Censored links: Linking as a crime The World Wide Web is constituted by documents linked with other documents, thus allowing access to referred documents. Censorship affects hyperlinks as well. Say, you publish an essay on racist propaganda on the Net and make link references to neo-nazi web sites. It goes without saying that you do not endorse neo-nazi pamphlets. By linking to these web sites you want your readers to get an idea of what you are writing about. Linking does not necessarily mean approving. Is this not evident? According to Swiss and German prosecuting attorneys you may have committed a crime without having illegal intentions. From his web site Thomas Stricker, director of the Institute of Computer Systems at the ETH Zurich, has linked to an anti-racist web site with links to racist content in order to draw the attention to the difficulties legal regulation of the Net has to face. Neglecting his intentions, Swiss authorities instituted a criminal action against Stricker. Another case, reported by the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, proves that not just links to racist resources or to resources with links to such resources are under prosecution. The Motion Picture Association of America sued to prevent Internet users from linking to websites that have DeCSS, a program helping Linux users play DVDs on their computers. The trial is scheduled for December. References: Global Internet Liberty Campaign, Hollywood wants end to links, in: GILC Alert 4,4, April 24, 2000, http://www.gilc.org/alert/alert44.html Wolfgang Näser, Allgemeines zum Thema "Homepage", http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/naeser/allgem.htm Florian Rötzer, Ab wann ist ein externer Link auf strafrechtlich relevante Inhalte selbst strafbar?, in: Telepolis, December 1, 1997 Florian Rötzer, Strafverfahren gegen ETH-Professor wegen Links zu rassistischen Websites, in: Telepolis, February 24, 2000 Florian Rötzer, Ab wievielen Zwischenschritten ist ein Link auf eine rechtswidrige Website strafbar, in: Telepolis, February 24, 2000

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Public Relations and Propaganda Public relations usually is associated with the influencing of public opinion. Therefore it has subsequently been linked with propaganda. Using one of the many definitions of propaganda "... the manipulation of symbols as a means of influencing attitudes on controversial matters" (Harold D. Lasswell), the terms propaganda and PR seem to be easily interchangeable. Still many authors explicitly distinguish between public relations, advertising and propaganda. Unlike PR, which is often described as objective and extensive information of the public, advertising and propaganda are associated with manipulative activities. Nevertheless to treat public relations and propaganda as equivalents stands in the tradition of PR. Edward L. Bernays, one of the founders of public relations wrote "The only difference between propaganda and education, really, is the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don't believe is propaganda." Also institutions like the German Bundeswehr use the terms publics relations and propaganda synonymously. After a 1990 legislation of the former minister of defense Stoltenberg, the "psychological influence of the enemy" was ceased during peace time and the Academy for Psychological Defense renamed to Academy for Information and Communication, among other things responsible for scientific research in the field of public relations.

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Internet Research Task Force Being itself under the umbrella of the Internet Society, the Internet Research Task Force is an umbrella organization of small research groups working on topics related to Internet protocols, applications, architecture and technology. It is governed by the Internet Research Steering Group. http://www.irtf.org http://www.irtf.org/

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