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So we're sending police at the homes of people that say stuff we don't like on the internet? Is this the official, government endorsed, swatting?
by OptionX 6y ago
So we're sending police at the homes of people that say stuff we don't like on the internet?
Is this the official, government endorsed, swatting?
- floatingatoll 6y agoGermany has been arresting people for violating their laws against hate speech for 75 years. It’s unsurprising, yet comforting, to find out that they do so when the violations are committed online.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoI don't find it comforting, but to each his own.
- varjag 6y agoIt wasn't a law 76 years ago yet, but not sure you'd have preferred that Germany.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoThere are more than two options.
- wwwwwwwww 6y ago75 years? More like 90 years. What do you think the first thing was the Nazis did when they got into power? Exactly: make the opinion of the opposition illegal. We didn't learn anything.
- colejohnson66 6y agoGermany’s laws are very clear that any form of endorsement of Naziism (or any hate speech) is illegal. It has been since the end of WWII. From the US, it looks ridiculous because most of that would be protected by the First Amendment. But in Germany, they really don’t want another Hitler.
- _red 6y ago>they really don’t want another Hitler why did Hitler appear in the first place? was it because thats just how germans are...or was there some other reason?
- notfromhere 6y agoIf you give extremism a platform, it will spread.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Moway 6y ago>why did Hitler appear in the first place? Because they didn't have laws against hate speech, of course. Oh wait... they did: https://www.jta.org/2020/09/03/opinion/former-aclu-president-says-censoring-hate-speech-can-backfire-just-like-it-did-in-nazi-germany https://www.jta.org/2020/09/03/opinion/former-aclu-president...
- throwaway2048 6y agoHowever the Weimar Republic was extremely politically weak and refused to enforce them.
- Moway 6y agoFrom the link: >There were dozens of prosecutions, including successful prosecutions, against Nazis — including Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Sturmer. And it just became a propaganda platform for the Nazis. It got all kinds of attention they otherwise would not have received, and sympathy they otherwise would not have received.
- Certhas 6y agoNo we don't. The law is against insulting people, not against "saying stuff we don't like on the internet". The laws predate the internet by decades. The freedom to express your opinion is constitutionally protected, this does not cover all speech acts, in Germany and everywhere (see slander laws). Courts protect this constitutional guarantee, as several recent cases showed. Vigorously enforcing laws against insults and other speech acts that are hostile towards constructive discourse seems to me to be the only way forward when it comes to restoring a semblance of sanity to societal conversation. The social networks by themselves have proven to be utterly incapable of doing so. The most comprehensive survey on various freedoms in the World that I know of ranks Germany at 94, ahead of France at 90 and the US at 86. (100 is the perfect score) https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-cou https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-cou... Freedom of speech is also a guaranteed right in the German constitution, as it is in the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In every jurisdiction there are limits to the freedom of speech. This applies to the US as well as everywhere else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
- xupybd 6y agoI'm not sure how insulting people can be a crime?
- claudiawerner 6y ago> So we're sending police at the homes of people that say stuff we don't like on the internet? Merely describing it as "stuff we don't like" is either inaccurate or reductionist, in the same way murder could be described as "actions we don't like", or a threatening letter is "some scribbles we don't like", or child pornography is "some movies we don't like". The German law may be vague (I don't know), but the bar seems to be higher than "stuff we don't like". Whether it should be censored is a good question, but it does nobody any good to be reductionist about the content of the speech.
- hoot 6y agoYeah but murder is a very concrete action, while an insult is subjective.
- claudiawerner 6y agoWhat does 'subjective' mean in this context? That its effects can't be examined? In at least a subset of circumstances, they can be (unless having or not having, say, PTSD, is 'subjective'). Psychological evaluations in the legal system are much like physiological ones. Let's say somebody has a sensetive finger, and breaking it causes extreme pain, according to that person. Assuming something like the eggshell skull rule still holds, should we dismiss his complaint or treat it as lesser because his pain is 'subjective'? All harms are subjective, and not all actions result in equal harm to the victim. A concert pianist is arguably harmed more by having his fingers broken than an English teacher is. A professor once said he'd rather someone break his leg instead of a student falsely accuse him of sexual assault.
