Opinion: Chat control – Very hard wake-up call for beginners

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The first digital policy litmus test for the black-red federal government has backfired badly. The CDU/CSU and SPD were caught completely unawares by the fact that a broad coalition, ranging from professional privacy advocates, child protection organizations, and civil rights activists to business representatives and ordinary users, has loudly and vocally opposed what its opponents have dubbed chat controls. And is calling on the German government – no longer quite so new after five months – to actively campaign against it at European level.

An opinion by Falk Steiner

Falk Steiner is a journalist based in Berlin. He works as an author for heise online, daily newspapers, specialist newsletters and magazines and reports on digital policy at federal and EU level, among other things.

Anyone listening closely these days can only be amazed at the astonishment of ministers, ministerial staff and MPs. Some whisper that they don't even know who started this campaign. The federal government is only interested in better combating the dissemination of images of sexual abuse, they now say, after the Berlin bubble was inundated with letters from citizens.

"Nobody has the intention ..."

Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig from the SPD assures us that we would never endeavor to control chats without cause – after support for it had been on the table for days. Stefan Kornelius, government spokesman and spokesperson for the Federal Chancellor, went on record on Wednesday: "The drafting of this regulation is associated with an enormous amount of detailed technical regulations, which we are very happy to leave to the experts in the houses involved at this time."

The debate is obviously completely ill-timed. And because there are hardly any supporters of the ideas that are so controversial in Germany, which the Danish Council Presidency is currently pushing forward again, we should have known that. This German government has repeated the cardinal mistake made by many previous governments: Digital is political.

Not recognizing this and not taking care of the technical realities and their consequences is a problem. Especially for a government that, with the Digital Ministry and Karsten Wildberger, finally wanted to shine with structural expertise. However, it has already become apparent recently that there is still a massive deficit here.

The SPD is running out of percentages

The main person responsible for this dossier is Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt. And his spokesperson emphasizes that there is still no common position from the federal government. In other words, what Justice Minister Hubig of the SPD is now saying is not yet a negotiating position. After all, the SPD has taken a clear public position. If it backs away from this, it would not be the first time in history, but it is slowly running out of cushion percentages to disappoint more voters.

There is still a lack of consistency to finally put the issue to bed. The coalition should now wake up very quickly and take a clear position: a clear no to the establishment of new control mechanisms, including as a voting position for the EU Council. But so far it has not managed to do so. It is squirming around, even though it has nothing more to gain.

The entire process is, and this is evident in the Bundestag, grist to the mill of the AfD. The party, which primarily cultivates an instrumental relationship with freedom of expression, does not have to do much at all: The CDU, CSU and SPD supply it with the alleged attacks on freedom of expression free of charge due to a lack of their own expertise.

There are already members of parliament from the governing parties who are formulating a basic question: An infrastructure like this, possibly at some point in the hands of the AfD – Can we want that? Or should it be prevented? The answer to this question cannot be particularly complicated.

Repeating past mistakes

It would have been nice if this new federal government had not repeated the mistakes so often made by its predecessors when it comes to digital policy issues. Regardless of which department is responsible and which political party is in charge. It would also be forgivable to make gross mistakes so early in the legislative period, even if a federal government's standards should actually be different. However, this only applies if lessons are actually learnt.

The events of the past few days should have made the federal government realize that it is being watched closely. That is if it does not now succumb to the mistaken belief that there is some evil, orchestrating force behind the protest against this supposed technicality of sub-items in proposals for a negotiating position of the Council of Member States. That would be fatal – and really stupid.

(mho)