11 ms·

Germany: States Pass Porn Filters for Operating Systems

90 points by trallnag 11mo ago

trallnag 11mo ago
State parliaments pass controversial Youth Media Protection Act amendment. Parents can now "secure" devices for children with one click.
- Humperdunkel 11mo ago
  Finally, the hard power switch makes a come back??!
  - BadBadJellyBean 11mo ago
    Breakers also make a nice klick. Or is it more of a thock?
tardibear 11mo ago
> Manufacturers of operating systems, tech associations, and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) sharply criticize the draft law. They consider the filtering requirement, in particular, to be technically and practically unfeasible, as well as legally questionable.
- vmaurin 11mo ago
  * you add an HTTP header saying "I am a kid" * porn web servers read and handle this headers * if they don't (easy to test), they get fined It is easy to implement, easy to monitor, and will probably just work if the government do the effort to monitor and enforce it. If not, it will just be an other DNT header
  - trallnag 11mo ago
    What stops a kid from saying "I am an adult" via this header without some draconian client-side enforcement?
    - Asooka 11mo ago
      You add draconian client-side enforcement via parent controls. You can even mandate that stores ask for whom the device will be and provision it accordingly with the flag being automatically removed in the future when the person is of age.
      - Hizonner 11mo ago
        This cannot, of course, be achieved with open, hackable software on the client device. So you have to outlaw that. Sorry, no.
        Voultapher 11mo ago
        I don't think it'll need draconian enforcement, parental controls on iOS and Android can co-exist with Linux. Having the option to enable specific filters on a client side and requiring a pass-code or OS level permissions to change them seems like a realistic way to tackle this that doesn't end in dangerous government power concentration. As always with security, perfect is the enemy of good. A good set of hard to change - for children - client-side filters would do wonders in terms of real improvement. As much as I'm tired of the LLM hype, they might actually be a good fit for such tasks.
        Tadpole9181 11mo ago
        I don't even understand what you're getting at; as if RBAC is an alien concept? Do you think everyone should have root access to any machine they touch? It's the parent's computer and they have a right to put a password on the BIOS and a child lock on the system that forces these types of headers, with no available bypass for the child account. Or, if they do please, have the router filter any website outside of a whitelist without a password. We do worse for OpSec all the time?
  - woodpanel 11mo ago
    Exactly. I'd even go one step further: If it takes access to Pr0n for kids to become really sophisticated in tech, how is this not a win too?
designerarvid 11mo ago
Totally unrelated movie tip: The lives of others (Das Leben der Anderen) has 8.4 on IMDB.
- anonzzzies 11mo ago
  It is a very good movie. And of course another 'nie wieder' in the list of things which will repeat over and over.
- jones89176 11mo ago
  underrated comment
DyslexicAtheist 11mo ago
is this Lawful Interception?
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
benbristow 11mo ago
One way to bring in the year of the Linux desktop
- adastra22 11mo ago
  Why do you think these laws don’t apply to Linux?
  - benbristow 11mo ago
    How would you implement this on something like Arch Linux where you basically build your whole OS from scratch?
    - adastra22 11mo ago
      Doesn't matter. If you can't find a way to do so, then it becomes illegal to distribute or use Arch Linux.
      - iamnothere 11mo ago
        As an American I will happily help my EU colleagues ignore this absurd law by any means necessary, even if it requires sending SD cards affixed to letters through the mail or embedding them in 3D printed trinkets. Or, more likely, simply emailing gzipped installers or providing convenient download links that circumvent whatever firewall is eventually set up (assuming this law sticks around, but it won’t).
        benbristow 11mo ago
        Or use the censorship resistant protocol known as BitTorrent. Downloading Linux ISOs just became illegal for real this time.
      - benbristow 11mo ago
        Literally no one is going to get arrested for installing Arch Linux.
nalekberov 11mo ago
Except protection = control.
- slightwinder 11mo ago
  Welcome to parenthood.
miroljub 11mo ago
Germany is becoming more and more like North Korea.
- jones89176 11mo ago
  while I certainly do oppose many of the cuts of our civil liberties, I think that statement is quite an exaggeration... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
  - lifestyleguru 11mo ago
    There are surprisingly popular and frequently visited countries at the bottom of the ranking.
Canada 11mo ago
It's actually better to do this on the device. If you can give children something that is basically whilelisted access then it reduces the need to try to filter the open web.
- trallnag 11mo ago
  I don't understand how this is supposed to be water tight without client-side scanning etc.
- noobermin 11mo ago
  it being mandated however is an absolute assault on freedom. will linux become outlawed over this?
  - earthnail 11mo ago
    It’s just saying “include the equivalent of an adblocker” and allow parents to enable it. Frankly seems easier to solve to me than adblocking, and that’s already a solved problem.
  - txrx0000 11mo ago
    This is a valid concern. But I think we should reject this law on the basis that it should be a recommendation rather than a mandate, without rejecting its premise entirely, because it actually has some merit. Filtering on client-side is a good idea and lets parents parent without affecting anyone else, provided the filters work completely offline. And we should make sure governments and parents know this so they don't try to push any more Internet-wide censorship laws. And instead of mandating it, it should work like movie ratings: OSes that implement parental control features get a "PG-capable" label, then make it illegal for minors to use a non-PG-capable OS. This should not affect adults, and parents can choose to not use it because it's a feature you have to manually turn on.
- brodo 11mo ago
  Yes. This is a bad law, but somehow still a better one than the UK got...
rPlayer6554 11mo ago
*This does not seem like a censorship measure.* It seems like it requires OSs to give parents an easy way to filter porn. I struggle with porn addiction. When I really fall back into it I act out 5-10 times a day. I can’t stop even if I want to. It distracts from work and from my real life relationships and girlfriend. Everyone on HN loves to rag on social media because it’s so toxic. What about porn? If social media makes it easy to compare my “boring” life with “beautiful” influencer lives, why wouldn’t porn make my normal girlfriend and normal sex seem boring. Part of that is how young I found porn when my brain was still developing and forming how it processed sex and relationships. Porn makes me feel so depressed. I am sure other people handle porn and social media better than me. And that’s ok, I respect that. *But even if you think porn is ok as an adult, can’t you see why adults should be able to have more control over what their kids see.* Yes if they are motivated kids will find it - I learned a lot of the engineering skills I have now getting around my parents blocker. *Not every kid is that good and this might help many.* If it’s not required to be on in the OS, what’s the harm? P.S. if you struggle with something similar to me, look up SA, SAA, or SLAA.
