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God I love the dunning-kruger view of Germany as the last bastion of internet liberty, it's utterly wrong - Germany has so many laws restricting online speech

God I love the dunning-kruger view of Germany as the last bastion of internet liberty, it's utterly wrong - Germany has so many laws restricting online speech that you (and the service hosting your content) can be sued just for mentioning someone by name in a disparaging context, nothing like the CDA 230 protections exists there in the first place. Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that despite having some of the best hackers in the world come from it Germany has zero world-scale content platforms ?

ForHackernews 6y ago
Germany strongly respects individual privacy (perhaps because many Germans remember the Gestapo) but they don't have the same notions of free speech rights that Americans do.
- seemslegit 6y ago
  It's not just the privacy, it also recognizes the right to protect one's reputation and has a much broader construction of defamation and libel than the US (although still not as broad as the UK), but the point is that there are no special liability protections for online services except maybe in the name of journalism and general public interest, also no DMCA - a copyright violation is a copyright violation and if your users commit it you're liable.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Germany strongly respects individual privacy Citation needed. Germany is a mess on that topic. On the one hand, we have ridiculous things like "police stations can't have cameras monitoring the sidewalk next to them because of privacy concerns", on the other hand we're obligated by law to inform the government when we move (with heavy fines if you do not comply immediately), and the data will be shared with our state media so they can collect their its-not-a-tax-media-tax, and political parties so they can send you ads (at least you can reject this, but it's opt-out, not opt-in). As with many things in Germany, many things about privacy are missing the forest for the trees. We'll enforce with furious diligence things that are irrelevant, while you can't buy SIM cards anonymously and they're pushing for laws that might outlaw VPN services, there are regular pushes for removing "anonymity" from the internet etc.
  - seemslegit 6y ago
    Don't forget the copyright infringement honeypots whose operators have a streamlined access to ISPs to obtain identities of the alleged infringers. Also the legal obligation to have every website specify the legal street address of the entity behind it as well as the full name of the "managing director" in charge.
  - Gwypaas 6y ago
    I feel this is a big difference between the US and Europe in many cases with the difference being the US system is scared to actually face the questions. It's all conventions and traditions that has become culture and unchangeable, with some arcane bench of judges making modern interpretations on 1700's thoughts, sometimes for the better, sometimes separate but equal. Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society. This leading to privacy by mostly convention, but then everyone builds systems to circumvent it in inefficient ways. I.e. SSN and similar. Instead of simply acknowledging that the government is going to get that information no matter what, and it is a requirement to actually govern a modern society. Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society. Imho "making progress" is not the task of any court. Their job is to apply the laws to cases; want to make progress towards some goal? Change the laws, change the constitution. > Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses. Which, of course, isn't happening. We have accepted (as if anybody ever asked us) that it's required to govern a "modern society", and now we have the police tapping whatever info source they can get away with. The courts will, in some cases at least, rule that they may not (but we don't have "fruit of the poisonous tree", so if they illegally search your house, they may still use whatever they find against you), but they're normalizing the overreach. And it's not a political-side-thing either. The conservatives want to use it to fight islamic terrorists and the last three remaining communist revolutionaries, the progressives want to use it to fight racism, sexism and conservatives. Our main stream media (which is much more bundled up than in the US or UK) will generally urge for respecting privacy, but will also generally falter in any crisis and get in line. There are very few private NGOs that are holding the state's feet to the fire. Setting things up so you can "govern a modern society" efficiently isn't all good. I'd take an inefficient administration that keeps its nose out of my business over an efficient administration any day.

ForHackernews 6y ago

Germany strongly respects individual privacy (perhaps because many Germans remember the Gestapo) but they don't have the same notions of free speech rights that Americans do.

seemslegit 6y ago
It's not just the privacy, it also recognizes the right to protect one's reputation and has a much broader construction of defamation and libel than the US (although still not as broad as the UK), but the point is that there are no special liability protections for online services except maybe in the name of journalism and general public interest, also no DMCA - a copyright violation is a copyright violation and if your users commit it you're liable.
luckylion 6y ago
> Germany strongly respects individual privacy Citation needed. Germany is a mess on that topic. On the one hand, we have ridiculous things like "police stations can't have cameras monitoring the sidewalk next to them because of privacy concerns", on the other hand we're obligated by law to inform the government when we move (with heavy fines if you do not comply immediately), and the data will be shared with our state media so they can collect their its-not-a-tax-media-tax, and political parties so they can send you ads (at least you can reject this, but it's opt-out, not opt-in). As with many things in Germany, many things about privacy are missing the forest for the trees. We'll enforce with furious diligence things that are irrelevant, while you can't buy SIM cards anonymously and they're pushing for laws that might outlaw VPN services, there are regular pushes for removing "anonymity" from the internet etc.
- seemslegit 6y ago
  Don't forget the copyright infringement honeypots whose operators have a streamlined access to ISPs to obtain identities of the alleged infringers. Also the legal obligation to have every website specify the legal street address of the entity behind it as well as the full name of the "managing director" in charge.
- Gwypaas 6y ago
  I feel this is a big difference between the US and Europe in many cases with the difference being the US system is scared to actually face the questions. It's all conventions and traditions that has become culture and unchangeable, with some arcane bench of judges making modern interpretations on 1700's thoughts, sometimes for the better, sometimes separate but equal. Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society. This leading to privacy by mostly convention, but then everyone builds systems to circumvent it in inefficient ways. I.e. SSN and similar. Instead of simply acknowledging that the government is going to get that information no matter what, and it is a requirement to actually govern a modern society. Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society. Imho "making progress" is not the task of any court. Their job is to apply the laws to cases; want to make progress towards some goal? Change the laws, change the constitution. > Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses. Which, of course, isn't happening. We have accepted (as if anybody ever asked us) that it's required to govern a "modern society", and now we have the police tapping whatever info source they can get away with. The courts will, in some cases at least, rule that they may not (but we don't have "fruit of the poisonous tree", so if they illegally search your house, they may still use whatever they find against you), but they're normalizing the overreach. And it's not a political-side-thing either. The conservatives want to use it to fight islamic terrorists and the last three remaining communist revolutionaries, the progressives want to use it to fight racism, sexism and conservatives. Our main stream media (which is much more bundled up than in the US or UK) will generally urge for respecting privacy, but will also generally falter in any crisis and get in line. There are very few private NGOs that are holding the state's feet to the fire. Setting things up so you can "govern a modern society" efficiently isn't all good. I'd take an inefficient administration that keeps its nose out of my business over an efficient administration any day.