Protection of minors from harmful online media

Pornography, the depiction of violence, and frightening content can impair the free personal development of children and young people. In the most serious cases, this kind of content can even be considered a threat to minors.

Functioning protection of minors from harmful media makes it more difficult for children and youth to access damaging content and ensures that even children and young people can use the Internet freely and safely.

Minors have a right to be able to move through digital media freely and safely. Effective protection of minors from harmful media has the duty to guarantee this and keep content which is potentially harmful or dangerous out of the reach of children and young people.

What can providers do?

Providers offering this type of content have a range of options to guarantee their content complies with the legal protection of minors. Analogous to the options seen for conventional television, some providers rely on time limits and only allow specific potentially harmful content to be accessed after a certain time of day (e.g. beginning at 10 p.m.). Another option is restricting access by means of age verification by requesting the user’s identity card number.

Alternatively, website operators can furnish their online content with an age category. Age categorisation can be read out by youth protection programmes which are installed on the devices of children and young people. These programmes recognise the age rating for content, which allows them to automatically allow or block access to websites. As a rule, these programmes also use a blacklist which, for example, completely blocks websites with pornographic content or the glorification of violence.

Further institutions

The Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (KJM) is the central supervisory authority for the protection of young people in private nationwide broadcasting and on the Internet. It is a body of the state media authorities and responsible for ensuring compliance with statutory provisions for the protection of young people by private broadcasters and on the Internet.
https://www.kjm-online.de/ueber-uns/auftrag/

jugendschutz.net is a company organised in the form of a non-profit. Since 2009, jugendschutz.net has been linked to the KJM, which it supports in performing its duties.
http://www.jugendschutz.net/ 

The German Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation of Digital Media Service Providers (FSM e.V.) is a non-profit registered association concerned with the protection of young people in online media. Working within the system of voluntary self-regulation, the FSM is a self-regulation organisation recognised by the state media authorities.
https://www.fsm.de/en

The German Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body (USK) is the body responsible for reviewing computer games in Germany. The USK is a self-regulation body of the computer games industry which is recognised as a controlling body by the KJM.

The German Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body (USK) is the body responsible for reviewing computer games in Germany. The USK is a self-regulation body of the computer games industry which is recognised as a controlling body by the KJM.
https://usk.de/

The FSK is responsible for rating films and "other data media" which are released in Germany. This also includes Internet releases.
https://www.spio-fsk.de