> but the government will decree what is and is not allowed speech
Do you mean "free speech"? Here in germany have free speech, except for denying the holocaust (And this makes really sense, as this is simply wrong)
Do you mean "free speech"? Here in germany have free speech, except for denying the holocaust (And this makes really sense, as this is simply wrong)
It is nearly impossible to speak about sexual harassment - because the perpetrator can sue you for intruding his private life.
More generally it is basically impossible to say anything negative about someone if you can't prove it true - it is considered slander. By contrast in the U.S. as far as I know it's up to whoever accuses you of slander to prove that what you say is untrue.
That creates a whole large area where you can speak freely about someone while not being able to accuse them legally before the court - in Germany that would either fall into "slander" bucket (if what you say has public significance but you can't prove it) or "private life" bucket (if what you say has allegedly no public significance even if you can prove it true).
Certain depictions of violence are also considered to inherently violate human dignity as a whole (“Gewaltdarstellung”). That seems to be why there’s traditionally been so much video game censorship in Germany, like green blood or replacing all characters with robots[2].
There is another aspect regarding the legal situation in German that might be relevant to understand the difference to the US: The US constitution speeks only of the "freedom of speech", while the German consitution (Grundgesetz) goes much more into the detail:
(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
(2) These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honour.
(3) Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution.[2]
As an aside: "teaching" ("Lehre") refers to higher education only, but includes both, teaching in the narrower sense and learning. As a consequence a student at a German university has the right to learn as he or she seems fit and can only be forced to attend a course, if his or her physical presence is really necessary as there is no other way to learn a particular skill. So the presence at laboratory courses or courses focused on discussions can be made mandatory, but not at lectures. (The student must only attent the course exam, if there is one.) Isn't it interesting that a student in Germany has a constitutional right to be an autodidact?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insult_(legal) [2] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
I’m still a mere Ausländer here myself, so I only have a rough sense of it, but can say that every few hundred meters along the streets you can find a gold-coloured paving stone memorialising separate victims, either an individual or a family.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-g...
Another example is speech used to commit fraud or extortion. Were your profitable lies to exploit the vulnerable based on a genuine belief, or did you have criminal intent? The law will have to decide, and the situation will not always be clear, and often it comes down to determining intent.
In the case of holocaust denial, in Germany the potential harm of allowing it is seen as more genocide, so they've calibrated their free speech laws in respect of that. But there's never an exact place to draw the line; every legal system is going to have to make such judgment calls.
Codifying truth into law is quite unusual and seems like a bad idea to me. But then prosecuting people for hurling insults also seems like a bad idea to me - I guess I'm just thoroughly American.
Ok, so you don't have free speech.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hate_speech&oldid...
Socially, yes, of course there are views that will get you ostracized to some extent. But that's merely the consequence of freedom of association.
The only thing I'm aware of here that I would consider a true infringement of freedom of speech is our obscenity laws. SCOTUS has (sadly) upheld at least some of them.
Good. Now play the free speech game in an iterated manner where there exist a chance that a Nazi party comes to power and that likelihood is being lowered by a making holocaust denial illegal. From history you should now that there is no free expression under Nazis and that it takes them losing a world war to oust them (unlike communist regimes which collapse easier).
Does the US model really have free speech if it allows a nazi party getting to power in the future?
That is the paradox of tolerance and is what people learned from the fate of Weimar and what people incorporated into democratic constitutions made after 45.
The "paradox of tolerance" is not a paradox at all when one contemplates the difference between speech and action. Tolerating intolerant speech, no matter how extreme, is not a problem. Tolerating intolerant actions is where tolerance breaks down.
All your text is doing is explaining why it's limited.
Well, technically, there are also a lot of other things you cannot say (like with most states).
Insults, false accusations, hate speech, riot speeches etc.
But interestingly we still also have a blasphemy law, even though it is very soft now, from what it used to be.
At this point, the only way this will ever be enforced is when someone blasphemes the Quran.
> In the Hamburg court, she insisted the status of Auschwitz as a place of death is "not historically proven" and is "only a belief".
I think she deserved her 10 months in prison.
What do you mean by this word? I’ve seen it used as a political meme, but the usage always makes it seem like the supposed victim has some kind of entitlement to be a widely admired public figure regardless of what they say or do, without regard to the fleeting nature of fame and the fickleness of public admiration.