| dc.description.abstract | On 25 August 2017, the then German Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière, announced at a press conference that the platform linksunten.indymedia.org had been declared illegal. The decision to ban a platform that described itself as a space for activism and citizen journalism, and which had been operating for almost a decade at that point, came as a shock to many and was met with both protests and legal challenges. This move by the German authorities was particularly notable at the time as it came rather abruptly, especially as the government had been monitoring the platform virtually since its inception in 2008. This thesis presents the findings of a study that sought to understand the process that led to this outcome. It did so by examining this process from a historical perspective and using securitisation theory as a theoretical framework. Furthermore, this thesis made use of a variety of different types of publicly digitally available sources and adopted a methodological approach based on explaining-outcome process tracing. The argument presented in this thesis is that the process that led to the banning of linksunten.indymedia.org can be seen not only as a process of securitisation that began in 2016, but also as a process that, in addition to being driven by political considerations and strategic timing, was significantly shaped by the broader context in which it unfolded that served the purpose of the facilitating conditions. This context was one in which online content deemed harmful and illegal, such as extremist content, was increasingly seen as problematic by both the public and policymakers, and there was a greater receptiveness to government intervention to address this phenomenon, which was a development that had only recently occurred following a series of events in Germany and beyond that brought the issue into the spotlight. In the midst of all this, the German government was able to successfully securitise the platform by framing it as a security threat, culminating in its criminalisation and shutdown. These findings, in turn, raise broader questions about the proportionality of the decision to ban the platform altogether and the potential instrumentalisation of the state’s powers to combat extremism for political ends. | |