- iammjm 11mo ago
  The issue here is not having an easy way to block porn, the issue is enforcing it. And easy ways to block apps and websites already exist. One I can recommend is called Freedom.
  - jones89176 11mo ago
    https://freedom.to/ https://freedom.to/ (I expected it to be harder to find with that generic name) edit: I like Leechblock for Firefox
- mavamaarten 11mo ago
  Okay. I hear your struggles and want to ask: would you rather give others the tools to block your porn, or would you rather have easier access to help?
  - rPlayer6554 11mo ago
pndy 11mo ago
Might be somehow related-ish; in Poland by rmf24.pl outlet: > On Friday, the Sejm (lower house) passed an amendment to the bill on the provision of electronic services, which allows for the blocking of illegal content on the internet. The new regulations anticipate that the president of UKE (Office of Electronic Communications) and KRRiT (National Broadcasting Council ) will be able to decide on the removal of content concerning 27 prohibited acts, mainly specified in the Penal Code. Prohibited acts include criminal threats, incitement to suicide, glorification of paedophilia, promotion of totalitarianism, incitement to hatred and content that infringes copyright. > Under the bill, the author of the disputed content will receive a notification from the internet service provider about the initiation of the procedure and will have two days to present their position. The decision of the UKE and KRRiT to remove the content will not be subject to appeal, but the author will be able to lodge an objection with a common court. > 237 MPs voted in favour of the bill, 200 were against, and five abstained. The bill will now be debated in the Senate. This happens four days after Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski said that "Poland strongly opposes the introduction of mandatory scanning of private messages in instant messaging services.". --- I don't want to wear a tinfoil hat but considering that chat control is unlikely to work at EU level, local "solutions" like above in Germany and Poland may give legal way to include scanning instant messengers in the future.
- Lapsa 11mo ago
  tinfoil hat doesn't help against hearing microwave transmitted voices
- IsTom 11mo ago
  Isn't this about web hosting? That ship sailed long ago.
- bko 11mo ago
  They already do this with social media regulations. This is the venue, not these adult content filters. The UK already arrests 33 people PER DAY for social media posts and that was in 2023. If we're going to throw people in jail for posting political memes anyway, at least parents will have some control over what their children consume. https://www.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1mut3gv/12k_arrests_last_year_in_the_uk_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1mut3gv/12k_arrests...
fschuett 11mo ago
> The aim is to protect young people on the internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hate speech, incitement, and misinformation. Hmmm, I doubt they really care about pornography and more about censoring certain stuff that politicians do not like. But what do I know, I'm probably just a conspiracy theorist.
- bko 11mo ago
  Well considering you can go to prison in Germany for posting a meme on social media, that ship has already sailed. This has been a thing for a while. The only difference with this is this gives some parents control over what they allow their children to see on their computers https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2025/04/11/german-court-punishes-journalist-for-satirical-meme-about-german-politician/ https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2025/04/11/german-court-p...
  - yubblegum 11mo ago
    I think they should criminialize porn instead and leave the machines alone. Since that industry (conspiracy theories aside) value money above all else, massive fine and taxes on the owners of porn production is the way to go imo.
    - fschuett 11mo ago
      I mean, porn completely ruined my teenage years and it took me 8 years to get rid of my addiction. It warps your expectations of real-life relationships, it ruins marriages, it ruins both women and men, it's garbage poison and should be outlawed. So I would be in favor of such laws, but then again, I also know, it's not really about porn and more about the whole "we can't let the youth become radicalized by this Internet thing" stuff and just more censorship.
- rft 11mo ago
  That part also caused my tin foil hat to heat up. At least they get the credit of including it directly instead of adding it in a later revision that gets even less news coverage. It is hard not to grow cynical when you see this. I am also worried about another detail: > The states also want to prevent the circumvention of blocking orders by erotic portals ... using so-called mirror domains – i.e., the distribution of identical content under a minimally changed web address. For a page to be treated as a mirror page and quickly blocked without a new procedure, it must essentially have the same content as the already blocked original. Note the part "quickly blocked without a new procedure" so there is a way to block sites with even less process and oversight. That just invites overblocking without accountability.
bko 11mo ago
I find it interesting how these kinds of measures are incredibly unpopular on HN and other online platforms. But if there was some regulation about social media algorithms, short form content, age restriction for social media and other mandated restrictions on social media companies, people are a lot more open. Why is any restriction on adult content so fiercely defended? I can post that Mark Zuckerberg should be arrested and tried at the Hague and receive a somewhat warm reception on this platform. But there are these giant faceless corporations pushing unrestricted, often depraved content to minors and people stand up for them. And this content often includes anonymous uploaded content with underage girls. It's like the meme "leave those billionaires alone!" I'm sure this will get downvoted, but help me understand what the visceral reaction is. I've heard people argue that this kind of adult content isn't harmful, but it seems obvious that it is, especially to children. At least more than short form content like TikTok. What would you rather your 12 year old spend hours watching? The adult industry has always been a few steps ahead of popular media in terms of virality, addiction and kitsch. They're shaping the online generation, and not in a good way.
- amarcheschi 11mo ago
  Social media algorithm are being used to push agenda from other countries, see the Cambridge analytica case, or push extremist content to youngsters since it generates much more engagement. Porn doesn't do this. It may have other issues, but it doesn't aim at maximing engagement with infinite scrolls and similar tactics. Let alone the content, who would watch porn for 12hrs/day? We already have the possibility to do that, and if somebody doesn't have mental issues, I'm of the opinion (s)he's not going to do that
  - bko 11mo ago
    [dead]
- fabian2k 11mo ago
