Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer is an editor at Spiegel Online where this editorial originally appeared in German on July 1. Naturally, one's first impulse is to shut the whole damn thing down, but I immediately remembered the situation in Bremen and Lorenz's excellent editorial, which he has kindly and quickly allowed me to translate and run here. That said, I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that the sufferings of Jews during the Holocaust are in any way to be compared with the sufferings of African-Americans in the US or that of gays and lesbians around the world. Such comparisons would be futile and pointless. The way to combat speech we personally find despicable is to allow it to expose itself for what it is, while maintaining an open environment for counter-arguments.
Censorship is never the answer.
At the same time, anyone who runs an online forum has the right to set the rules for discussion there, and we are in the process of creating a new version of Rewired which will not only accentuate signal over noise, but will also allow the user to determine his or her own experience of future discussions here. You don't tear down and rebuild overnight. Also, for more background in German, see the page on controversy maintained by the Internationale Stadt Bremen. One obvious issue raised by the mess in Bremen is that of accountability and the German government's unique position which holds providers of online services far more responsible than do laws in many other countries. Especially in the wake of the decision handed down by a Bavarian judge earlier this summer which found Felix Somm, former head of CompuServe in Germany, guilty of facilitating the distribution of child pornography, service providers have grown queasy about doing business in Germany.