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For anyone talking about the freedom of speech here, you should know that nazi symbols are also prohibited in Germany. So basically what's happening here, is ru

For anyone talking about the freedom of speech here, you should know that nazi symbols are also prohibited in Germany. So basically what's happening here, is russian invasion and it's symbols ("Z") are being equated to nazi. This might be difficult for Americans to understand, but the freedom of speech has certain lines that cannot be crossed in Europe, and it's mostly about clearly hateful symbols and/or words. You just can't put a swastika on your sleeve and expect no repercussions in Germany, like it or not.

jdrc 5y ago
> that cannot be crossed in Europe in Germany
- 323 5y ago
  In most of Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols
  - jdrc 5y ago
    Not most - a lot of european countries are missing from that list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Legislation_in_other_European_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Legislation_in_other_...
  - weberer 5y ago
    13 countries is not "most of Europe". There are way more countries where it is legal.
    - timeon 5y ago
      That list is not complete. As example it is illegal in Slovakia while not in that list.
- rerx 5y ago
  Public display of Nazi flags is illegal in many European countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
  Germany and most of Central Europe are quite culturally conservative. They spend a lot of effort ensuring a stable and orderly society, up to and including prosecuting inflammatory speech and support for causes against the national/public interest. Many Americans would see this as socialism, but the motivation is not equality, its stability and continuity of the status quo: ergo conservatism. It’s not a system I could live under because I’m not super good at fitting in with people, but I see it’s merits.
  - jdrc 5y ago
    I would say it has more to do with their history. It's kind of a special part of their history and it doesnt mean the rest of europe should adopt the same attitude
orra 5y ago
Interestingly, Wolfenstein was censored for decades in Germany, until suddenly it wasn't. Turns out it was legal all along to put Nazi symbols in video games... on the baddies that you're killing. I mean, fair enough.
- wongarsu 5y ago
  As always the actual law is more nuanced than what fits in a tweet. Showing Nazi symbols in support of Nazis is forbidden in Germany, showing the exact same symbols in an educational context or in art, science, news or as a measure against nazis is perfectly fine. You're allowed to show people what a swastika looks like, and you are allowed to burn swastikas, but put it on your armband and you are in trouble. For video games it's of course even more complicated, they have an age rating given out by an industry board (just like movies in the US) and their views on what's acceptable shift drastically over time.
  - bitwize 5y ago
    For a long time, video games were considered, under German law, to have insufficient artistic or scholastic merit to permit Nazi symbols on the basis of context. So no consideration was given to context for Wolfenstein, it was just "swastikas in a video game = bad". Only recently did that law change.
    - detaro 5y ago
      Not a law change, no, "merely" a change in interpretation by the relevant agencies which got convinced that the old court decision they based their rules on wasn't all that good and not giving enough weight to the merit argument that has been in the law the entire time. (i.e. it's quite likely someone could have successfully sued against the rules before, but understandably that's not something the industry had much appetite for)
  - glogla 5y ago
    > For video games it's of course even more complicated, they have an age rating given out by an industry board (just like movies in the US) and their views on what's acceptable shift drastically over time. They also did a lot of weird stuff like replace red blood in games with green blood making the enemies "zombies" and thus making the game less violent somehow. I would recommend against drawing any conclusion of reason from the decisions of this particular board.
KIFulgore 5y ago
France has similar restrictions. French courts tried to restrict eBay from selling Nazi memorabilia to French citizens. I don't like it. Which is why I choose to continue living in the US. It's not perfect by any stretch but people have different priorities. Freedom of speech is of the highest priority for me. It should be noted, even the US has lines that can't legally be crossed. Slander, libel, panic-inducing expressions (yelling "fire" in a crowded theater) are examples.
- dessant 5y ago
  > Freedom of speech is of the highest priority for me. When you will be the one that is being targeted by those symbols, and by the people who adore them, you may develop a more nuanced set of priorities.
  - jdrc 5y ago
    France has been targeted a lot for the opposite, allowing too much free speech against religions
- brummm 5y ago
  Coming from Europe, this obsession with "free speech" that Americans have is kind of weird to me. How is that more important to you than affordable education and healthcare and reasonable gun policies where every crazy person cannot have 10 guns at home? And I am not trying to be insulting here, I just really cannot understand this. In Germany, human dignity is the highest good and free speech ends where it would impede human dignity. Hence, there is good reason to ban Nazi salutes and symbols.
  - glogla 5y ago
    Yeah, it is curious that when self-recognized free speech advocates talk, they are not focusing on their right to run your own newspaper or criticize your own government but on the "right" to hurt someone with words and symbols.
