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Comment by sdoering | Hacker News Reader

> Going so far to regulate what you ought to say or to watch.

Native born German. Calling BS on that crap.

I recommend reading up on "freedom from" vs. "freedom to". Explains quite a lot of differences between the European tradition of ensuring people are "free from" an potentially oppressive state vs. the US tradition of "freedom to".

In each "freedom of speech" index I know, Germany fares better than the US, or Britain, or Australia. Or quite a lot of different countries tbh.

RSF World Press (lower is better): - Germany 14/180 - Britain 18/180 - Australia 33/180 - USA 64/180

Freedom House (higher is better): - Germany 95/100 - Britain 92/100 - Australia 95/100 - USA 84/100

Edit: Typo

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I can't take these indexes seriously when Germany is about to outright ban an entire political party. The US takes the first amendment very seriously.

That "political party" is the modern-day Nazis.

Like, actual Nazis.

If you think Nazis should be given a seat at the political table, especially in Germany, then I don't think I can take you seriously.

Faring better than some other country doesn't mean its good.

Try calling up rt.com via a German phone network.

And calling our chancellor a liar will get your house searched.

No one actually believes their BS and I doubt you actually do either.

They use so many bullshit and mental gymnastics to "score" Germany well despite their appalling "free speech" laws. I think it's very fair to say anyone appealing to either of these index's isn't even attempting to argue in good faith.

How did that work out for Alex Pretti, the protesting nurse that was murdered by the Feds recently?

In Germany you will get arrested if you publicly talk about Gaza and Israel

Having had that exact discussion with someone in Alexanderplatz right in front of the police building, nope.

This is just BS. I had and saw many public discussion also on German Marktätze on this topic, some quite heated. Nobody was arrested or removed from their job or otherwise sanctioned. But of course people were disagreeing. The right to free speech is not the right to freedom from contradiction!

Can you cite that please? Theres more going on with a lot pf the Gaza/Israel stuff (that im not unsympathetic to) that can blur the lines somewhat

https://www.the-berliner.com/oyoun-cultural-centre-to-close-...

This article does not say someone was arrested because of a public talk about Gaza and Israel. A local government has cut funding to a local org because of a disagreement. Nobody was arrested.

One of the problems I have with the right wing is they literally just decry anything and everything that doesnt only benefit themselves and when they get in office they do exactly the same thing with the subtext being "Tough shit, now I get to wear the Boot"

What does that have to do with people being arrested?

To be fair, that'll happen in New York if you protest the internationally-illegal sale of real estate in Palestine taking place in a synagogue. Here's the event, a law was passed protecting religious institutions from protest (but was really for this).

https://theintercept.com/2026/05/11/real-estate-expo-israel-...

German here. The law as written actually permits most of the speech: As long as you avoid a number of banned phrases and don't voice explicit support for groups classified as terrorist organizations, your speech is protected - in theory.

In practice, wondrous things may start to happen already long before you reach that threshold, such as police forgetting their own laws, your venue, backup venue and second backup venue suddenly all deciding they cannot host you, politicians trying to fire you - or you suddenly realizing that you're unable to access any kind of bank account or credit card because the EU put you on a sanctions list (behind closed doors, without telling you, with no option to appeal).

But none of that has to do with overregulation - on the contrary, those measures are often in violation of the law and courts have frequently decided in favor of pro-palestinian activists and axed them.

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