- wwwwwwwww 6y agoThat's Germany. You think we didn't learn anything from our two dicatorships in the past century? You are correct!
- nodesocket 6y agoGermany has very different freedom of speech laws than the US. Personally I think the US has it right. You can’t claim free speech but then selectively decide what’s acceptable, politically correct, or moral. It’s a slippery slope.
- veddox 6y agoIt is a tough line to walk. However, having seen in our own and other countries’ histories what happens when hatred is allowed to spread unchecked, we have decided that it‘s more important to slightly restrict one right (within tight bounds) than to risk that abusers of that right destroy the very democracy that gave it to them.
- veddox 6y agoWell, the thing is, in Germany we‘ve experienced first hand what happens when hatred goes rampant - when criticism turns to ostracism, hateful words to hateful deeds, inflammatory speeches to flame-filled cities. And I‘m not just talking about Hitler and the Holocaust. Elected representatives of the people, from village mayors to members of parliament, are giving up their office because they can no longer bear the barrage of abuse and intimidation thrown at them. What starts online doesn‘t stay online. The current mayor of Cologne was stabbed the night before her election, a top Hessian state official shot dead in his own garden. Democracy cannot survive indefinitely under an atmosphere of fear and hatred. If you want more examples, look at the end of the Roman republic, the Weimar republic, the pre-Civil-War United States. Free speech is a precious right. But if you abuse this right to undermine the very democracy that gives it to you, you have thereby forfeited it.
- zekki 6y agoPerfectly said!
- AareyBaba 6y ago"In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance" - Karl Popper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- veddox 6y agoWe have the concept of the defensive democracy („wehrhafte Demokratie“), which is basically that.
- leetcrew 6y agothe roman republic is an odd example to bring up. "hate" as we understand it today had very little to do with the transition to empire. it was much more an outcome of internal squabbles among elites and the failure to separate military and political power. ironically, the assassination of caesar may well have hastened the fall of the republic. > Free speech is a precious right. But if you abuse this right to undermine the very democracy that gives it to you, you have thereby forfeited it. also, what? we can debate the value of free speech, but it doesn't seem like much of a right if it can be lost so easily.
- CyberRabbi 6y agoThis is the government enforcing the law. If these laws had been in place 100 years ago, maybe my family would still be in Germany.
- Moway 6y agoBut they have been in place 100 years ago (before the Nazis came to power). How did that work out? https://www.jta.org/2020/09/03/opinion/former-aclu-president-says-censoring-hate-speech-can-backfire-just-like-it-did-in-nazi-germany https://www.jta.org/2020/09/03/opinion/former-aclu-president...
- hoot 6y agoI wonder if the Nazis used the laws to work in their favor and grow in power. If no one could insult the Nazi party then it would be easier for them to grow in power because they could just censor opposing views via the laws.
- ummonk 6y agoThe Weimar Republic has hate speech laws and attempted to enforce them against Nazis. It merely drove more support to the Nazis.
- CyberRabbi 6y agoThat... sounds like a Nazi talking point... do you have evidence of that claim?
- ummonk 6y agoDon't have a primary source offhand, but here is one researcher for example: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-violence https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-v... "Contrary to what most people think, Germany did have hate-speech laws that were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilizing anti-Jewish sentiment is irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis, including Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch, and Julius Streicher, were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech. And rather than deterring them, the many court cases served as effective public relations machinery for the Nazis, affording them a level of attention that they never would have received in a climate of a free and open debate."
- oh_sigh 6y ago"stuff we don't like on the internet" is a very broad class of speech, far broader than the German law attempts to control. We would really need to see examples of what the hate speech actually is that caused these people to get raided. Was it that the earth is flat? Was it that they believe Angela Merkel is incompetent? Was it that they want all Syrians and Jews to be rounded up and murdered?