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This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. What this is all about is incremental con

This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. What this is all about is incremental conditioning towards normalizing censorship for "local law" violations … the same kinds of wanton "laws" conjured up by all the dictatorial regimes that all the western societies are quickly drifting towards. The German government has even tried attacking Gab, and regardless of what you may think of Gab, it is not a good thing if you do not want to find yourself one day having overslept living in a totalitarian regime. Just consider the implications of a foreign government taking action against a US website, wholly based in the USA, because it does not like things on the website that are no only legal in the USA, protected by the fundamental rights and laws of the land (Constitution), and are in line with all principles of human rights. It would be evil and unethical for the USA to, e.g., use the US government to attack a French website for disparaging things about the USA or even just negatively discussing actions and behaviors of Americans, just as much as it would be evil for anyone else to do that. We are entering a really dangerous situation where people are sleepwalking into supporting authoritarianisms, simply because they are conditioned to think they are part of the in-group. But that never lasts once the trap doors are slammed shut. You either support freedom, free speech, and human rights or you don't; there is no freedom and human rights light.

zaarn 5y ago
>This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. They are. The operators of the channel have an open arrest warrant for inciting hatred, denying the holocaust and death threats against public and private persons. > wholly based in the USA because it does not like things on the website that are no only legal in the USA, protected by the fundamental rights and laws of the land, and are in line with all principles of human rights. That changes when the "wholly USA" website is being used by German citizens, who are under jurisdiction. >It would be evil and unethical for the USA to, e.g., use the US government to attack a French website for disparaging things about the USA I's not about "disparaging things about the <country>", it's about running a website or service and not reacting to the fact that actual nazis are using the service. (You know with the eugenics and everything!) If you think stopping nazis is authoritarianism, then you'd be the same kind of person that lets authoritarianism bootstamp all over them in the name of freedom. (Paradox of Tolerance)
- mannerheim 5y ago
  > That changes when the "wholly USA" website is being used by German citizens, who are under jurisdiction. Then block the website in your country. If I have no physical, legal, or economic presence in your country, I shouldn't expect to have to follow your laws. Do I need to start enforcing Thai lèse majesté laws too, now?
  - irtigor 5y ago
    Liking it or not you do have legal or economic presence when you accept people in Germany to visit your site (e.g at first more than a few American websites simply blocked all EU traffic after GDPR was approved), and if you keep violating the local law after being requested to cooperate, they will fine, emit arrest requests and sure enough if deemed necessary also block your website temporarily/permanently, in other words they will do what they would do in any other case even if the full application of the law is less effective because you are not physically there (or have any interest to be) to personally see a big difference in your quality of life.
    - mannerheim 5y ago
      Then block the website. It's not my responsibility to bring my website into compliance with the laws of all 200 countries in the world and the laws of the jurisdictions within them. Because of VPNs, it's impossible to tell which users belong to which countries (and even without it, geo IP isn't that reliable). > e.g at first more than a few American websites simply blocked all EU traffic after GDPR was approved Those websites have parent companies who have an economic presence in the EU.
      - irtigor 5y ago
        Or they didn't have a parent company with even more economic presence than just them (serving American-centric news with ads), but they would like to have that path still easily open in the future, after all its a big market and... that's the point. Off course you can literally ignore all legal requests for compliance from all foregein countries until they do the worst that they can legally do to you which isn't much if you truly have no particularly strong personal or business related interest in them (lose users that you didn't care to have in the first place, cut a travel destination off your list because if you show up you can be held in prison for not paying a fine... Or whatever), but telegram is not you and apparently they care about being able to continue do business there (allowing people in Germany to use the chat app), so not complying is not a option.
hutzlibu 5y ago
"You either support freedom, free speech, and human rights or you don't; there is no freedom and human rights light. " You either are totalitarian in your ideology, or you have no ideology. Or something like this? I am very pro free speech, much more than the average. But even I think there are limitations. It is not all black and white. Example? "I think person X is doing not so smart things" "I think person X is an idiot" "I think person X is an idiot and needs to die" "I think person X is and idiot and we need to kill him" Where is the clear line from free speech to insult and then to inciting violence for example?
raxxorrax 5y ago
Don't underestimate the inflexibility of German society. It is very conservative while believing itself not to be. The laws against insults stem from a feudal honor system, it is not about dignity. Dignity != Honor. One is intrinsic, one is extrinsic. Of course there is a red line where an insult becomes defamation, but German law is quite old and laws are very slowly deprecated. There are still articles against blasphemy for example. Common law countries are the much more advanced societies in this regard. But even discussing this in Germany is next to impossible. I would not recommend to even think about compromising with any demands out of Germany on this topic. The privacy approach is better, but the condemnation of "hate speech" only helped dictators around the world.

