The FBI caring more about people's rights than the German justice system? That would be an interesting twist.
Meanwhile others at the same org may have different feelings based on what they're tasked to do.
It's just a human organization thing.
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I once worked at a company where HR was tasked with helping employees de-stress / relax. One group organized free lunches and even an outing or two. They were sometimes naive, but seemed like sincere and good faith efforts.
Later the company was reviewing some kind of expenditures and for whatever reason a separate group in HR became involved. They noticed that some of our 24/7 tech support staff didn't attend some of these lunches or outings. Of course they didn't all the events occurred during the work day and someone had to be on the phones and others worked weekends or nights or etc.
This other HR wanted it noted on their performance review as a negative that they didn't participate in HR de-stressing events ... pure madness (thankfully it didn't happen).
Two different groups, same org, conflicting choices.
Germany is jailing people for memes, raiding homes over jokes, and fining pensioners for calling politicians idiots. The government calls it “fighting hate.”
Germany's going too far in the opposite direction now, though. I'm actually okay with the rule against insulting people as long as everyone knows that's the rule (note that you can't insult anyone, not just politicians) since it doesn't affect quality discourse yet it keeps low-quality discourse (the kind that dragged the USA into the mud) down. The way they're applying it to discussion about Israel is currently a problem. That's a separate law from the insult one. They're claiming that any criticism of Israel's actions is antisemitic hate speech, which is of course illegal.
Note that supporting the principle doesn't mean I support the implementation. If it were up to me it would be only a slap on the wrist fine except in very severe cases (like organizing a hate protest) and I don't know what level of checks and balances would be enough to ensure the classification of "hate" doesn't devolve into what it has become.
Criticism of the government is absolutely vital. It's the very reason why free speech is so important. And that seems to be what the article is addressing.
Using "free speech" to silence and persecute minorities, and create a hostile atmosphere for them, is the opposite of free speech, abusing the space it was granted by free speech, and inevitably leads to serious restrictions on free speech, as we're currently seeing in the US.
These two things are not the same.
But using memes with real Nazi for this, in Germany, is too much. And they got a fine, not a prison term. Fair enough.
One major plot hole: Despite the law ostensibly applying equally to everyone, there is zero chance that Robert Habeck would ever get in trouble for saying "Martijn Vos is a moron." That's because he's an Important Person and you're not.
Germany *is* completely totalitarian on speech right now, but only on the issue of Israel/Palestine.
The difference is that Hacker News is a website and you can visit another to say rude things if you want with ease, not a country with subjects/citizens.