Is censorship going global?
The German state-sponsored news outlet ZDF is working with state-sponsored news outlets from Canada, Switzerland, and Belgium to “develop online-based solutions to enable civic engagement and democratic discourse in digital space away from hate comments and increasing disinformation.”
That means censorship.
Together with public broadcasters from Canada (CBC), Switzerland (SRG SSR) and Belgium (RTBF), ZDF wants to develop online-based solutions to enable civic engagement and democratic discourse in digital space away from hate comments and increasing disinformation .
The international research project “Public Spaces Incubator” aims to develop and test innovative building blocks for open and respectful online discussions. The focus is on the interests of the users. Commercial aspects are irrelevant.
ZDF Director Dr. Norbert Himmler: “Democracy thrives on an open and fair dialogue in society. We must not leave that to the major American platforms. The ‘Public Spaces Incubator’ project is intended to show ways in which public broadcasting can create independent and fact-based communication spaces in the digital world can build. Our common goal is to counter the increase in hatred, violence, propaganda and defamation on social media with a public service alternative.”
The four broadcasting companies are conducting the research project in cooperation with the non-profit organization New_ Public, which has extensive experience and expertise in non-profit-oriented digital communication. Co-founder Eli Pariser is known in Germany as the author of the book “The Filter Bubble: How We Are Being Disenfranchised on the Internet”. Parisian and co-founder Deepti Doshi, together with the New_Public team, design interdisciplinary digital spaces to strengthen democratic civic coexistence.
During the 1930s, the German state-controlled media also colluded with western media outlets.
A major example of this was the Associated Press.
In return for access to Germany, The Associated Press agreed to not publish anything “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home”.
The Guardian reported (March 2016):
The Associated Press news agency entered a formal cooperation with the Hitler regime in the 1930s, supplying American newspapers with material directly produced and selected by the Nazi propaganda ministry, archive material unearthed by a German historian has revealed.
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In an article published in academic journal Studies in Contemporary History , historian Harriet Scharnberg shows that AP was only able to retain its access by entering into a mutually beneficial two-way cooperation with the Nazi regime.
The New York-based agency ceded control of its output by signing up to the so-called Schriftleitergesetz (editor’s law), promising not to publish any material “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home”.
This law required AP to hire reporters who also worked for the Nazi party’s propaganda division. One of the four photographers employed by the Associated Press in the 1930s, Franz Roth, was a member of the SS paramilitary unit’s propaganda division, whose photographs were personally chosen by Hitler. AP has removed Roth’s pictures from its website since Scharnberg published her findings, though thumbnails remain viewable due to “software issues”.
Ninety years later, is it happening again?
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