  Social media regulation isn't particularly popular here on HN, though it is certainly in other areas. You also won't find many people defending CSAM here as you imply. You also have to assume that people are not taking the purpose of these new measures at face value, but assume that there are other underlying motives and that the measures are broader than just simple pornography. And I don't think that assumption is unjustified. The ID-based measures like in the UK are a gigantic privacy nightmare as well. These measures are also not specific to kids, in the end they essentially always affect the access to this kind of content by adults as well. And some people think that is none of the government's business. An additional factor is that these measures are technically infeasibly without drastic measures. So they're either easy to circumvent, or would give the government enormous power and access over all kinds of communication.
Nextgrid 11mo ago
Always funny to see the senile politicians blaming porn as the biggest threats to children and not their collapsing economies. I'm sure when those kids grow up and work long hours for the rest of their lives (if they can find a job at all!) just to be able to afford rent they'll at least be grateful they weren't able to access porn in their teenage years.
- asah 11mo ago
  I hate these kinds of bills too, but it's a logical fallacy to address only the single biggest problem (assuming you agree on what it is).
  - thomasuebel 11mo ago
    True. The problem is there are no further bills. All other problems aren’t addressed…
  - guy2345 11mo ago
    [dead]
- taneq 11mo ago
  Teach your kids to code, build electronics or tune engines, and they won’t have time for porn.
  - Nextgrid 11mo ago
    Don't worry, you will spend all your time working a dead-end job to afford rent (so some retiree can enjoy his life) and taxes (so politicians keep getting paid to propose such stupid bills) so there won't be any time to watch porn anyway.
- yubblegum 11mo ago
  Porn is damaging at multiple levels, specially for young adults to say nothing of "children". +Should be clear is that exposing children to porn or normalizing porn in no way promotes "healthy economies" either.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
anonzzzies 11mo ago
Seems really the only way forward is having your normal fast internet/live/banking/gov crap where you play a happy citizen role. And outside of that a mesh network where you really live. Sure not for most, but for me, yep.
amelius 11mo ago
It makes more sense to first ban violence in movies and games.
- lan321 11mo ago
  Can we please not ban either and just put the people who can't differentiate GTA from IRL in asylums?
iammjm 11mo ago
I want a "one button solution" to keep the boomers and the elderly from getting their brains fried by facebook and voting for authoritarian parties that want to implement such antiliberal mechanisms
- hollow-moe 11mo ago
  early cremation, not like they're any kind of useful nowadays. "but you'll be in their place someday", yes i'm sure of it, being poisoned physically and mentally by every single thing existing i'm pretty confident i'll live till 50.
amelius 11mo ago
The upside: this will be the year of Linux on the desktop!
- raffael_de 11mo ago
  Until Linux is going to be forced into the same regulation. And then until new laws criminalize attempts to bypass the "porn filter" no matter what you use.
  - rft 11mo ago
    As much as I hate where this might lead, I can't help but amuse myself over a scene like this: You walk up to a bearded fellow in a dark alley and quietly whisper "Stallman..." only for him to quietly respond "... was right.". He then opens his coat for you to choose the install USB of your favorite distro (Arch of course!). He dutifully hands you the stick and a printed copy of the GPLv5 for you to hide in your coat as you walk past the telescreens back to your home.
  - earthnail 11mo ago
    But where’s the problem? This is opt in. KDE already has a kiosk mode for kids. Add a content filter aka adblocker for porn, done. I don’t understand the outrage here. Many parents who are technically illiterate would like to be able to leave their 10yo alone with a computer without having to worry. Rn the only option for that is nintendo/playstation/xbox. Smartphones aren’t.
    - raffael_de 11mo ago
      to be fair I didn't read the details of that law. it's just that its Marschrichtung is pretty clear. total surveillance for flimsy reasons because porn etc. eventually it will be mandatory for everybody. that's what it is about.
      - earthnail 11mo ago
        But it’s on device, opt in. This is the way to go. No central government control. I really don’t want the British version with a central internet authority instead.
theturtle 11mo ago
[dead]
shaky-carrousel 11mo ago
I'm not really afraid of porn. That can be handled by talking with the kid. What I'm afraid of is the kid watching one of those awful NSFL videos. It'll eventually happen, but the later, the better.
- tasuki 11mo ago
  > What I'm afraid of is the kid watching one of those awful NSFL videos. I'm 40 and what are you talking about? I've... seen stuff on the internet, but I think nothing my 15 year old self couldn't handle.
  - shaky-carrousel 11mo ago
    And yet, there are videos out there I wish I never saw. I gained nothing from seeing them and they only made me feel... awful about. Nowadays I just refuse to see them. But I wish I could erase them from my mind. Of course we can "handle" them. But I wish I never saw them in the first place.
xaxaxa123 11mo ago
>The aim is to protect young people on the internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hate speech, incitement, and misinformation. Who decides what hate speech is? Incitment? what the actual fuck. Linux is the way until they come for that as well.
Someone 11mo ago
> The core of the JMStV amendment, which has been debated for years and to which the state premiers agreed almost a year ago: End devices that are typically also used by minors should be able to be switched to a child or youth mode by parents with filters at the operating system level at the push of a button. ⇒ This will require OSes to have a filter, but it doesn’t require it to be switched on, not even for children using computers. Whether to switch it on will be a parent’s choice. Risk, of course, is that this will be sloppy slope. Parents who don’t switch it on for their kids may get seen as not caring enough for their children, effectively forcing parents to switch the filter on.
lifestyleguru 11mo ago
Old German perverts fixated on porn. Youngsters have their brains melted with tiktok, instagram and other short videos.
santiagobasulto 11mo ago
Unrelated, but shows the "slow collapse" of Europe (where I live in). We all know what a big issue Climate Change (and specially warming in Europe) is. So most European politicians go on and on about environment and all that. Well, yesterday, I went to play football at night and finished at around 10PM. I was planning on taking the metro, as any normal European citizen. Much was my surprise when I compared the time and cost to a Car Sharing app (Free2move). The metro in my city is €3,80 and Google Maps estimated a metro travel time of 30 minutes. I ended up paying €3,64 for the Car and made it home in 19 minutes. Worst part, the car was not even electric. It makes absolutely no freaking sense. So yeah, European politicians are just scammers. They're doing their own businesses while claiming to protect the population.
- tossandthrow 11mo ago
  With all respect, the car sharing you used is likely VC subsidized while the metro runs on much lower subsidies. That said, public city transport should likely just be free. (not so much regional or national transport as the extreme congestion from the Deutschland ticket has shown)
