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Comment by codethief | Hacker News Reader

> Concrete examples - in Germany you are not allowed to insult politicians or the government in social media.

You're not allowed to insult anyone, https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__185.html , though the term "insult" is not nearly as broadly defined as in everyday speech. The law dates back to the 18th century, and has largely been unchanged for 150 years. I really don't understand the recent outrage over these and other laws. We have been fine.

More background: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beleidigung_(Deutschland)

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> has largely been unchanged for 150 years. I really don't understand the recent outrage over these and other laws. We have been fine

The last 150 years of Germany have...ahem...not been what I would call "fine."

It would be interesting to have a replay of history without this law and similar ones related to it. Could be nothing different happens.

On the other hand, any law regulating speech is going to have a reverberating effect on the marketplace of ideas with 2nd and 3rd order outcomes that are impossible to disentangle after the fact.

> The last 150 years of Germany have...ahem...not been what I would call "fine."

But it's certainly not been because of that law…

At the very least I'm sure you'll agree we've been fine the last 80 or so years. Again, I'm just saying I don't understand the outrage right now.

almost all communication was oral 20 years ago, now-- especially since covid -- it's almost all, even casual comments, through text messages which can easily be used in evidence

That's a good point. Though I wouldn't say text as a medium is the critical factor, it's that more communication is taking place in the open (over social media) and being recorded for everyone to see.

However, I don't see how this would imply the law that's been in place for 150 years would suddenly be bad. In fact, one might argue that precisely because so much communication is happening in public now, more regulation is needed.

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