very little to do with national socialism.
The maintained list of URLs is sloppy and apparently done with little, if any, public oversight. That raises quite a few red flags. The fact that the German government is trying to intimidate Neocities raises many more red flags.
I think both of these points show that it is an unnecessary and excessive restraint of individual and collective freedom.
See http://www.bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/Service/english.html
Their over-reaction to the unveiled list stems from their (decades-old) fear that "the index" might become kind of a shopping list to minors.
Today it's "sick forbidden sex with animals" but tomorrow it could be "your rights as a German" and if there's no transparency, the government can easily control the information that their people see. Which is a really big thing to control without any oversight or input.
To respond to your question: I default to trusting people. So in the grey area, I'm towards whatever side lets people decide their lives for themselves. But as to specifically where it starts and ends, that's not a specific call I'm informed enough to make. And I'm sure it differs from culture to culture. What's acceptable for my neighborhood is probably wrong for others. To me, that's where things get impossible to decide on one line for everyone. So I'd trust people to define their own community mores.
This is a very dificult and highly subjective topic. Free speech always ends where you start to hurt other people. So there is always 'censorship' in some way or another. The group of 'anti censorship' people (no censorship whatsoever) almost always neglect that point.
I think the only question is: how far should censorship go? Should we block sites? Should we block search engines (like in this case)? What material should be blocked? How can we make sure that the list of items that are censored does not 'overflow'?
That's easy. There should be no government mandated censorship.
First of all - because it doesn't work for the intended purpose. The Internet is so dynamic that no method of censorship can stop information from being disseminated. Your own children are all "safe" and protected, until a friend teaches them how to get passed that filter to view porn or whatever and your children will want to view porn, especially given a lack of education from parents. It's also a pretty dumb filter and governments are failing even at censoring PirateBay or WikiLeaks. Without proper supervision and education, it will just happen. Censoring extreme political views, or any political views that go against the system doesn't work either. It never did. Actually censorship helps in disseminating extreme political views and the only thing that helps is proper education.
Second of all, there are no lines to be drawn - what represents useful information for some people, may hurt the feelings of other people. Nobody is in a position to decide what information should be censored. And if I want to jerk off on people having sex with horses, why should anybody have a problem with that. Being tolerant of people that are different from us in one way or another is a lesson that the German people should have learned, otherwise we are bound to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
I have no problem with censorship when done with full accountability and audit trail - iow. with an invididual court order per item censored. That way the party who demands censorhip has to make their claim and convince a (supposedly impartial) judge that the case is truly exceptional. There has to be a legal and valid reason!
The audit trail from court documents would then allow to see when the request was made, and when the censorship of the said item took place. Most importantly, it would enable the people demanding censorship to be held accountable for their actions. Named, always. Shamed, if necessary.
A censorship list compiled and distributed in private is ripe for abuses. There are always parties who would use such a system to further their own agenda. (Insert selection bias here.)
When it comes to knowledge, taboos and restrictions are an archaic pre-rational way of dealing with dangerous ideas and should be put to rest right about now. There's simply no place for this kind of stuff in the modern society.
Putting that aside: Why the hell would you block content that already is illegal anyway? The same discussion came up with Ursula's braindead child born blocklist. It serves no purpose. It is dumb. And .. entirely arbitrary on top (who maintains the list? How do you add or remove things from that list?)
Defending this thing is hard, invoking "think of the children" is probably the only option here. But.. seriously?
If it makes you uncomfortable to call it "censorship" when blocking Nazi propaganda or whatever, well, good. Discomfort is a sign that you're thinking.
The list is also opt-in, so the US equivalent would be an option on your TV to have it blur nipples or drown out certain four letter words.
People have different opinions about what should be the law.