Paulita Paupel, who runs the European branch of the adult industry trade organization, the Alliance for Freedom of Speech, said the crackdowns are having worrying effects on people and potential their ability to share their content online. “People are fleeing the country,” said Paupel. “Most of the major content creators have changed their residence to other European countries, mainly Austria, Switzerland and Cyprus.” Others have changed their marketing strategies to avoid Twitter (which affects how much money they can make), and new entrants to the industry may not want to start their careers, says Paupel. “This primarily affects LGBTQI+ and BIPOC creators.”
Of course, the Internet is awash with pornography—from Reddit, Snapchat, and Twitter to OnlyFans, PornHub and xVideos—with millions of people around the world participating in the industry. Globally, this is big business, generating billions of dollars every year. While there are crackdowns on pornography around the world, Germany seems to have a particularly strong brand of enforcement in the Western world, although one of the highest consumers of pornography.
“Germany is the most active country in suppressing speech,” said Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the US-based Alliance for Freedom of Speech. “I think Germany is the most active country in pursuing this, both in terms of legislation and subsequently enforcement.”
Monitoring AI
Since 2019, German media regulators have developed and subsequently used AI systems to detect online content that may violate the country’s laws. The artificial intelligence system, called KIVI, was developed by the North Rhine-Westphalia media agency, together with a Private company based in Berlinand is currently used by all media outlets throughout Germany.
KIVI is advertised as being able to scan public posts on seven messaging and social media apps — including Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Telegram, and VK (the Russian version of Facebook) — as well as websites on open internet. Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, which ban nudity, are not currently scanned. According to North Rhine-Westphalia’s Description of the tool, it can check 10,000 pages per day. Soon after the authorities started using KIVI, the agency said the authorities’ detection capacity had “sprung up”.
A spokesman for the North Rhine-Westphalia media agency said that as of 2021, the agency had detected nearly 5,000 “violations”. The system searches for problematic content by searching for predefined keywords and links in German, and authorities say the system uses a combination of image recognition and text recognition. to detect “positive” results.
Ella Jakubowska, senior policy adviser at the European Digital Rights (EDRi) civil rights nonprofit, says everyone’s human rights are at risk when big tech companies or governments handle content moderation. “But the idea of state entities controlling what we do and don’t see online seems very disturbing,” says Jakubowska.
KIVI searches for a variety of content, including political extremism and Holocaust denial, violence, and pornography. However, porn “violation” topped the list, with 1,944 incidents flagged in the past two years, according to figures shared by media agency North Rhine-Westphalia. The system flags potential law violations and then human investigators examine the results and decide whether any action should be taken, the spokesperson said. “KIVI protects employees from sudden and unexpected exposure to stressful content,” said Plass from the Berlin government.
