On August 14, 2017, the German Federal Minister of the Interior banned the Open-Posting internet platform linksunten Indymedia, by resorting to the association act („Vereinsgesetz“). The ban that was finally executed on August 25 is an act of internet censorship and an attack on freedom of media and press. The Ministry of the Interior constructed an association that operates the incriminated portal. It seems absurd that an online platform that only provides technology can be prohibited by association act – linksunten Indymedia was undoubtedly a platform that is subject to the special protection of press freedom.

The linksunten Indymedia platform was founded in southwest Germany during 2008/2009 and was part of the global Indymedia network (Independent Media Center). It worked according to the open posting principle, so it did not have a traditional editorial team, but it did have moderation criteria that excluded racist or antisemitic content. The majority of posts were calls and reports on left-wing and NGO events or demonstrations, but also statements in which militants justified illegal actions. Netzdemo Portal has launched several calls to online demonstrations on this platform because of the wide multiplication and diverse readership.

It took almost two and a half years for the ban on the constructed association linksunten.indymedia to be heard before the Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) on January 29, 2020, in Leipzig. The lawsuit was dismissed with reference to the fact that the plaintiffs were not entitled to initiate proceedings. Contrary to what some reports suggest, the BVerwG did not declare the ban to be lawful, but dismissed the lawsuit without examining the reasons for the ban. The suspected operator team of the linksunten Indymedia will go to the Federal Constitutional Court.

Almost two weeks before the trial, it was announced that the linksunten Indymedia is online again as archive with over 200,000 posts and comments, preserving 10 years of movement history. The archive does not offer any possibilities for interaction or postings and is therefore not to be regarded as the successor to the internet platform. The static archive of the site is also available for download in the form of zip files. In April 2020 the archive of the portal inksunten.indymedia.org, which was declared illegal by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, became accessible via
https://linksunten.indymedia.org/.

We from Netzdemo Portal think it is about time for a broad and collective discussion about restarting the platform with new articles, posts and discussions.

We need independent media that belongs to us – not social media owned by the cloud-computing oligopolists