  - adastra22 11mo ago
    Ride sharing has not been VC subsidized for many years.
- mejutoco 11mo ago
  Is that the metro price of a single ticket or proportional for a 10 trip card or similar?
  - santiagobasulto 11mo ago
    PER ticket. Extremely expensive for the average salary. Theres a reduced fare that is 2.8 for students and elder citizens
    - mejutoco 11mo ago
rckt 11mo ago
It always puzzles me, why the porn? How about seeing war in action? Murders? How about fostering the gambling addiction via freemium games? Why seeing pussies, dicks and tits is more of a threat than anything else? This porn fixation is ridiculous.
- slightwinder 11mo ago
  Excessive Violence without proper context and explanation is also forbidden. And Porn is usually several lacking context and explanation, being just poor fiction. But the thing is, most people understand the regulation of violence, so you won't hear many complaints about those.
cynicalsecurity 11mo ago
This feels like a betrayal from Germany.
hollow-moe 11mo ago
"oh no, parents aren't using these tools we're forcing companies to implement, we gotta intervene to protect the precious children so we'll assume you're a children everywhere until we can link back your real identity somehow"
creata 11mo ago
Have any Linux distro maintainers spoken about this law? Does it affect Linux distros at all?
earthnail 11mo ago
I’m gonna go on a limb here and say that I like this draft. It’s an opt-in measure for parents with a one-click solution. Think ad blocker but for adult content. Parents have to actively enable it. It’s on the device itself, not in the internet backbone. No censorship happening; government doesn’t even know whether parents use it. It’s a good solution.
- txrx0000 11mo ago
  Yeah, this is the right direction for moderation features in general assuming it's implemented offline on-device and works without contacting a remote server. It eliminates excuses to implement age verification online. And it's correct in principle: each parent should be able to decide what their child sees, but not what anyone else's child sees. Parenting a child is the responsibility of that child's parents, but it is not the responsibility of governments or other people. Though I do have some gripes with it being a mandate rather than a recommendation, it is a much better proposal than age verification or censoring the entire Internet.
  - earthnail 11mo ago
    We have mandates for all kinds of things, like movie ratings etc. I think it’s appropriate here. It just makes it easy. I don’t understand the pushback from tech companies either; all OSes already have a kiosk mode (incl the major Linux DEs). Should be very low effort to implement.
    - txrx0000 11mo ago
      The concern is that OSes which don't implement the feature will be outlawed. Movie ratings don't outlaw movies and actually provides a good framework: instead of mandating that OSes implement this, publish a client-side filter spec that OS devs can choose to implement. And if they implement it, their OS gets a label like "PG-capable". Then make it illegal for minors to possess a non-PG-capable device.
    - iamnothere 11mo ago
      Movie ratings are not mandatory, at least not in free countries. MPAA ratings like “R” and “PG” are a voluntary classification system and films are free to opt out, though many theater chains may be less likely to show your film. But small theaters and streaming platforms don’t usually care. Authoritarian states like China and the UK do require classification/certification of films before release. Imagine requiring a painter to have their paintings reviewed by the state before exhibition!
haunter 11mo ago
Mind you this is the country with a state-administered church tax system. Of course they will be all against porn, something something protestant work ethics.
GlibMonkeyDeath 11mo ago
Whenever a new attempt at limiting exposure to what is obviously harmful content (e.g. explicitly violent content, and anything to do with minors), I always see the same patterns of argument against the attempt: (1) It's the parent's fault. (2) Freedom! No government censorship! (3) This is technically impossible to control (the fix is worse than the problem.) While each point can be argued, I think the debate needs to be framed a different way. We are facing a dosage and availability problem, just as in comparing, in order of harmfulness: coffee, alcohol, and heroin. We know what happens when a harmful substance suddenly becomes widely available. Do people say "hey I drank some beer when I was a kid so all drugs are fine, including opioids, in unlimited amounts"? And, "if your kids gets addicted to opioids, it's the parent's fault for not keeping it away from them" (when your trusted doctor prescribed them first?) Or, "people are free to do what they want, and it is technically impossible to control the supply of opioids anyway, so why bother"? The unfiltered internet is FLOODED with violent, disturbing pornographic images that literally NO ONE should ever see. It's not some sort of law of nature that this content exists - humans made it and put it there, and the wide availability and potency of this content is the problem. It isn't seeing someone's naked behind in a context-appropriate scene in a movie (that's closer to coffee in the above example.) As it turns out, I think this law is a good step, but far from complete or perfect (or even good.). Requiring each individual to personally set up 100% effective filters is an impossible burden. For sure, when I had young kids a decade ago, I tried, and I also talked to my kids about it. But how about also that drug dealer isn't allowed to sneakily approach my kids with free samples? And I can reasonably expect that my kids aren't forced to walk through the floor of a casino, with all the flashing lights and prostitutes, on their way to school? Since most school work requires the internet these days, that's what it feels like as a parent. I have two adult kids, one doing well (despite visiting some questionable sites as a youth, I found out later), and one struggling, in part from the crap that is found on the internet. I know many of my peers with young adult children are telling the same story - at least one of their kids is way off the rails with a serious real-life problem, usually fueled by the internet casino in some way (and before you tell me we were all bad parents, these are now adults in their 20's and 30's, who mostly seemed normal and well-prepared after high school.) Now, I am not completely blaming the internet, an excellent tool that has improved many things in my lifetime, for these outcomes. But let's not kid ourselves - there is a huge distinction between, say, Google Maps, and animal torture videos. This is a hard problem, with lots of nuance and gray areas. It's the entire reason that laws and courts exist - sometimes you really do just need to sit down with a group of people and come to some sort of solution, however imperfect, and iterate to make it better. Because clearly something has to happen - the opioids coming through the municipal internet pipes aren't going to be completely remediated with a personal water filter. This law provides for free water filters, but ones that won't work everywhere without prohibition-like enforcement (e.g. open source, DIY distributions of Linux.) It's part of the solution, far from perfect, and far from complete. But we are done doing nothing.
aeze 11mo ago
Are there studies showing that porn has a negative effect on people's lives to the point that this would be justifiable?

