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Comment by donohoe | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of people, myself included, do not think that Germany often goes overboard when it comes to censoring things.

From my limited time in Germany, and from my few German friends, I do not believe there is a "high false-positive rate" and they do not "rightfully fear that the system can be abused".

Any system can be abused, but they are not in "fear" of that. They generally support the idea that Nazi ideals need to be curtailed given the atrocities committed to millions of people.

Obviously, and as indicated, this is my very small circle of acquaintances. Hardly a national poll.

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They've literally raided someone's home because he called a politician a dick. Raided his home, took all his devices and whatnot. It's completely out of control.

Once you create a list of things that can and cannot be said you have that list on hand. You might have the best intentions about what's on that list but it's better to not have that list at all because it's completely subjective what should and should not be on that list.

"They". Again, governments are not monolithic entities!

It was a local politician abusing his power who is being investigated for that power. It has nothing to do with banning hateful imagery.

> Any system can be abused, but they are not in "fear" of that. They generally support the idea that Nazi ideals need to be curtailed given the atrocities committed to millions of people.

Also, I think many people, Americans in particular, overestimate the ability of "market systems" (i.e. "the marketplace of ideas) to self-regulate or the desirability of the results of that self-regulation.

It's one thing to let Nazis march down the street in Illinois, where they are a small group of pariahs with no hope of power; it's quite another to let them march down a street in a place where they've had power and used it to bad ends (and can be assumed to have significant residual support).

Even more, those laws were enacted when Nazis being celebrated for marching down the streets was a recent memory. A strong statement "we have a new constitution, you aren't allowed to show support for Nazis or organizations working against the constitution" was perfectly reasonable at the time.

As a point of order, I may be lumping all German national censorship into the same bucket. When I perceive that Germany goes overboard with censorship, I mean things like banning Command and Conquer because it 'glorifies war' and then allowing it to be sold once the publisher changed some file assets so the fictional characters were cyborgs instead of people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Generals#...

While this isn't a specific case of censoring something glorifying or endorsing Nazism directly, they think that their own citizens cannot see such material out of fear that it will inspire people to become militaristic. While the goal of being anti-war and anti-nazi is noble and worthwhile, a lot of things get swept up in the effort to curtail as much of it as possible.

Note that the ban was for sales to minors (under the age of 18) not to all citizens. It also disallowed advertisement, of course, so probably there was a noticeable impact on sales. It probably didn't stop teenagers from getting the game anyhow as piracy was rampant those days and being "on the index" made it extra attractive to many.

The situation has improved a lot these days after an amendment in 2003. There is an industry board (USK) giving age recommendations (0+, 6+, 12+, 16+, 18+) and if a game has been rated 18+, shops will not sell it to minors. Importantly, if a game has been rated by this board, it can no longer be put onto the index maintained by that Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors. So the far-reaching restrictions against advertisement no longer apply.

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