That does not compute.
> It was a 2021 case involving Andy Grote, a local politician, that captured the country's attention. Grote complained about a tweet that called him a "pimmel," a German word for the male anatomy. His complaint triggered a police raid and accusations of excessive censorship by the government.
A police raid for calling a politician a dick. Let it sink.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/germany-online-hate-speech-pros...
It's just one of the sixteen units that prosecute 'hate speech' cases in Germany.
Oh, by the way, the Chancellor himself is calling to demolish online anonymity completely: https://dpa-international.com/politics/urn:newsml:dpa.com:20...
But sure, abuse of power is so rare. Nothing to see here.
> But sure, abuse of power is so rare. Nothing to see here.
This would make your point if those hate speech cases were all the same as your Andy Grote example.
Otherwise it's like pointing at one defendant winning a road traffic law case due to dashcam footage showing the police were making things up, as evidence that all road traffic law prosecutions are abusing power.
The German people elected the parliament. The parliament elected Merz. The margin was narrow, but that was the decision.
You're missing the point. That's exactly how democratic governments cloak fascist behavior everywhere: The punishment IS THE PROCESS.
People in Germany (and the UK and other places) have to self censor because they don't want to be visited by the police and then dragged through courts for months/years, even though it eventually gets thrown out and you get to walk away innocent, you still had to suffer the entire prosecution process, which nobody wants to, so they keep their mouth shut.
The stress toll of having to go through all that annoying grind through the legal system, even though you did nothing wrong and what the government is doing will be considered illegal, is how the government preemptively keeps people in line.
>That was a overall very rarely occurring abuse of power
Very rare?! Unless there's direct consequences with actual punishment on government officials for illegally abusing the legal system on citizens just because they hear stuff they don't like, then they will keep throwing prosecutions at innocent people just to keep them in check since currently they have nothing stopping them from this abuse turning from rare to being the norm.
YES.
Just look at any political thread in any social media in German language. There is plenty of criticism or even insults regarding government officials, without them getting raided. It is only extreme cases (often with calls for violence) which trigger LE. So the chilling effect is missing or at least it has little influence.
But yeah we get it, there's bad censorhip (Iran, China, Russia), and there is the good censorhip, sorry, i meant "protection of children", when it's the EU. :o)
I understand that you're being facetious here, but this is literally true.
Words kill people sometimes, and in the same way that my right to swing my arm stops where your nose begins your right to say whatever you want stops where my safety begins.
Or to rephrase it, nobody can have free speech at all if others are allowed to threaten your health and safety for it, which automatically implies that violent and hateful speech must be curtailed. It is a variation on the paradox of tolerance.
Yes, there is room to debate exactly where the line is, but the fact that there is a line is fairly well settled except amongst the rabid.
Ergo, your words threaten my safety.
The paradox of tolerance is not about censoring others. If anything, censorship lands on the side of the intolerant of this paradox.
But why always the need, on the left, to ban everyone else from doing it because YOU want to do it personally ?
People were sentenced to death at Nuremberg for giving orders, written and spoken.
It's well established in every legal jurisdiction that individuals are responsible for the words they use.
The words the Nazis said were irrelevant. They directed people to kill and as such they were guilty.
I think someone who goes and attacks somebody is guilty. They cannot use the excuse they were following orders. The words didn't take control of them like a spell. They made the conscious choice to commit violence and as such the guilt is on them, not the bat.
>They directed people to kill and as such they were guilty.
I'm glad we finally reached an agreement that people can and should be held criminally responsible for their words.
>They cannot use the excuse they were following orders.
Good, though that's not what was being argued. I think you knew that though.
Yes, words led to that, but the onus of the deaths are on those who did the killing, not the words. Could the Nazis in the Nuremberg trials have used the excuse that it was actually the words doing the killing and as such they were innocent?
If you want to say words kill, in the way you are saying, then words have killed most people that have been killed. If we take an example where somebody gets turned down and then gets killed for it, would you say words killed that person? Should we ban turning people down? You do want words that kill to be banned after all.
I'm reminded of a phrase I leaned as a kid that starts with sticks and stones...
Obscenity in any context - Won't someone not think of the children?
Child sexual abuse material - Fine in the new regime as long as you didn't record it yourself, right?
Incitement to imminent lawless action - You only told them who to murder, right?
True threats and harassment - All those people can just die. Speech is the ONLY freedom that matters. Serious expressions of intent to commit unlawful violence be damned.
Fighting words - Sure - Bait them till they hit you then the cops can come arrest THEM. Aren't you clever! And totally free from consequences for your actions! Ideal!
Defamation - Why CAN'T we just make stuff up about our enemies, friends, and loved ones? Those suckers rights are far less important than ours after all!
Fraud and false commercial speech - All legal now! Finally the freedom to rip off old ladies and the mentally unwell! Thank god for liberty!
IP violations - Again, free speech is absolute now so nobody can own anything that can be conveyed via language. Yay!
Or... we could just be reasonable about it and say that the limit's of free speech are where they start to impinge on other peoples liberties. Your call.
Next, my issue is primarily on your issue with hateful speech, I should have been more clear. I wrote it on my phone and didn't feel like expanding upon what I was trying to say. I should have conveyed my thoughts better.
I will explain my position more clearly.
I think pushing what you are when it comes to hateful speech is dangerous. Using your own logic the comment I am replying to could be illegal. You said "hateful speech must be curtailed". What you said about Elon is clearly derogatory and could easily be considered hateful. If the laws were in place, I think with how petty Elon is, he would go after people who are critical of him like yourself.
Having emotional harm is not really something that can be determined which is the primary harm that hate speech causes. Every person is different so you wouldn't have a way to know what you could say. The only way to know if something is hateful is to ask the person if they were intending it to be hateful or if the recipient found it hateful.
When you have vague terms that could be determined by emotion rather than an objective measure you are going to run into issues. Obviously sometimes there will be subjective measures, but we need to minimize them whenever possible.
If somebody is directing somebody to kill somebody that is causing physical harm towards an individual and should be illegal.
Going back to the world war examples. Hitler would be guilty of directing people to cause physical harm.
If Hitler said to kill somebody I don't consider that to be different than if Hitler just pointed and somebody and then turned his finger into a gun. The issue wasn't what he said or didn't say, it was what he was directing somebody to do.
If Hitler said something like we have economic issues and Jews run the banks, that would probably be considered hateful by many people. I don't think it should be illegal. If Hitler added let's kill the Jews, that would be directing people to commit violence and would not be legal.
Hitler hating the Jews in the first statement doesn't mean he should go to jail. It didn't cause a normal person to go out and commit the Holocaust.
It was from an actual quote of his in which he claimed to be a "free speech absolutist." I did mean it in a derogatory way, because just repeating it makes him seem silly, but it's an actual quote so not slanderous or anything.
That said, I agree that nobody has the right to live a life free of criticism and some folks need thicker skin (including myself from time to time).
>If somebody is directing somebody to kill somebody that is causing physical harm towards an individual and should be illegal
Well there you go. We both agree that some speech has to be illegal, we just disagree as to exactly where that line is. I think it's perfectly reasonable for us to disagree about *exactly* where the line is, as long as everyone understands that there is a line.
To me that line is very simple: My rights end where yours start, and vice versa. As far as I can tell it's the only sensible basis for any kind of society. You can make it more complicated if you want, but the only way to get more "freedom" than with my plan is to take away someone else's and I'm not cool with that.
If you want to censor the internet, claiming it is "to protect the children" is still a much better bet than claiming that it is because free speech causes world wars, if you want my opinion.