90 points by trallnag 11mo ago

State parliaments pass controversial Youth Media Protection Act amendment. Parents can now "secure" devices for children with one click.

Humperdunkel 11mo ago
Finally, the hard power switch makes a come back??!
- BadBadJellyBean 11mo ago
  Breakers also make a nice klick. Or is it more of a thock?

tardibear 11mo ago

> Manufacturers of operating systems, tech associations, and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) sharply criticize the draft law. They consider the filtering requirement, in particular, to be technically and practically unfeasible, as well as legally questionable.

vmaurin 11mo ago
* you add an HTTP header saying "I am a kid" * porn web servers read and handle this headers * if they don't (easy to test), they get fined It is easy to implement, easy to monitor, and will probably just work if the government do the effort to monitor and enforce it. If not, it will just be an other DNT header
- trallnag 11mo ago
  What stops a kid from saying "I am an adult" via this header without some draconian client-side enforcement?
  - Asooka 11mo ago
    You add draconian client-side enforcement via parent controls. You can even mandate that stores ask for whom the device will be and provision it accordingly with the flag being automatically removed in the future when the person is of age.
    - Hizonner 11mo ago
      This cannot, of course, be achieved with open, hackable software on the client device. So you have to outlaw that. Sorry, no.
      - Voultapher 11mo ago
        I don't think it'll need draconian enforcement, parental controls on iOS and Android can co-exist with Linux. Having the option to enable specific filters on a client side and requiring a pass-code or OS level permissions to change them seems like a realistic way to tackle this that doesn't end in dangerous government power concentration. As always with security, perfect is the enemy of good. A good set of hard to change - for children - client-side filters would do wonders in terms of real improvement. As much as I'm tired of the LLM hype, they might actually be a good fit for such tasks.
      - Tadpole9181 11mo ago
        I don't even understand what you're getting at; as if RBAC is an alien concept? Do you think everyone should have root access to any machine they touch? It's the parent's computer and they have a right to put a password on the BIOS and a child lock on the system that forces these types of headers, with no available bypass for the child account. Or, if they do please, have the router filter any website outside of a whitelist without a password. We do worse for OpSec all the time?
- woodpanel 11mo ago
  Exactly. I'd even go one step further: If it takes access to Pr0n for kids to become really sophisticated in tech, how is this not a win too?

designerarvid 11mo ago

Totally unrelated movie tip: The lives of others (Das Leben der Anderen) has 8.4 on IMDB.

anonzzzies 11mo ago
It is a very good movie. And of course another 'nie wieder' in the list of things which will repeat over and over.
jones89176 11mo ago
underrated comment

DyslexicAtheist 11mo ago

is this Lawful Interception?

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

benbristow 11mo ago

One way to bring in the year of the Linux desktop

adastra22 11mo ago
Why do you think these laws don’t apply to Linux?
- benbristow 11mo ago
  How would you implement this on something like Arch Linux where you basically build your whole OS from scratch?
  - adastra22 11mo ago
    Doesn't matter. If you can't find a way to do so, then it becomes illegal to distribute or use Arch Linux.
    - iamnothere 11mo ago
      As an American I will happily help my EU colleagues ignore this absurd law by any means necessary, even if it requires sending SD cards affixed to letters through the mail or embedding them in 3D printed trinkets. Or, more likely, simply emailing gzipped installers or providing convenient download links that circumvent whatever firewall is eventually set up (assuming this law sticks around, but it won’t).
      - benbristow 11mo ago
        Or use the censorship resistant protocol known as BitTorrent. Downloading Linux ISOs just became illegal for real this time.
    - benbristow 11mo ago
      Literally no one is going to get arrested for installing Arch Linux.

nalekberov 11mo ago

Except protection = control.

slightwinder 11mo ago
Welcome to parenthood.

miroljub 11mo ago

Germany is becoming more and more like North Korea.

jones89176 11mo ago
while I certainly do oppose many of the cuts of our civil liberties, I think that statement is quite an exaggeration... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
- lifestyleguru 11mo ago
  There are surprisingly popular and frequently visited countries at the bottom of the ranking.

Canada 11mo ago

It's actually better to do this on the device. If you can give children something that is basically whilelisted access then it reduces the need to try to filter the open web.

trallnag 11mo ago
I don't understand how this is supposed to be water tight without client-side scanning etc.
noobermin 11mo ago
it being mandated however is an absolute assault on freedom. will linux become outlawed over this?
- earthnail 11mo ago
  It’s just saying “include the equivalent of an adblocker” and allow parents to enable it. Frankly seems easier to solve to me than adblocking, and that’s already a solved problem.
- txrx0000 11mo ago
  This is a valid concern. But I think we should reject this law on the basis that it should be a recommendation rather than a mandate, without rejecting its premise entirely, because it actually has some merit. Filtering on client-side is a good idea and lets parents parent without affecting anyone else, provided the filters work completely offline. And we should make sure governments and parents know this so they don't try to push any more Internet-wide censorship laws. And instead of mandating it, it should work like movie ratings: OSes that implement parental control features get a "PG-capable" label, then make it illegal for minors to use a non-PG-capable OS. This should not affect adults, and parents can choose to not use it because it's a feature you have to manually turn on.
brodo 11mo ago
Yes. This is a bad law, but somehow still a better one than the UK got...

rPlayer6554 11mo ago

*This does not seem like a censorship measure.* It seems like it requires OSs to give parents an easy way to filter porn. I struggle with porn addiction. When I really fall back into it I act out 5-10 times a day. I can’t stop even if I want to. It distracts from work and from my real life relationships and girlfriend. Everyone on HN loves to rag on social media because it’s so toxic. What about porn? If social media makes it easy to compare my “boring” life with “beautiful” influencer lives, why wouldn’t porn make my normal girlfriend and normal sex seem boring. Part of that is how young I found porn when my brain was still developing and forming how it processed sex and relationships. Porn makes me feel so depressed. I am sure other people handle porn and social media better than me. And that’s ok, I respect that. *But even if you think porn is ok as an adult, can’t you see why adults should be able to have more control over what their kids see.* Yes if they are motivated kids will find it - I learned a lot of the engineering skills I have now getting around my parents blocker. *Not every kid is that good and this might help many.* If it’s not required to be on in the OS, what’s the harm? P.S. if you struggle with something similar to me, look up SA, SAA, or SLAA.