  - jdrc 5y ago
BitwiseFool 5y ago
I think a lot of people, myself included, think that Germany often goes overboard when it comes to censoring things. While I totally understand why they do this, I sense they have an incredibly high false-positive rate and people rightfully fear that the system can be abused. Edit: This is in response to this quote "For anyone talking about the freedom of speech here..." and not a commentary about this specific instance.
- donohoe 5y ago
  I think a lot of people, myself included, do not think that Germany often goes overboard when it comes to censoring things. From my limited time in Germany, and from my few German friends, I do not believe there is a "high false-positive rate" and they do not "rightfully fear that the system can be abused". Any system can be abused, but they are not in "fear" of that. They generally support the idea that Nazi ideals need to be curtailed given the atrocities committed to millions of people. Obviously, and as indicated, this is my very small circle of acquaintances. Hardly a national poll.
  - disgu 5y ago
    They've literally raided someone's home because he called a politician a dick. Raided his home, took all his devices and whatnot. It's completely out of control. Once you create a list of things that can and cannot be said you have that list on hand. You might have the best intentions about what's on that list but it's better to not have that list at all because it's completely subjective what should and should not be on that list.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      "They". Again, governments are not monolithic entities! It was a local politician abusing his power who is being investigated for that power. It has nothing to do with banning hateful imagery.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    As a point of order, I may be lumping all German national censorship into the same bucket. When I perceive that Germany goes overboard with censorship, I mean things like banning Command and Conquer because it 'glorifies war' and then allowing it to be sold once the publisher changed some file assets so the fictional characters were cyborgs instead of people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Generals#Ban_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Generals#... While this isn't a specific case of censoring something glorifying or endorsing Nazism directly, they think that their own citizens cannot see such material out of fear that it will inspire people to become militaristic. While the goal of being anti-war and anti-nazi is noble and worthwhile, a lot of things get swept up in the effort to curtail as much of it as possible.
Smithalicious 5y ago
Please do not say "in Europe" to mean "in Germany". Your draconian laws hold no sway over me or most Europeans.
moistly 5y ago
Most everyone talking here is doing so from a place of near-complete ignorance. There is literally sweet F.A. taught in grade-school history/social studies: the programs are myopic and narcissistic. Exceedingly few of us have lived outside our birthplace bubble long enough to understand the history and social climate of a foreign nation. Heck, less than half of Americans have a passport at all, and only a fraction of those who do, go further afield than Canada or Mexico. There is virtually nothing useful that Americans—North Americans—can contribute to a discussion of European policy.
- Fatnino 5y ago
  Tell us how you really feel
  - moistly 5y ago
    I feel this thread is chock-full of ahistorical ignorance and fatuous libertarianism that shouldn’t have a place here, not because it is unworthy of discussion but because the participants lack the required education and life experience to do it justice. HN is great for technology insight and complete shite for socio-political discussion.
    - mardifoufs 5y ago
      Libertarianism is when you don't want people to get arrested for drawing a sign that is literally not nazi.... while being charged of drawing a nazi sign? Wow, maybe you should reconsider how crazy that is. Germany has a bad history with the swastika, sure, but the Z is not the swastika. Calling everyone who disagrees with you a libertarian is what's ignorant, and not resisting to authoritarian urges is the unhistorical stance to take here. You are not at war with Russia (thankfully!). And having a weird siege mentality when your country is not at war is borderline deranged. No, there's no "we are at war in all but name" because if Germany was at war with Russia, Z symbols would be the least of your worries. Going after symbols when Europe is still literally financing Russia's invasion as we speak is just... mind boggling. At least the so called "libertarians" are not paying blood money to Russia.
ls15 5y ago
> This might be difficult for Americans to understand, but the freedom of speech has certain lines that cannot be crossed in Europe, and it's mostly about clearly hateful symbols and/or words. You just can't put a swastika on your sleeve and expect no repercussions in Germany, like it or not. As a German: It is worth noting, that the swastika is not only a nazi symbol (Hakenkreuz), but an ancient religious icon in Indic religions and it is commonly used across Asia to this day without symbolizing nazism. The "Z" symbol is coincidentally also a letter and a symbol that I played with as a kid when I was a Zorro fan. No Kremlin-Connection or Soviet-Ideology, I swear! I think that banning such symbols while ignoring the context is ignorant and pointless, because A) it criminalizes non-nazi use and B) it is easily evaded by using drop-in replacements that everyone in the nazi scene knows, but that aren't banned, such as "88". https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsextreme_Symbole_und_Zeichen#Abk%C3%BCrzungen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsextreme_Symbole_und_Zeic...

