The Complaint Office of the FSM

The FSM runs a Complaint Office. Every complaint from the WWW may be indicated there by everyone and for free. Incoming complaints will be checked for possible violations of the FSM’s conduct principles. The codes of conduct basically include penal rules, rules of youth protection and the observation of acknowledged journalistic principles.

The Complaint Office deals particularly with complaints concerning the following contents:

• freely accessible pornography
• media presenting children or adolescents in unnatural poses
• glorifying, trivialising or degrading presentation of violence
• sedition, war-glorifying presentations or propaganda of unconstitutional organisations
• media which is included in the list of media harmful to young persons pursuant to Article 18 of the Protection of Young Persons Act (JuSchG)
• other freely accessible youth endangering contents and content which is impermissible pursuant to the German Interstate Treaty on the protection of minors
• as far as members of the FSM are concerned: violation of acknowledged journalistic principles or violation of the provider’s statutory duty to reveal his identity  

The FSM does not handle complaints concerning the following contents:

• so-called diallers. In Germany, the Federal Net Agency deals with diallers: www.bundesnetzagentur.de
• spam emails (unsolicited ad-emails) without pornographic or youth endangering content: please contact  the association of German internet enterprises, www.eco.de
• violation of the provider’s statutory duty to reveal his identity (non-members): please contact the Agency for Protection against Unfair Competition: www.wettbewerbszentrale.de
• violation of data protection: Please contact the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, www.bfd.bund.de
• content of news groups and forums: www.eco.de
• youth protection in TV and complaints about programmes: www.fsf.de

Please find a link to our complaint form and detailed information on the complaint rules on the left side.

If your browser does not show the complaint form please contact us via hotline@fsm.de.