Basically in Germany/DACH free speech is heavily policed (ironically to stop NeoNazis voicing themselves) as to ensure it doesn't offend anyone so you end up with everyone only allowed to say either good or meh things in public/online.
Best example is the Austrian politician who had forced Facebook through a court order to have posts on her wall where people called her a corrupt traitor, deleted worldwide, under the argument that unless you can show proof of corruption, you calling them corrupt is libel according to the Austrian law, lol.
Even on platforms like Kununu (basically the Glasdoor of DACH) where employees can review their employers, if companies don't like the negative review employees leave, they can ask to have them removed citing similar laws, which makes the platform pretty much useless in the end as all reviews are either good or meh.
Honestly, Americans don't know how good they have it in the free speech category. Imagine not being able to call Trump corrupt on Twitter or say that Swaggy Bro Tech is an abusive sweatshop on Glassdoor/Google.
I personally think that we should be intolerant of intolerance, until of course that message is co-opted by "elites" (billionaires, politicians or whoever you believe is the group(s) pulling the strings) to suppress any criticism of their power.
But as it currently stands, the 1% use the anti-libel laws in their favor to censor anything that undermines their power/credibility.
For example, if you're a senator and while I don't have proof that you are corrupt, you can't possible tell me with a straight face that you awarding a lucrative public contract to the company where your daughter is on the board of directors, is a pure coincidence or a meritocracy, even if the paper trail says it's all squeaky clean.
Not for much longer. Everyone supports censoring someone, so it's just a matter of time before it becomes a policy.
This seems weird. Are they actually illegal? If yes, then shouldn't reviews be disabled in Germany.
Which is the courts way of saying "it is illegal when we see it, we just leave some nominal loophole noone can fulfil so we don't go against the letter of the law". All of this is just a lot of court cases influenced by some elaborate schemes to pick the right court (LG Hamburg preferably). But unfortunately those stand as long there isn't an explicit law changing the situation. Which won't happen, because the exact same laws and especially judgements defend corrupt politicians against journalists.
Also, any kind of free-speech movement is a no-go in Germany because "buhuh, but then the NeoNazis can say what they like!".