6 ms·

Europe is so progressive. Protecting the "social climate" of the people through censorship and raids.

• arkitaip 10y ago
  What part of illegal did you not understand?
  • Overtonwindow 10y ago
    That's the whole point, it should not be illegal. Suppression of speech which does not explicitly advocate for violence is oppression. Plain and simple. You may disagree with the speech, it may be distasteful, hateful, or whatever, but no government should be allowed to oppress the free expression of ideas. You should have freedom of speech, not freedom from speech.
    • whamlastxmas 10y ago
      Freedom of speech to the extent that we have in the US is not very common. There are tons of laws in Germany specifically the limit free speech due to being very sensitive about Holocaust deniers and people who try to incite mass hatred. Even Canadian free speech laws are much more limited than the US. See the ridiculous "twitter harassment case" from last year/early this year.
      • xiaoma 10y ago
        China also does this. Certain beliefs about history simply aren't permitted. tldr; if you don't want police to raid, don't break the law.
      • guard-of-terra 10y ago
        Why is it okay to deny Armenian genocide then? Not that I like Armenians that much, but it kind of making no sense. Why not level the playing field by making other countries admit their genocides and crimes like Germany and Russia did?
        • pjc50 10y ago
          It isn't OK? On the other hand, it's not as if Germany can make it illegal for Turkey to deny genocide. (What did Russia actually admit?)
          • guard-of-terra 10y ago
            Germany could recognise that genocide and be adamant with it when talking to Turks. Every large Russian city has some monument dedicated to Soviet political prisoners. Plus sometimes there are monuments related to more specific ethnic/politican groups if they happened to suffer at that place. Find one about Armenians in Turkey?
          • dragonwriter 10y ago
            > On the other hand, it's not as if Germany can make it illegal for Turkey to deny genocide. They can (the nature of sovereignty is such that a sovereign can outlaw anyone doing anything), though they may have trouble enforcing the law by which they make that illegal. Foreign states have been dragged into another state's courts for violations of the latter state's law, though (this is particularly true when the latter state is the US), so its not necessarily the case that there is no possibility of some accountability to such a law.
            • iofj 10y ago
              By that standard, so can I.
        • pc86 10y ago
          I suggest we keep the blatant racism off of HN.
          • guard-of-terra 10y ago
            Where's racism here? Irish don't like English. French don't like Germans. I don't like Armenians. Should I? People don't like each other by default. But the depth of this feeling is not enough to be considered racism (especially when both of us are "Caucasian") and can surely be overriden by personal experience with a given Armenian.
      • pjc50 10y ago
        US freedom of speech in action: https://theintercept.com/2016/07/12/after-dallas-shootings-police-arrest-people-for-criticizing-cops-on-facebook-and-twitter/ https://theintercept.com/2016/07/12/after-dallas-shootings-p...
        • whamlastxmas 10y ago
          Three of those were people directly and clearly threatening to kill a police officer. A fourth one was saying she'd kill a police officer if she was pulled over, and got a "disorderly conduct" charge which may very well get thrown out. She was arrested and immediately released. Freedom of speech is working fine aside from NSLs.
    • x0137294744532 10y ago
      > Suppression of speech which does not explicitly advocate for violence is oppression. In your opinion (and that of the US), "violence" in this context is defined as physical violence. However, one can argue that non-physical violence should be considered too. In that case, it could be said that hate speech is a form of indirect threat or intimidation against a minority. > no government should be allowed to oppress the free expression of ideas Are you okay then, with an intelligence or military defector (not a whistleblower), revealing all government secrets and publishing it publicly without any selection or redaction?
      • mc32 10y ago
        Not the OP but there is a difference between ideas you generate and those generated, compiled by other people as well as appropriating and disseminating something that wasn't "yours". My belief in whistleblowing is as follows. If the act of whistleblowing violates laws and go beyond the provisions in whistleblowing laws, but you or I dearly believe in what we are doing as proper and just, then we do it but understand the consequences and don't and should not seek understanding or forgiveness. If we believe so much, then it's our duty to sacrifice our selves in the face of adverse conditions. I compare it to revolutionaries. You believe in your cause enough that the negative consequences are part of the deal and you don't expect leniency or official pardons, else the issue is not that dire.
      • pc86 10y ago
        I think most people would agree that intimidation is a form of violence. Saying something that someone doesn't like, or that hurts their feelings, or that makes them remember something bad that happened to them is not.
        • x0137294744532 10y ago
          From Wikipedia: > In the law of some countries, hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it incites violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group. So would you consider it censorship to forbid hate speech?
    • pjc50 10y ago
      What about speech that implicitly advocates for violence? I'm also going to leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... here because some people seem to be under the misapprehension that the US has no restrictions on speech.
      • pc86 10y ago
        Nobody on HN truly believes there are no exceptions, they just disagree about whether given speech falls under an exception or not. Edit: Instead of silently downvoting please provide even a single link to an HN comment espousing that freedom of speech actually means you can say anything at any time to anyone without any repercussions.