iammjm 11mo ago
The issue here is not having an easy way to block porn, the issue is enforcing it. And easy ways to block apps and websites already exist. One I can recommend is called Freedom.
- jones89176 11mo ago
  https://freedom.to/ https://freedom.to/ (I expected it to be harder to find with that generic name) edit: I like Leechblock for Firefox
mavamaarten 11mo ago
Okay. I hear your struggles and want to ask: would you rather give others the tools to block your porn, or would you rather have easier access to help?
- rPlayer6554 11mo ago

pndy 11mo ago

Might be somehow related-ish; in Poland by rmf24.pl outlet: > On Friday, the Sejm (lower house) passed an amendment to the bill on the provision of electronic services, which allows for the blocking of illegal content on the internet. The new regulations anticipate that the president of UKE (Office of Electronic Communications) and KRRiT (National Broadcasting Council ) will be able to decide on the removal of content concerning 27 prohibited acts, mainly specified in the Penal Code. Prohibited acts include criminal threats, incitement to suicide, glorification of paedophilia, promotion of totalitarianism, incitement to hatred and content that infringes copyright. > Under the bill, the author of the disputed content will receive a notification from the internet service provider about the initiation of the procedure and will have two days to present their position. The decision of the UKE and KRRiT to remove the content will not be subject to appeal, but the author will be able to lodge an objection with a common court. > 237 MPs voted in favour of the bill, 200 were against, and five abstained. The bill will now be debated in the Senate. This happens four days after Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski said that "Poland strongly opposes the introduction of mandatory scanning of private messages in instant messaging services.". --- I don't want to wear a tinfoil hat but considering that chat control is unlikely to work at EU level, local "solutions" like above in Germany and Poland may give legal way to include scanning instant messengers in the future.

Lapsa 11mo ago
tinfoil hat doesn't help against hearing microwave transmitted voices
IsTom 11mo ago
Isn't this about web hosting? That ship sailed long ago.
bko 11mo ago
They already do this with social media regulations. This is the venue, not these adult content filters. The UK already arrests 33 people PER DAY for social media posts and that was in 2023. If we're going to throw people in jail for posting political memes anyway, at least parents will have some control over what their children consume. https://www.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1mut3gv/12k_arrests_last_year_in_the_uk_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1mut3gv/12k_arrests...

fschuett 11mo ago

> The aim is to protect young people on the internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hate speech, incitement, and misinformation. Hmmm, I doubt they really care about pornography and more about censoring certain stuff that politicians do not like. But what do I know, I'm probably just a conspiracy theorist.

bko 11mo ago
Well considering you can go to prison in Germany for posting a meme on social media, that ship has already sailed. This has been a thing for a while. The only difference with this is this gives some parents control over what they allow their children to see on their computers https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2025/04/11/german-court-punishes-journalist-for-satirical-meme-about-german-politician/ https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2025/04/11/german-court-p...
- yubblegum 11mo ago
  I think they should criminialize porn instead and leave the machines alone. Since that industry (conspiracy theories aside) value money above all else, massive fine and taxes on the owners of porn production is the way to go imo.
  - fschuett 11mo ago
    I mean, porn completely ruined my teenage years and it took me 8 years to get rid of my addiction. It warps your expectations of real-life relationships, it ruins marriages, it ruins both women and men, it's garbage poison and should be outlawed. So I would be in favor of such laws, but then again, I also know, it's not really about porn and more about the whole "we can't let the youth become radicalized by this Internet thing" stuff and just more censorship.
rft 11mo ago
That part also caused my tin foil hat to heat up. At least they get the credit of including it directly instead of adding it in a later revision that gets even less news coverage. It is hard not to grow cynical when you see this. I am also worried about another detail: > The states also want to prevent the circumvention of blocking orders by erotic portals ... using so-called mirror domains – i.e., the distribution of identical content under a minimally changed web address. For a page to be treated as a mirror page and quickly blocked without a new procedure, it must essentially have the same content as the already blocked original. Note the part "quickly blocked without a new procedure" so there is a way to block sites with even less process and oversight. That just invites overblocking without accountability.

bko 11mo ago

I find it interesting how these kinds of measures are incredibly unpopular on HN and other online platforms. But if there was some regulation about social media algorithms, short form content, age restriction for social media and other mandated restrictions on social media companies, people are a lot more open. Why is any restriction on adult content so fiercely defended? I can post that Mark Zuckerberg should be arrested and tried at the Hague and receive a somewhat warm reception on this platform. But there are these giant faceless corporations pushing unrestricted, often depraved content to minors and people stand up for them. And this content often includes anonymous uploaded content with underage girls. It's like the meme "leave those billionaires alone!" I'm sure this will get downvoted, but help me understand what the visceral reaction is. I've heard people argue that this kind of adult content isn't harmful, but it seems obvious that it is, especially to children. At least more than short form content like TikTok. What would you rather your 12 year old spend hours watching? The adult industry has always been a few steps ahead of popular media in terms of virality, addiction and kitsch. They're shaping the online generation, and not in a good way.

amarcheschi 11mo ago
Social media algorithm are being used to push agenda from other countries, see the Cambridge analytica case, or push extremist content to youngsters since it generates much more engagement. Porn doesn't do this. It may have other issues, but it doesn't aim at maximing engagement with infinite scrolls and similar tactics. Let alone the content, who would watch porn for 12hrs/day? We already have the possibility to do that, and if somebody doesn't have mental issues, I'm of the opinion (s)he's not going to do that
- bko 11mo ago
  [dead]
fabian2k 11mo ago
Social media regulation isn't particularly popular here on HN, though it is certainly in other areas. You also won't find many people defending CSAM here as you imply. You also have to assume that people are not taking the purpose of these new measures at face value, but assume that there are other underlying motives and that the measures are broader than just simple pornography. And I don't think that assumption is unjustified. The ID-based measures like in the UK are a gigantic privacy nightmare as well. These measures are also not specific to kids, in the end they essentially always affect the access to this kind of content by adults as well. And some people think that is none of the government's business. An additional factor is that these measures are technically infeasibly without drastic measures. So they're either easy to circumvent, or would give the government enormous power and access over all kinds of communication.

