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My SO is a journalist in Germany. She's all over this. Not clear if there are any clear "scandals". Would be fantasticly German if absolutely nothing fishy show
by tnolet 8y ago
My SO is a journalist in Germany. She's all over this. Not clear if there are any clear "scandals". Would be fantasticly German if absolutely nothing fishy shows up.
- wreath 8y agoWhy would it be "fantastically German"?
- smcl 8y agoIt'd play to the stereotypes of Germans being boring and efficient?
- StavrosK 8y ago"Of course we didn't do anything untoward, being corrupt would be a bad use of resources!"
- justaguyhere 8y agobeing corrupt would be a bad use of resources How badly I wish this was true in other parts of the world!
- y4mi 8y agoIt's not true in Germany either though...
- kaybe 8y agoI think it's funny that if you used to go to these countries for your job, and if you used bribery money, you could deduct it as business expenses. The law was changed in 2002, where it was still legal in non-German context and not concerning foreign public officers. Now that is illegal too. That doesn't mean there is non though, I wish it was true in Germany as well.
- justaguyhere 8y agoI've learned to see bribery as a relative problem, not absolute. In my view, if country A takes less bribe than country B, then country A is better - though both countries are corrupt :( I've never been to Germany, but from what I've read/heard, Germany will probably score pretty high by my standard
- wallace_f 8y agoProbably but it can be a stark contrast when it comes to personal experiences. I remember years ago a backpacker friend from Taiwan sending me a flood of messages about needing to leave Indonesia ASAP because she couldn't personally deal with the number of attempted scams and required briberies she had to suffer through. There's also things like John Stossel's short documentary on setting up businesses in HK and in India.
- StavrosK 8y agoYou're telling me...
- tnolet 8y agoYes. German politics and bureaucracy specifically.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Quarrelsome 8y agothe stereotype is that Germans are often ridiculously straight-laced. See tropes about German humour for reference.
- FabHK 8y agowhich is, btw, why many Germans were so absolutely furious about the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal - not only was it bad for the environment, but also severely damaged said German reputation for integrity and probity. The fury against these cheaters is palpable.
- ataturk 8y agoThat whole thing was so stupid, though. A tempest in a teapot. US emissions regs are ridiculous and gaming them was the last possible outcome. The US brought this on itself as we always do, but it was more enterprising to blame the people tasked with pleasing both their corporate overlords and the regulators, a Faustian situation. While I am against cheating, of course, I have to think that having all those cars junked just due to that scandal was a far bigger waste and far worse for the environment.
- llampx 8y ago> While I am against cheating, of course, I have to think that having all those cars junked just due to that scandal was a far bigger waste and far worse for the environment. It was about sending a message. And probably also about the fact that VW is a foreign car manufacturer. Let's not forget the bailouts that the American car companies got just a few years ago.
- adrianN 8y agoNo, they're not ridiculous. They're also not impossible to achieve, see all the cars that manage without cheating.
- llampx 8y agoOn top of that, they were barely given a slap on the wrist in Germany whereas they had to pay out billions in the US. Even though they probably sold a lot more diesels in Germany than in the US, and Germans are feeling the pinch a lot more due to many cities banning diesels from inner city roads.
- kuschku 8y agoI've read through the files, and so far all there is are private phone numbers, addresses, social security numbers (well, the German equivalent, Rentenversicherungsnummern), bank data, etc of these people. They basically just doxxed them, put up photos, names, account info of famous people, politicians and their families (at one point publishing photos and personal data of the little children of the host of a German late night show), and for a handful of them also published their entire iCloud content as well as all messages they ever sent/received on social media. There's nothing fishy in there, just a very unethical and bad hack. Especially considering the hack only targeted left-wing people[1] a political motivation isn't be out of the question. Footnotes: [1] The hack targeted all parties that were at the time in parliament, but also many private people such as musicians, artists, TV hosts, etc. All of these people were politically left-leaning.
- throw2455 8y agoIn other words, the data is not harmful but its hack can be beneficial to claim "We are victims but we are clean"?
- smcl 8y agoYou really want this to be some "false flag" don't you?
- rndgermandude 8y agoI wouldn't call CDU left wing. They appear to have spared the "most right" party in parliament (AfD), tho.
- Xylakant 8y agoData seems to be from before the AFD was member of the parliament. This doesn’t exclude a political motive, but offers a non-political explanation as well.
- rndgermandude 8y ago
- flexie 8y agoIsn’t German politics ridden with scandals at the personal level? I remember several cases of German top politicians faking their academic records.
- oarfish 8y agoYes, there have been a few cases like these, but so far as I know it's not wide-spread, so "ridden with scandals" is inaccurate (so far as we know), unless you count lobbyist payments (which is scandalous in my opinion, but probably the same in most nations).
- dschu 8y agoOh yeah, let's pretend like this is only the case in Germany.
- EamonnMR 8y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttenberg_plagiarism_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttenberg_plagiarism_scanda... In the US that would probably just lead to a minor apology. I remember a teutophone math professor mentioning that when she was explaining how serious plagiarism was.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- arrrg 8y agoPlagiarism was the issue, approached systematically first in 2011, in the wake of the Guttenberg† scandal. (Plagiarism was discovered in defense minister Guttenberg’s dissertation in early 2011. His title was subsequently revoked by his university and he resigned as defense minister.) After the Guttenberg scandal a wiki sprung up which investigated more past academic works from people, first mostly politicians. Now, plagiarism is a serious issue, but these politicians were not “faking” their academic records. They actually had those titles, the universities had just failed to identify their plagiarism and given them the titles in spite of it. As such hacking them won’t likely reveal such scandals, only actually looking at those (already public) academic works and searching for plagiarism will … which is what has already been happening. — † Annette Schavan resigned two years earlier because of plagiarism-accusations, so his wasn’t the first case, even when only looking at recent cases.