5 ms·

There is a lot of censorship in Germany. People do not care. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Ge

• fooqux 1y ago
  Censorship != forced breaking of E2EE. People can care differently about different things.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• uniqueuid 1y ago
  Nitpick: 1. Censorship in German constitutional law is only defined as the state pre-screening before publication. That's a very narrow area and rarely applies. Most people from an US legal tradition will consider censorship to include other things such as mandating removal of certain content after the fact, but that's different legal branches with different mechanisms (i.e. libel). 2. What Schulz is talking about in the second link definitely is state censorship (blocking a TV station), but it's not implemented by Germany but on the EU level. (Germany is still involved - complicated matter). Finally we should appreciate that the US government's opinion on censorship seems to have pivoted quite a lot, so I would expect free speech maximalism to not remain a very popular position on the government level (even though many people may still support it, either naïvely or with robust arguments).
  • aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    > Most people from an US legal tradition will consider censorship to include other things such as mandating removal of certain content after the fact Such as removals because of copyright claims?
    • LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
      That's just Depublikation.
• constantcrying 1y ago
  This might sound insane to every American, but German law especially protects politicians from insults, slander and libel. (See https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__188.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__188.html for the actual law) Yes, you read that right. German law is especially protective of politicians, which is why politicians are very active suing random supporters of their opponents, because that is an effective way to police speech, open specifically to politicians. I do think a lot of people care, but censorship in Germany does a lot to protect the people who could change the law. That law obviously needs to be abolished, politicians are uniquely unworthy of protection when it comes to speech.
  • uniqueuid 1y ago
    If you look at the concrete laws, they are less spectacular. For example, the concept of privacy protecting against media coverage is actually weaker for politicians (when in official duty) than for ordinary citizens (Allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht). And libel only applies to statements of facts. I.e. you can't (easily) be prosecuted for opinions, just for making harmful false claims.
    • dgfitz 1y ago
      “This person is corrupt!” Is that an opinion or a harmful false claim?
      • IlikeKitties 1y ago
        Depends, when talking about Jens Spahn it's a Statement of fact.
      • IngoBlechschmid 1y ago
        A good friend of mine was recently sentenced to prison for publicly using this kind of phrase during a protest for climate justice. When Germany's equivalent of the Supreme Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, learned of this case, the court immediately ordered their release and declared the original verdict void: According to the Bundesverfassungsgericht, (in the specific situation at hand) this phrase is more a value judgment and less a factual claim. Together with a fellow activist, who also served as informal legal counsel, they gave a talk on this case at the 38th Chaos Communication Congress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5RmTOGucZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5RmTOGucZo