jdrc 5y ago

> that cannot be crossed in Europe in Germany

323 5y ago
In most of Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols
- jdrc 5y ago
  Not most - a lot of european countries are missing from that list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Legislation_in_other_European_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Legislation_in_other_...
- weberer 5y ago
  13 countries is not "most of Europe". There are way more countries where it is legal.
  - timeon 5y ago
    That list is not complete. As example it is illegal in Slovakia while not in that list.
rerx 5y ago
Public display of Nazi flags is illegal in many European countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
Germany and most of Central Europe are quite culturally conservative. They spend a lot of effort ensuring a stable and orderly society, up to and including prosecuting inflammatory speech and support for causes against the national/public interest. Many Americans would see this as socialism, but the motivation is not equality, its stability and continuity of the status quo: ergo conservatism. It’s not a system I could live under because I’m not super good at fitting in with people, but I see it’s merits.
- jdrc 5y ago
  I would say it has more to do with their history. It's kind of a special part of their history and it doesnt mean the rest of europe should adopt the same attitude

orra 5y ago

Interestingly, Wolfenstein was censored for decades in Germany, until suddenly it wasn't. Turns out it was legal all along to put Nazi symbols in video games... on the baddies that you're killing. I mean, fair enough.

wongarsu 5y ago
As always the actual law is more nuanced than what fits in a tweet. Showing Nazi symbols in support of Nazis is forbidden in Germany, showing the exact same symbols in an educational context or in art, science, news or as a measure against nazis is perfectly fine. You're allowed to show people what a swastika looks like, and you are allowed to burn swastikas, but put it on your armband and you are in trouble. For video games it's of course even more complicated, they have an age rating given out by an industry board (just like movies in the US) and their views on what's acceptable shift drastically over time.
- bitwize 5y ago
  For a long time, video games were considered, under German law, to have insufficient artistic or scholastic merit to permit Nazi symbols on the basis of context. So no consideration was given to context for Wolfenstein, it was just "swastikas in a video game = bad". Only recently did that law change.
  - detaro 5y ago
    Not a law change, no, "merely" a change in interpretation by the relevant agencies which got convinced that the old court decision they based their rules on wasn't all that good and not giving enough weight to the merit argument that has been in the law the entire time. (i.e. it's quite likely someone could have successfully sued against the rules before, but understandably that's not something the industry had much appetite for)
- glogla 5y ago
  > For video games it's of course even more complicated, they have an age rating given out by an industry board (just like movies in the US) and their views on what's acceptable shift drastically over time. They also did a lot of weird stuff like replace red blood in games with green blood making the enemies "zombies" and thus making the game less violent somehow. I would recommend against drawing any conclusion of reason from the decisions of this particular board.

KIFulgore 5y ago

France has similar restrictions. French courts tried to restrict eBay from selling Nazi memorabilia to French citizens. I don't like it. Which is why I choose to continue living in the US. It's not perfect by any stretch but people have different priorities. Freedom of speech is of the highest priority for me. It should be noted, even the US has lines that can't legally be crossed. Slander, libel, panic-inducing expressions (yelling "fire" in a crowded theater) are examples.

dessant 5y ago
> Freedom of speech is of the highest priority for me. When you will be the one that is being targeted by those symbols, and by the people who adore them, you may develop a more nuanced set of priorities.
- jdrc 5y ago
  France has been targeted a lot for the opposite, allowing too much free speech against religions
brummm 5y ago
Coming from Europe, this obsession with "free speech" that Americans have is kind of weird to me. How is that more important to you than affordable education and healthcare and reasonable gun policies where every crazy person cannot have 10 guns at home? And I am not trying to be insulting here, I just really cannot understand this. In Germany, human dignity is the highest good and free speech ends where it would impede human dignity. Hence, there is good reason to ban Nazi salutes and symbols.
- glogla 5y ago
  Yeah, it is curious that when self-recognized free speech advocates talk, they are not focusing on their right to run your own newspaper or criticize your own government but on the "right" to hurt someone with words and symbols.
- jdrc 5y ago