    • tremon 10y ago
      Suppression of speech which does not explicitly advocate for violence is oppression Then you're not arguing against the current raids then. From the source [1]: Bedrohung, Nötigung, Erpressung, Verunglimpfung, extremistische Inhalte, die Androhung von Gewalttaten oder der öffentliche Aufruf zu Straftaten Threats, coercion, oppression, slander, extremist content, inciting violence and calls to commit crime. [1] http://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/7/3377153 http://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/7/3377153
      • pc86 10y ago
        Coercion, oppression, slander, and extremist content all fall under speech which does not necessary advocate violence, yet is illegal.
        • tremon 10y ago
          Maybe it's just a matter of definition, but I think that's a very tortured argument. I would say that oppression and slander are acts of violence, and coercion is typically done using threats or leveraging some form of oppression. As for extremist content: sure not all extremism is (openly) violent, but are you really arguing that most extremism is non-violent, to the point where it's just "extremism is given a bad name by a few bad apples"?
          • pc86 10y ago
            > are you really arguing that most extremism is non-violent, to the point where it's just "extremism is given a bad name by a few bad apples"? I said nothing of the sort and it takes some impressive mental gymnastics to reach that point. Extremist speech, on its own and in isolation, is not necessarily violent and should not be a crime automatically. It obviously can espouse violence and is therefore already outlawed. It may even be the fact that 99.9% of extremist speech advocates violence in one form or another. But until it does, someone should be able to spew as much racist, hateful garbage as they want.
            • tremon 10y ago
    • foepys 10y ago
      Do you really think you have unlimited freedom of speech in the US? Try this: go to a playground and say to a parent: "I want to beat up your child." Then stand there and wait until the cops arrive and claim it was just freedom of speech. Remember to exactly repeat it to the cops. This is exactly what the laws in Germany are against. Hate speech that ultimately leads to violence.
      • ythl 10y ago
        > Do you really think you have unlimited freedom of speech in the US? Compared to Europe, apparently yes > Try this: go to a playground and say to a parent ... I doubt this would have the outcome you imagine. What would the police officer arrest me for? Expressing an opinion? "Officer": "What seems to be the problem" "Woman": "This man said he wanted to beat up my child" "Officer": "Is this true?" "Me": "Yes" "Officer": "Why did you say that?" "Me": "Someone on the internet told me I would be arrested if I did" "Officer": "Go home."
      • dragonwriter 10y ago
        > This is exactly what the laws in Germany are against. Hate speech that ultimately leads to violence. Your example is not mere "hate speech that ultimately leads to violence", its -- while somewhat ambiguously worded so it might not actually be prosecutable in the US, its right on the boundary -- something that could (depending on other elements of context) be seen as a threat coupled with present capacity for execution directed at a specific person. Its not a clear example of something outside the bounds of protection in the US, and to the extent that it might be seen as crossing the line in the US, its very much not analogous to the kinds of things prohibited by the more expansive German restrictions on speech.
  • ythl 10y ago
    > What part of illegal did you not understand? The "why" part, actually. Why is hate speech illegal? Where is the line drawn? Who gets to draw the line? Can the line move over time? Could politicians eventually move the line to suppress undesirable speech (political dissension) under the guise of hate speech?
    • avs733 10y ago
      while the comment you replied to is stupidly phrased...and strangely authoritarian for HN...I think there may be room for a deeper discussion here. We (i.e., the US/the internet) have a tendency to view basic human rights through a very US-centric framework. We value freedom of speech above all else (well except the right to bear/bare arms...). However, our framework of what rights there should be is not entirely universal, nor should it be. We tend to be not so great at articulating a basic right to exist or to be free from harm created by others. I hear many conversations about the constitution, which is our law, but I rarely hear people discuss the declaration of independence which was a much broader statement about the rights of human beings. The constitution is our codification and does not, nor should it, be applied as a universal critique of other systems. And none of that is to say that we have unlimited free speech anyways in the US. The standard framework for restriction is strict scrutiny, which requires a compelling governmental interest to restrict free speech (e.g., preserving the health and welfare of many citizens is why you can't yell fire in a crowded theater). Because the law is not ahistorical, I think you could make a fairly compelling argument that it is in the German government's interest to make laws that do things like make denying the holocaust illegal or placing some limits on hate speech. The potential damage of those things is something that Germany has experienced in ways we haven't, and I would generally defer to them making laws within their own society rather than judge them with ours.
      • atom-morgan 10y ago
        The history of a country gives no validity to thoughtcrime.
        • king_phil 10y ago
• pjc50 10y ago
  Incitement to racial hatred can lead to genocide. And not just in Germany.
  • smokeyj 10y ago
    Let's fight the prospect of genocide with an authoritarian fascist regime that seeks to control your speech with a secretive dragnet surveillance apparatuses. People crack me up sometimes..