REUTERS 2000: BERLIN — German President Johannes Rau called on Monday for a system of rules to govern the Internet to combat the rise in Web sites promoting racism and xenophobia.
“We need a framework that sets boundaries for the use of modern information technology,” Rau said at the start of a two-day conference in Berlin on hate-speech on the Internet.
“We cannot just stand by and watch while opponents of human rights and those contemptuous of democracy exploit these new technological possibilities,” said Rau, whose office is primarily ceremonial.
The conference’s co-organizers, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center named after the Austrian Nazi hunter, left, said while there was just one Web site promoting hate in 1995, there were now over 2,000.
In Germany alone the number of extreme right-wing home pages has jumped to 330 this year, about 10 times more than four years ago, the country’s internal security watchdog says.
‘To stop hate on the Internet we need European initiatives, but also action that reaches beyond Europe’ — Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin
Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin told the conference Germany was very worried about the trend.
“To stop hate on the Internet we need European initiatives, but also action that reaches beyond Europe,” she said.
European Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino agreed. “The Internet is an international phenomenon in every sense of the word and any effective response will hinge on high levels of international cooperation,” he said.
Vitorino said there was still a worrying level of racism and xenophobia in Europe and said neo-Nazi groups had moved their home pages to servers outside the continent to sell their books and insignia and promote far-right theories.
Europe to act against cyberspace crime
Vitorino told the conference he hoped a draft European convention on crimes in cyberspace would be completed by the end of this year and said the Commission would also propose an initiative against child pornography on the Internet and discuss similar moves against hate promoted on the Web.
Robert Cailliau, the co-inventor of the World Wide Web, repeated calls for all Internet users to be licensed.