BitwiseFool 5y ago

I think a lot of people, myself included, think that Germany often goes overboard when it comes to censoring things. While I totally understand why they do this, I sense they have an incredibly high false-positive rate and people rightfully fear that the system can be abused. Edit: This is in response to this quote "For anyone talking about the freedom of speech here..." and not a commentary about this specific instance.

donohoe 5y ago
I think a lot of people, myself included, do not think that Germany often goes overboard when it comes to censoring things. From my limited time in Germany, and from my few German friends, I do not believe there is a "high false-positive rate" and they do not "rightfully fear that the system can be abused". Any system can be abused, but they are not in "fear" of that. They generally support the idea that Nazi ideals need to be curtailed given the atrocities committed to millions of people. Obviously, and as indicated, this is my very small circle of acquaintances. Hardly a national poll.
- disgu 5y ago
  They've literally raided someone's home because he called a politician a dick. Raided his home, took all his devices and whatnot. It's completely out of control. Once you create a list of things that can and cannot be said you have that list on hand. You might have the best intentions about what's on that list but it's better to not have that list at all because it's completely subjective what should and should not be on that list.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    "They". Again, governments are not monolithic entities! It was a local politician abusing his power who is being investigated for that power. It has nothing to do with banning hateful imagery.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  As a point of order, I may be lumping all German national censorship into the same bucket. When I perceive that Germany goes overboard with censorship, I mean things like banning Command and Conquer because it 'glorifies war' and then allowing it to be sold once the publisher changed some file assets so the fictional characters were cyborgs instead of people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Generals#Ban_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Generals#... While this isn't a specific case of censoring something glorifying or endorsing Nazism directly, they think that their own citizens cannot see such material out of fear that it will inspire people to become militaristic. While the goal of being anti-war and anti-nazi is noble and worthwhile, a lot of things get swept up in the effort to curtail as much of it as possible.

Smithalicious 5y ago

Please do not say "in Europe" to mean "in Germany". Your draconian laws hold no sway over me or most Europeans.

moistly 5y ago

Most everyone talking here is doing so from a place of near-complete ignorance. There is literally sweet F.A. taught in grade-school history/social studies: the programs are myopic and narcissistic. Exceedingly few of us have lived outside our birthplace bubble long enough to understand the history and social climate of a foreign nation. Heck, less than half of Americans have a passport at all, and only a fraction of those who do, go further afield than Canada or Mexico. There is virtually nothing useful that Americans—North Americans—can contribute to a discussion of European policy.

Fatnino 5y ago
Tell us how you really feel
- moistly 5y ago
  I feel this thread is chock-full of ahistorical ignorance and fatuous libertarianism that shouldn’t have a place here, not because it is unworthy of discussion but because the participants lack the required education and life experience to do it justice. HN is great for technology insight and complete shite for socio-political discussion.
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    Libertarianism is when you don't want people to get arrested for drawing a sign that is literally not nazi.... while being charged of drawing a nazi sign? Wow, maybe you should reconsider how crazy that is. Germany has a bad history with the swastika, sure, but the Z is not the swastika. Calling everyone who disagrees with you a libertarian is what's ignorant, and not resisting to authoritarian urges is the unhistorical stance to take here. You are not at war with Russia (thankfully!). And having a weird siege mentality when your country is not at war is borderline deranged. No, there's no "we are at war in all but name" because if Germany was at war with Russia, Z symbols would be the least of your worries. Going after symbols when Europe is still literally financing Russia's invasion as we speak is just... mind boggling. At least the so called "libertarians" are not paying blood money to Russia.

ls15 5y ago

> This might be difficult for Americans to understand, but the freedom of speech has certain lines that cannot be crossed in Europe, and it's mostly about clearly hateful symbols and/or words. You just can't put a swastika on your sleeve and expect no repercussions in Germany, like it or not. As a German: It is worth noting, that the swastika is not only a nazi symbol (Hakenkreuz), but an ancient religious icon in Indic religions and it is commonly used across Asia to this day without symbolizing nazism. The "Z" symbol is coincidentally also a letter and a symbol that I played with as a kid when I was a Zorro fan. No Kremlin-Connection or Soviet-Ideology, I swear! I think that banning such symbols while ignoring the context is ignorant and pointless, because A) it criminalizes non-nazi use and B) it is easily evaded by using drop-in replacements that everyone in the nazi scene knows, but that aren't banned, such as "88". https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsextreme_Symbole_und_Zeichen#Abk%C3%BCrzungen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsextreme_Symbole_und_Zeic...