This is how the start-up's controversial position paper made its way onto the Ministry of Economy's website

The news portal Netzpolitik.org has obtained documents via a freedom of information request. They show that the ministry knew quite well about the content of the anti-press position paper of its advisory board and published it anyway.

For a long time, no one knew about the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology's startup advisory board. Then they wrote a position paper that initially bumbled along for a few weeks on the website of the Federal Ministry of Economics - and finally caused great indignation. Because the position paper had it all: in it, the advisory board demanded that the press be disciplined and that it be obliged to report on unimportant IPOs of young companies.

The advisory board rowed back shortly thereafter. The question of whether the Federal Ministry of Economics, on whose website the position paper was published, was aware of the content of the anti-press document remained unanswered until today. Netzpolitik.org has filed a freedom of information request and has now clarified the matter: according to the research, the ministry knew the content and nevertheless posted the paper on its own website. Only when the public indignation shot up, one wanted to distance oneself in the Federal Ministry of Economics gladly from it.

According to the research, the paper went through several departments and there the oblique formulations were noticed. These include the idea that the press should be disciplined or that people should only be allowed to write under their real names on the Internet so that critics can be identified by companies. According to Netzpolitik.org, the department now writes: "The recommendations for corresponding obligations to press reporting from the circle of companies are surprising and should be rejected."

In the end, the later disputed version of the position paper appears on the site, where the Handelsblatt finds it a month later, reports on it and sets the shitstorm in motion, at the end of which a member of the advisory board takes his hat and Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier (CDU) has to apologize publicly. Today, a spokesperson for Netzpolitik.org describes the whole process as a "mistake", but the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology does not evaluate the work of the advisory board in terms of content, as it is an expression of opinion.