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A bar in Hamburg is broadcasting (undisturbed) the first World Cup game of the German team: "We could also turn off the advertising."
Photo: Jonas Walzberg / dpa
In protest against the soccer World Cup in Qatar, a group in Paris is making special remote controls that can be used to turn off many different TV sets.
This was reported on Thursday by the French newspaper "Le Parisien", which showed the hobbyists how to mount the small transmitters with the designation "TV-B-Gone".
The newspaper accompanied one of the activists to a bar in Paris' 18th arrondissement.
There he gave an example of how he suddenly – to the loud displeasure of the fans – switched off the television.
"The idea isn't to take political decisions on the backs of fans or to annoy them," hobbyist Dan Geiselhart told Le Parisien.
"It's more about making a statement and saying that you can love football, but you can also say that there are a few things wrong with this World Cup."
"Could also turn off the advertising"
Geiselhart advised against unnecessary confrontation when interrupting a World Cup broadcast in a bar.
He pointed out that it is much more important to enter into a dialogue with the fans.
"If you turn off the game, you can also go to people and explain it to them," he said.
"We could also switch off the advertising," nobody wants to see anyway, says Geiselhart.
The hobbyist's pirate remote control is based on a model by the well-known hacker and inventor Mitch Altmann.
He is one of the early developers of virtual reality devices and published construction instructions for his remote control "TV-B-Gone" almost twenty years ago.
The model is smaller than a regular remote control and can be worn on the waistband, for example.
According to the media report by »Le Parisien«, it should make it possible to deactivate televisions from a wide variety of brands at a distance of up to 45 meters.
Switching off TV sets is the only function of the small black box.
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