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Comment by nisten | Hacker News Reader

I think a good way to shame politicians that push this type of erosion of civil liberties is to label it at gestapoware.

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For some more recent crimes against society and humanity, I'd also compare it to Stasi. Plenty of people alive today who lived with that.

Around 1 in 30 people was secretly telling on their neighbors. After unification, it was presented as a dark chapter in German history that had finally come to an end. People would get to look into their own "file" to see what and how much had been written about their daily activities. I was a bit young at the time, but I do remember frequent discussions on TV about how to move on from this, and how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

And now we're talking about reading everyone's private messages on a scale that would be the Stasi's wet dream.

I wonder - if the Stasi had been presented as a legitimate way to fight CSAM - would that have been okay?

They did say these protesting on the street are outlaws who also rape and kill the little children.

Unsurprisingly the Stasi and Gestapo types always say things like that.

The Stasi while more recent and more correct a name to use here are still something not everyone knows about to the same extent as the gestapo.

In Germany they certainly do.

indeed. Gestapo is "a long time ago", Stasi is something half the country at least knows people personally affected by.

Stasi works better if this is a purely German question, but this is an international issue. Gestapoware is way more obvious than Stasiware for people outside Germany, while both surely resonate inside the country.

The trouble is that the Stasi are not seen in as negative of a light as the Gestapo.

In Germany?

I'm not German but the German people I do know don't see them positively. But could be selection bias

Only some rare soviet nostalgy people will see them as something positive. But there are indeed not considered as bad as Gestapo and I tend to agree.

Fern did a phenomenal video about Stasi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj7HX7I8KHs

Stasiware is more appropriate. Stasi (Staatssicherheit) was the administration in charge of spying each citizen of east Germany. It runs until 1989. So more people remember the opening of the archives in the 1990ies.

Stasiware. I like that.

Besides that this is likely a criminal offense in Germany[1] we tried it 16 years ago with "Zensursula" and you can see how that turned out.

[1] §86a StGB "Use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations" applies also to words, not just symbols in the strict sense. It is also enforced in broad coarse strokes for example on the usage of the swastika inside a red prohibition circle (the one with a diagonal bar).

EDIT: Looking back at my comment, I realize it might come across as too negative. If you think shaming politicians is the right way to protest this, go for it.

I just believe convincing politicians that the spirit they summon may easily slip from their control and turn against them is a more likely successful angle.

This or §90a ... anyway, better keep your bathrobe in reach in case they come visit you at dawn.

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