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Comment by arein2 | Hacker News Reader

But why can't he express his opinion? Is it illegal to think a state is dirty?

Apparently you cannot even re-tweet it if i interpret the law correctly here (https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__90a.html).

"Wer öffentlich, in einer Versammlung oder durch Verbreiten eines Inhalts" means who publicly in a gathering or by distribution of the content.

"die Bundesrepublik Deutschland oder eines ihrer Länder oder ihre verfassungsmäßige Ordnung beschimpft oder böswillig verächtlich macht"

You cannot insult the state or maliciously disparage it.

Likes are illegal, too. Last year, police searched the homes of people because they clicked the like button on a social media post that insulted a killed police woman. [1] The court deemed the likes as endorsements of a crime, which is illegal. [2]

[1] https://www.golem.de/news/durchsuchungen-wegen-hassrede-ein-... [2] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__140.html

> The court deemed the likes as endorsements of a crime

Can’t even flip a bit anymore

Crazy, i actually tried to find out when those laws went into effect first. They changed the one you mention in 2021 but it seems the law itself has existed for years. The oldest that has a similar meaning was voted in 1953:

https://lexetius.com/StGB/140,13

you forgot the consequence: "wird mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu drei Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe bestraft."

Will be punished with up to three years of prison or by fine.

No, but in Germany it is illegal to _say_ that it is dirty. They’ve decided that it’s terrorism, in fact. This is why our First Amendment is so important.

Germany still has a couple of outdated laws left over from the turn of the (last) century, the Nazi years, or the hyper-conservative 50's and 60's, and sometimes bureaucrats and police take this stuff a bit too serious.

Browse the other "stories" on that news portal and it becomes clear that it is a right-wing populist click bait portal which tries to incite rage against the German state by hand-picking stories and amplifying them similar to tabloids like Bild. I wouldn't be surprised if half of the stories on that portal are mostly made up or half-thruths.

PS: it reads exactly like Bild because apparently this is the new project of Julian Reichelt, former head honcho of Bild, who was kicked out because of (TL;DR) being a bigger asshole than even Bild would tolerate.

>Browse the other "stories" on that news portal and it becomes clear that it is a right-wing populist click bait portal which tries to incite rage against the German state by hand-picking stories and amplifying them similar to tabloids like Bild.

Isn't that literally the job of the media to "hand pick stories"? How is this any different than media outlets "hand picking" stories that involve police interactions going badly, when most police interactions end up fine?

ImHO a somewhat serious media outlet should report such stories of course but otherwise remain neutral and refrain from "coloring" such stories with opinion and rage-bait. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but this new thing reeks too much of Buzzfeed, Fox News, RT or Bild.

Not to mention the grey lady, NPR, MSNBC and their ilk...

Interestingly the law in question here actually had a clearer definition in those early conservative years (https://lexetius.com/StGB/90a,7). That law only targeted organizations. After 1968 they actually expanded it to the current version. So we have to thank the overzealous conservative party who overreacted to the student protests for this overly broad law.

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