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It's my understanding that you can thank Facebook for that law. Unless it hits their bottom line (or shows naked female breasts) it was nearly impossible to get

It's my understanding that you can thank Facebook for that law. Unless it hits their bottom line (or shows naked female breasts) it was nearly impossible to get a post deleted, even if it was clearly illegal. While it's unfortunate that such a relatively crude law was implemented it's at the end a reaction to the general, ultralibertarian "we don't give a fuck, unless it really hurts" attitude coming out of Silicon Valley. Uber is an even worse example of that attitude.

adventured 9y ago
No, it's the fault of the German authorities and the German culture. They've been pushing toward increased speech controls online since the Web became popular. The point is to better match their speech restrictions offline. The imbalance between the two was guaranteed to end. This didn't just start with the popularization of Facebook the last ten years.
- skrause 9y ago
  > No, it's the fault of the German authorities and the German culture. They've been pushing toward increased speech controls online since the Web became popular. Source? Because as a German I strongly disagree with that statement.
  - falsprofet 9y ago
    For one anecdote, webmasters are held liable for comments hosted on their discussion platforms, if there's no moderation.
- hwh 9y ago
  Unless you give more facts, I'd say you are mostly repeating the argument the post you answered to, albeit from another viewpoint. Of course there is the notion that the law is applied to offline and online talk in the same way. The most important distinction in german law is whether the talk is made in public. And Facebook (and to a degree Twitter) surely brought the possibility to a lot of people to make their talk public who hadn't as easy access to an audience before. And surely, Facebook and Twitter did not give proper access to remedies for victims before. What they had was a broad, intransparent workflow that did not match the german law. Civil suits against them regarding such issues are, due to the nature of such suits against huge foreign corporations, mostly inaccessible if you are not equipped with enough funds to go to court for a few rounds. This is not to say that the law is fine. Its intentions, however, arguably are. To oppose this viewpoint, you would have to defend a world where hate speech and libel go (erratically, but mostly) without defense for the victims. From a very libertarian viewpoint, that may be an acceptable sacrifice, though.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
None of that is a reason to make a law that has a private company decide what are in effect criminal cases against citizens. The minister responsible at some point made the completely idiotic remark that that is the right way to go because Facebook and the like are making a lot of money, so they also should be responsible for these costs. It seems like you can be a minister in Germany and never have heard of this concept called "taxes" that other countries use to finance an independent judicial system.
- emn13 9y ago
  By any normal definition these aren't criminal cases. People don't end up losing jobs, going behind bars, gaining criminal records. They usually won't even lose their accounts; certainly the law doesn't suggest that. They simply cannot spread hate-speech. The actual effects of this law in terms of possibly useful message lost are minuscule compared to the real culprits of goverment-enforced speech restrictions: namely copyrights ( and extras like DMCA) & libel laws. Those actually matter. This doesn't.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    > By any normal definition these aren't criminal cases. It is a decision made to limit your constitutional freedoms due to legal obligations towards the public. That is very much the definition of a criminal case. > People don't end up losing jobs, going behind bars, gaining criminal records. Parking in the wrong spot also doesn't lead to any of that, but it's still a criminal case. > They simply cannot spread hate-speech. So, Titanic was spreading hate speech then? > The actual effects of this law in terms of possibly useful message lost are minuscule compared to the real culprits of goverment-enforced speech restrictions: namely copyrights ( and extras like DMCA) & libel laws. Those actually matter. Which is relevant to whether this is a good law how?
    - thesimon 9y ago
      >It is a decision made to limit your constitutional freedoms Just because your Facebook post is deleted does not mean your constitional right to free speech is limited.
wtfstatists 9y ago
How about regulators in your country gets regional delete link for every public content ? Does that soothe govts concern ?

adventured 9y ago

No, it's the fault of the German authorities and the German culture. They've been pushing toward increased speech controls online since the Web became popular. The point is to better match their speech restrictions offline. The imbalance between the two was guaranteed to end. This didn't just start with the popularization of Facebook the last ten years.

skrause 9y ago
> No, it's the fault of the German authorities and the German culture. They've been pushing toward increased speech controls online since the Web became popular. Source? Because as a German I strongly disagree with that statement.
- falsprofet 9y ago
  For one anecdote, webmasters are held liable for comments hosted on their discussion platforms, if there's no moderation.
hwh 9y ago
Unless you give more facts, I'd say you are mostly repeating the argument the post you answered to, albeit from another viewpoint. Of course there is the notion that the law is applied to offline and online talk in the same way. The most important distinction in german law is whether the talk is made in public. And Facebook (and to a degree Twitter) surely brought the possibility to a lot of people to make their talk public who hadn't as easy access to an audience before. And surely, Facebook and Twitter did not give proper access to remedies for victims before. What they had was a broad, intransparent workflow that did not match the german law. Civil suits against them regarding such issues are, due to the nature of such suits against huge foreign corporations, mostly inaccessible if you are not equipped with enough funds to go to court for a few rounds. This is not to say that the law is fine. Its intentions, however, arguably are. To oppose this viewpoint, you would have to defend a world where hate speech and libel go (erratically, but mostly) without defense for the victims. From a very libertarian viewpoint, that may be an acceptable sacrifice, though.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago

None of that is a reason to make a law that has a private company decide what are in effect criminal cases against citizens. The minister responsible at some point made the completely idiotic remark that that is the right way to go because Facebook and the like are making a lot of money, so they also should be responsible for these costs. It seems like you can be a minister in Germany and never have heard of this concept called "taxes" that other countries use to finance an independent judicial system.

emn13 9y ago
By any normal definition these aren't criminal cases. People don't end up losing jobs, going behind bars, gaining criminal records. They usually won't even lose their accounts; certainly the law doesn't suggest that. They simply cannot spread hate-speech. The actual effects of this law in terms of possibly useful message lost are minuscule compared to the real culprits of goverment-enforced speech restrictions: namely copyrights ( and extras like DMCA) & libel laws. Those actually matter. This doesn't.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  > By any normal definition these aren't criminal cases. It is a decision made to limit your constitutional freedoms due to legal obligations towards the public. That is very much the definition of a criminal case. > People don't end up losing jobs, going behind bars, gaining criminal records. Parking in the wrong spot also doesn't lead to any of that, but it's still a criminal case. > They simply cannot spread hate-speech. So, Titanic was spreading hate speech then? > The actual effects of this law in terms of possibly useful message lost are minuscule compared to the real culprits of goverment-enforced speech restrictions: namely copyrights ( and extras like DMCA) & libel laws. Those actually matter. Which is relevant to whether this is a good law how?
  - thesimon 9y ago
    >It is a decision made to limit your constitutional freedoms Just because your Facebook post is deleted does not mean your constitional right to free speech is limited.

wtfstatists 9y ago

How about regulators in your country gets regional delete link for every public content ? Does that soothe govts concern ?