Germany: Revenge of the Netizens: Online Activists Take On Germany's Political Mainstream - by Marcel Rosenbach and Hilmar Schmundt
As Germany heads into national elections, established political parties are trying to appeal to Web-savvy voters using Facebook and Twitter. But their Internet policies are alienating bloggers and activists, who are using the medium to protest against the political mainstream. To anyone who visits the sites of political lobbyists in the German blogosphere, sites like netzpolitik.org or odem.org, it is clear that Internet activists are on the warpath against the established parties, a group which for many now includes the traditionally anti-establishment Greens. "They'll soon be wishing we were apolitical," one of their slogans reads. Another novel aspect of this year's campaign is that the party strategists at campaign headquarters are starting to take Internet users, long ridiculed as nerds, seriously. When strategists at SPD headquarters in Berlin, for example, embarked on a large-scale effort to incorporate Facebook and Twitter into their campaign, they were horrified by the reactions they encountered, which ranged from malice to open rejection and sheer hate.
Netizens are primarily young and well-educated. Many are, due to their blogs and Twitter presence, influencers and trendsetters, with some star bloggers even being opinion leaders within their medium. All government initiatives like data retention by telecommunications companies, online monitoring of the computers of suspected criminals by the authorities and biometric identification cards are nothing short of assaults on their much-valued freedoms.
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