zaarn 5y ago

>This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. They are. The operators of the channel have an open arrest warrant for inciting hatred, denying the holocaust and death threats against public and private persons. > wholly based in the USA because it does not like things on the website that are no only legal in the USA, protected by the fundamental rights and laws of the land, and are in line with all principles of human rights. That changes when the "wholly USA" website is being used by German citizens, who are under jurisdiction. >It would be evil and unethical for the USA to, e.g., use the US government to attack a French website for disparaging things about the USA I's not about "disparaging things about the <country>", it's about running a website or service and not reacting to the fact that actual nazis are using the service. (You know with the eugenics and everything!) If you think stopping nazis is authoritarianism, then you'd be the same kind of person that lets authoritarianism bootstamp all over them in the name of freedom. (Paradox of Tolerance)

mannerheim 5y ago
> That changes when the "wholly USA" website is being used by German citizens, who are under jurisdiction. Then block the website in your country. If I have no physical, legal, or economic presence in your country, I shouldn't expect to have to follow your laws. Do I need to start enforcing Thai lèse majesté laws too, now?
- irtigor 5y ago
  Liking it or not you do have legal or economic presence when you accept people in Germany to visit your site (e.g at first more than a few American websites simply blocked all EU traffic after GDPR was approved), and if you keep violating the local law after being requested to cooperate, they will fine, emit arrest requests and sure enough if deemed necessary also block your website temporarily/permanently, in other words they will do what they would do in any other case even if the full application of the law is less effective because you are not physically there (or have any interest to be) to personally see a big difference in your quality of life.
  - mannerheim 5y ago
    Then block the website. It's not my responsibility to bring my website into compliance with the laws of all 200 countries in the world and the laws of the jurisdictions within them. Because of VPNs, it's impossible to tell which users belong to which countries (and even without it, geo IP isn't that reliable). > e.g at first more than a few American websites simply blocked all EU traffic after GDPR was approved Those websites have parent companies who have an economic presence in the EU.
    - irtigor 5y ago
      Or they didn't have a parent company with even more economic presence than just them (serving American-centric news with ads), but they would like to have that path still easily open in the future, after all its a big market and... that's the point. Off course you can literally ignore all legal requests for compliance from all foregein countries until they do the worst that they can legally do to you which isn't much if you truly have no particularly strong personal or business related interest in them (lose users that you didn't care to have in the first place, cut a travel destination off your list because if you show up you can be held in prison for not paying a fine... Or whatever), but telegram is not you and apparently they care about being able to continue do business there (allowing people in Germany to use the chat app), so not complying is not a option.

hutzlibu 5y ago

"You either support freedom, free speech, and human rights or you don't; there is no freedom and human rights light. " You either are totalitarian in your ideology, or you have no ideology. Or something like this? I am very pro free speech, much more than the average. But even I think there are limitations. It is not all black and white. Example? "I think person X is doing not so smart things" "I think person X is an idiot" "I think person X is an idiot and needs to die" "I think person X is and idiot and we need to kill him" Where is the clear line from free speech to insult and then to inciting violence for example?

raxxorrax 5y ago

Don't underestimate the inflexibility of German society. It is very conservative while believing itself not to be. The laws against insults stem from a feudal honor system, it is not about dignity. Dignity != Honor. One is intrinsic, one is extrinsic. Of course there is a red line where an insult becomes defamation, but German law is quite old and laws are very slowly deprecated. There are still articles against blasphemy for example. Common law countries are the much more advanced societies in this regard. But even discussing this in Germany is next to impossible. I would not recommend to even think about compromising with any demands out of Germany on this topic. The privacy approach is better, but the condemnation of "hate speech" only helped dictators around the world.