“How is the Internet in Germany?” For the answer to this question, Unesco gives consistently good marks. However, she sees considerable differences in the supply of different population groups.
Unesco has called on the politically responsible in Germany to create and implement a legal right to nationwide access to high-speed internet by 2025.
In a report on Internet development in Germany, which was presented at the Internet Governance Forum in Berlin, the World Cultural Organization points to a “digital divide”. While practically all working Germans (96 percent) are online, only a good two thirds of the unemployed (68 percent) use the Internet. This gap must be overcome.
Federal Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU), who is responsible for digital infrastructure, commented on the report by pointing out that the right to high-speed internet had long been resolved. “With the amendment to the Telecommunications Act, we enshrined the right to high-speed internet in the spring of this year. Regardless of whether I choose to live in the country or in the city, everyone has a right to fast surfing in the future. ”
In addition, the federal government has strengthened the gigabit expansion by accelerating permits and enabling new technologies. “Today, access to fast Internet is one of the cornerstones of social and economic participation,” emphasized the minister. This has recently become very clear in the current Corona situation.
Unesco sees no reason to complain on this point either. At the highest level, German politicians have acknowledged the right to the Internet for everyone. With a few exceptions, network access in Germany is implemented across the board, stable and inexpensive. “It should be emphasized that in 2020 there was no network congestion at any time in the Covid 19 pandemic, despite the increased use of telephone, video conferencing and streaming.”
However, in Germany too, factors such as migration background, non-traditional educational trajectories and employment biographies as well as age endanger the full realization of all human rights on the Internet, the Unesco criticized. The organization called for greater support for Internet use by people with a migration background and for equality between girls and women in all areas of the Internet. This included educational offers, but also efforts to combat experiences of exclusion on the Internet and “digital violence”.
A civil society alliance “F5” was presented at the forum, in which the Society for Freedom Rights (GFF), AlgorithmWatch, the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, Reporters Without Borders (ROG) and Wikimedia Germany have come together. The aim of the cooperation is to promote a new start in digital politics in order to align digitization with the interests of people in Germany and Europe.
The name «F5» alludes to the function key F5, which is used, among other things, to update a website. In the future, the focus should be on the common good, instead of using the interests of authorities and the income of tech companies as a yardstick, demanded the alliance.
Konstantin von Notz, vice-parliamentary group of the Greens in the Bundestag, said that the past few years had been lost years in terms of digital politics: Germany was left behind in almost all international comparisons. Powerful, to this day largely unregulated platforms dominated digital markets and dictated their conditions to the detriment of consumers. “We need a real new start in digital policy and a federal government that is ready to face the challenges.”
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