Nextgrid 11mo ago

Always funny to see the senile politicians blaming porn as the biggest threats to children and not their collapsing economies. I'm sure when those kids grow up and work long hours for the rest of their lives (if they can find a job at all!) just to be able to afford rent they'll at least be grateful they weren't able to access porn in their teenage years.

asah 11mo ago
I hate these kinds of bills too, but it's a logical fallacy to address only the single biggest problem (assuming you agree on what it is).
- thomasuebel 11mo ago
  True. The problem is there are no further bills. All other problems aren’t addressed…
- guy2345 11mo ago
  [dead]
taneq 11mo ago
Teach your kids to code, build electronics or tune engines, and they won’t have time for porn.
- Nextgrid 11mo ago
  Don't worry, you will spend all your time working a dead-end job to afford rent (so some retiree can enjoy his life) and taxes (so politicians keep getting paid to propose such stupid bills) so there won't be any time to watch porn anyway.
yubblegum 11mo ago
Porn is damaging at multiple levels, specially for young adults to say nothing of "children". +Should be clear is that exposing children to porn or normalizing porn in no way promotes "healthy economies" either.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

anonzzzies 11mo ago

Seems really the only way forward is having your normal fast internet/live/banking/gov crap where you play a happy citizen role. And outside of that a mesh network where you really live. Sure not for most, but for me, yep.

amelius 11mo ago

It makes more sense to first ban violence in movies and games.

lan321 11mo ago
Can we please not ban either and just put the people who can't differentiate GTA from IRL in asylums?

iammjm 11mo ago

I want a "one button solution" to keep the boomers and the elderly from getting their brains fried by facebook and voting for authoritarian parties that want to implement such antiliberal mechanisms

hollow-moe 11mo ago
early cremation, not like they're any kind of useful nowadays. "but you'll be in their place someday", yes i'm sure of it, being poisoned physically and mentally by every single thing existing i'm pretty confident i'll live till 50.

amelius 11mo ago

The upside: this will be the year of Linux on the desktop!

raffael_de 11mo ago
Until Linux is going to be forced into the same regulation. And then until new laws criminalize attempts to bypass the "porn filter" no matter what you use.
- rft 11mo ago
  As much as I hate where this might lead, I can't help but amuse myself over a scene like this: You walk up to a bearded fellow in a dark alley and quietly whisper "Stallman..." only for him to quietly respond "... was right.". He then opens his coat for you to choose the install USB of your favorite distro (Arch of course!). He dutifully hands you the stick and a printed copy of the GPLv5 for you to hide in your coat as you walk past the telescreens back to your home.
- earthnail 11mo ago
  But where’s the problem? This is opt in. KDE already has a kiosk mode for kids. Add a content filter aka adblocker for porn, done. I don’t understand the outrage here. Many parents who are technically illiterate would like to be able to leave their 10yo alone with a computer without having to worry. Rn the only option for that is nintendo/playstation/xbox. Smartphones aren’t.
  - raffael_de 11mo ago
    to be fair I didn't read the details of that law. it's just that its Marschrichtung is pretty clear. total surveillance for flimsy reasons because porn etc. eventually it will be mandatory for everybody. that's what it is about.
    - earthnail 11mo ago
      But it’s on device, opt in. This is the way to go. No central government control. I really don’t want the British version with a central internet authority instead.

theturtle 11mo ago

[dead]

shaky-carrousel 11mo ago

I'm not really afraid of porn. That can be handled by talking with the kid. What I'm afraid of is the kid watching one of those awful NSFL videos. It'll eventually happen, but the later, the better.

tasuki 11mo ago
> What I'm afraid of is the kid watching one of those awful NSFL videos. I'm 40 and what are you talking about? I've... seen stuff on the internet, but I think nothing my 15 year old self couldn't handle.
- shaky-carrousel 11mo ago
  And yet, there are videos out there I wish I never saw. I gained nothing from seeing them and they only made me feel... awful about. Nowadays I just refuse to see them. But I wish I could erase them from my mind. Of course we can "handle" them. But I wish I never saw them in the first place.

xaxaxa123 11mo ago

>The aim is to protect young people on the internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hate speech, incitement, and misinformation. Who decides what hate speech is? Incitment? what the actual fuck. Linux is the way until they come for that as well.

Someone 11mo ago

> The core of the JMStV amendment, which has been debated for years and to which the state premiers agreed almost a year ago: End devices that are typically also used by minors should be able to be switched to a child or youth mode by parents with filters at the operating system level at the push of a button. ⇒ This will require OSes to have a filter, but it doesn’t require it to be switched on, not even for children using computers. Whether to switch it on will be a parent’s choice. Risk, of course, is that this will be sloppy slope. Parents who don’t switch it on for their kids may get seen as not caring enough for their children, effectively forcing parents to switch the filter on.

lifestyleguru 11mo ago

Old German perverts fixated on porn. Youngsters have their brains melted with tiktok, instagram and other short videos.

santiagobasulto 11mo ago

Unrelated, but shows the "slow collapse" of Europe (where I live in). We all know what a big issue Climate Change (and specially warming in Europe) is. So most European politicians go on and on about environment and all that. Well, yesterday, I went to play football at night and finished at around 10PM. I was planning on taking the metro, as any normal European citizen. Much was my surprise when I compared the time and cost to a Car Sharing app (Free2move). The metro in my city is €3,80 and Google Maps estimated a metro travel time of 30 minutes. I ended up paying €3,64 for the Car and made it home in 19 minutes. Worst part, the car was not even electric. It makes absolutely no freaking sense. So yeah, European politicians are just scammers. They're doing their own businesses while claiming to protect the population.

