What does jugendschutz.net do?

jugendschutz.net is a governmental institution and was established in October 1997 as an initiative of the Youth Ministers of the German Federal States, who are responsible for youth protection in the media. The main tasks of jugendschutz.net are to search for harmful and illegal content on the internet and to cause providers to remove these content.

Since October 1999 jugendschutz.net is running a hotline (hotline@jugendschutz.net) to which internet users can report questionable material. The hotline mainly deals with all kinds of illegal and harmful content that is freely accessible on the internet. This mainly involves pornography (adult pornography and child pornography), violence and right-wing extremism/hate speech. Complaints are assessed by a team of researchers and lawyers and attempts are made to establish the source and to take actions.

In summer 2001 jugendschutz.net started a project facing right-wing extremism and racism on the internet. The work is financed by the German Federal Ministery of Family within its national programme against right-wing extremism called „entimon“. The main tasks of the project work are to destroy the propaganda-platforms and to create awareness for racial discrimination on the internet.

What are the main points of the project-work?

- General monitoring of the World Wide Web for racial hatred and research of new phenomena in specific cases, e.g. the (mis)use of new web-services by racists

- Testing and optimising measures against right-wing extremism on the internet on a national and international level

- Co-operation with authorities, providers and important interfaces like search engines and communication platforms

- Implementation and evaluation of media-educational workshops with adolescents and pedagogues to initiate critical analyses of hate speech presented on the web

Why do we participate in the network?

The global nature of the internet requires cross-border solutions to solve problems. jugendschutz.net hopes to gain positive effects out of this network, e.g.

- sharing information concerning right-wing extremism in transnational relations

- exchanging experience about different successful ways of fighting against racism on the internet

- bundling power and developing synergy effects in order to take common actions in specific transnational cases of hate speech on the internet