They are terrified by the ideas emerging in theUS through dKos etc. The idea of a creative commons, a democratic market place of ideas where individual citizens can get together in common interest groups that serve the people's purposes rather than that of the charismatics who use them as springboards for their own agenda. You cannot hijack something decided in full view. They are frightened that we might decide who our spokepeople might be based, not on access, but on the quality of ideas. Because if access is key, then gatekeepers decide.  

As somebody pointed out recently, Obama was the first person to notice that using the internet was the oipportunity to speak directly to people without the intermediaries of media interpreters. He could land in somebody's living room at the time of their choosing and persuade them face to face with only the power of his ideas. No longer dependent upon bogus cheerleaders and a fawning press to sell his ideas for him.

This has only become possible by the internet being a democratic market place of ideas where every voice has equal access and you are judged by what you say. The moment access is filtered, democracic involvement is discredited.

The german govt may think they are being clever, but they are being deeply stupid. Freedoms that are taken away, like prop 8 in California breed deeper resentments than freedoms you never had. This is a hammer to crack a nut and the hammer will rebound in their face.

keep to the Fen Causeway