tossandthrow 11mo ago
With all respect, the car sharing you used is likely VC subsidized while the metro runs on much lower subsidies. That said, public city transport should likely just be free. (not so much regional or national transport as the extreme congestion from the Deutschland ticket has shown)
- adastra22 11mo ago
  Ride sharing has not been VC subsidized for many years.
mejutoco 11mo ago
Is that the metro price of a single ticket or proportional for a 10 trip card or similar?
- santiagobasulto 11mo ago
  PER ticket. Extremely expensive for the average salary. Theres a reduced fare that is 2.8 for students and elder citizens
  - mejutoco 11mo ago

rckt 11mo ago

It always puzzles me, why the porn? How about seeing war in action? Murders? How about fostering the gambling addiction via freemium games? Why seeing pussies, dicks and tits is more of a threat than anything else? This porn fixation is ridiculous.

slightwinder 11mo ago
Excessive Violence without proper context and explanation is also forbidden. And Porn is usually several lacking context and explanation, being just poor fiction. But the thing is, most people understand the regulation of violence, so you won't hear many complaints about those.

cynicalsecurity 11mo ago

This feels like a betrayal from Germany.

hollow-moe 11mo ago

"oh no, parents aren't using these tools we're forcing companies to implement, we gotta intervene to protect the precious children so we'll assume you're a children everywhere until we can link back your real identity somehow"

creata 11mo ago

Have any Linux distro maintainers spoken about this law? Does it affect Linux distros at all?

earthnail 11mo ago

I’m gonna go on a limb here and say that I like this draft. It’s an opt-in measure for parents with a one-click solution. Think ad blocker but for adult content. Parents have to actively enable it. It’s on the device itself, not in the internet backbone. No censorship happening; government doesn’t even know whether parents use it. It’s a good solution.

txrx0000 11mo ago
Yeah, this is the right direction for moderation features in general assuming it's implemented offline on-device and works without contacting a remote server. It eliminates excuses to implement age verification online. And it's correct in principle: each parent should be able to decide what their child sees, but not what anyone else's child sees. Parenting a child is the responsibility of that child's parents, but it is not the responsibility of governments or other people. Though I do have some gripes with it being a mandate rather than a recommendation, it is a much better proposal than age verification or censoring the entire Internet.
- earthnail 11mo ago
  We have mandates for all kinds of things, like movie ratings etc. I think it’s appropriate here. It just makes it easy. I don’t understand the pushback from tech companies either; all OSes already have a kiosk mode (incl the major Linux DEs). Should be very low effort to implement.
  - txrx0000 11mo ago
    The concern is that OSes which don't implement the feature will be outlawed. Movie ratings don't outlaw movies and actually provides a good framework: instead of mandating that OSes implement this, publish a client-side filter spec that OS devs can choose to implement. And if they implement it, their OS gets a label like "PG-capable". Then make it illegal for minors to possess a non-PG-capable device.
  - iamnothere 11mo ago
    Movie ratings are not mandatory, at least not in free countries. MPAA ratings like “R” and “PG” are a voluntary classification system and films are free to opt out, though many theater chains may be less likely to show your film. But small theaters and streaming platforms don’t usually care. Authoritarian states like China and the UK do require classification/certification of films before release. Imagine requiring a painter to have their paintings reviewed by the state before exhibition!

haunter 11mo ago

Mind you this is the country with a state-administered church tax system. Of course they will be all against porn, something something protestant work ethics.

GlibMonkeyDeath 11mo ago

Whenever a new attempt at limiting exposure to what is obviously harmful content (e.g. explicitly violent content, and anything to do with minors), I always see the same patterns of argument against the attempt: (1) It's the parent's fault. (2) Freedom! No government censorship! (3) This is technically impossible to control (the fix is worse than the problem.) While each point can be argued, I think the debate needs to be framed a different way. We are facing a dosage and availability problem, just as in comparing, in order of harmfulness: coffee, alcohol, and heroin. We know what happens when a harmful substance suddenly becomes widely available. Do people say "hey I drank some beer when I was a kid so all drugs are fine, including opioids, in unlimited amounts"? And, "if your kids gets addicted to opioids, it's the parent's fault for not keeping it away from them" (when your trusted doctor prescribed them first?) Or, "people are free to do what they want, and it is technically impossible to control the supply of opioids anyway, so why bother"? The unfiltered internet is FLOODED with violent, disturbing pornographic images that literally NO ONE should ever see. It's not some sort of law of nature that this content exists - humans made it and put it there, and the wide availability and potency of this content is the problem. It isn't seeing someone's naked behind in a context-appropriate scene in a movie (that's closer to coffee in the above example.) As it turns out, I think this law is a good step, but far from complete or perfect (or even good.). Requiring each individual to personally set up 100% effective filters is an impossible burden. For sure, when I had young kids a decade ago, I tried, and I also talked to my kids about it. But how about also that drug dealer isn't allowed to sneakily approach my kids with free samples? And I can reasonably expect that my kids aren't forced to walk through the floor of a casino, with all the flashing lights and prostitutes, on their way to school? Since most school work requires the internet these days, that's what it feels like as a parent. I have two adult kids, one doing well (despite visiting some questionable sites as a youth, I found out later), and one struggling, in part from the crap that is found on the internet. I know many of my peers with young adult children are telling the same story - at least one of their kids is way off the rails with a serious real-life problem, usually fueled by the internet casino in some way (and before you tell me we were all bad parents, these are now adults in their 20's and 30's, who mostly seemed normal and well-prepared after high school.) Now, I am not completely blaming the internet, an excellent tool that has improved many things in my lifetime, for these outcomes. But let's not kid ourselves - there is a huge distinction between, say, Google Maps, and animal torture videos. This is a hard problem, with lots of nuance and gray areas. It's the entire reason that laws and courts exist - sometimes you really do just need to sit down with a group of people and come to some sort of solution, however imperfect, and iterate to make it better. Because clearly something has to happen - the opioids coming through the municipal internet pipes aren't going to be completely remediated with a personal water filter. This law provides for free water filters, but ones that won't work everywhere without prohibition-like enforcement (e.g. open source, DIY distributions of Linux.) It's part of the solution, far from perfect, and far from complete. But we are done doing nothing.

aeze 11mo ago

Are there studies showing that porn has a negative effect on people's lives to the point that this would be justifiable?