7 ms·

What content bans does Europe have? /Confused European

by amarant 8mo ago

seattle_spring 8mo ago
There's a hate speech / violence law in the UK that is getting some people arrested for saying things like "round up all people of race X, put them into a hotel, and burn the hotel down." People like Joe Rogan and his ilk are re-packaging those examples as "people being arrested for just sharing their opinion."
- amarant 8mo ago
  Oh, is that what y'all are on about? I'm not too worried then. About Europe.
- stinkbeetle 8mo ago
  I don't know what Joe Rogan says or who his ilk are, but this is a pretty extreme characterization of the situation that I don't think is accurate. For example, UK police track what they consider to be undesirable "non-crime" speech, build databases of people, and intimidate them for these non crimes (knock on their doors, invite them to come to police station, advise them not to say such things, etc). This is quite a new thing, within the past ~10 years. There have also been other high profile cases of people being arrested for posting things that were not like that burn the hotel down case. They arrested 12,000 people in 2023 and convicted 1,100 of those. For cases where the evidence is as cut and dried as posts made online, they could only secure convictions in 8% of cases, which seems staggering to me when UK's conviction rate generally is like 80%. Even the conviction rate, even if you say yes there are laws to prohibit certain speech, how far is too far? Are these kinds of laws and convictions needed? Why don't all other countries need them? Why didn't UK need them 20 years ago when there was still internet and social media? Is it not concerning to you that we're told this kind of action is required to hold society together? I'm not saying that calls to violence don't happen or should be tolerated, but if it is not a lie that arresting thousands of people for twitter posts and things is necessary to keep society from breaking down then it seems like putting a bandaid on top of a volcano. It's certainly not developing a resilient, anti-fragile society, quite the opposite IMO. Is nobody allowed to be concerned about any of this without being some horrible underground extremist, in your opinion?
  - amarant 8mo ago
    Damn I keep forgetting the UK is still located in Europe. Ever since they left the union they feel like their own continent. Actually they feel like they might secretly be the fifty first state!
  - seattle_spring 8mo ago
    > There have also been other high profile cases of people being arrested for posting things that were not like that burn the hotel down case Such as? > Is nobody allowed to be concerned about any of this without being some horrible underground extremist, in your opinion? Horrible underground extremist? Not so much. More likely just someone who consumes a very particular slice of media that puts a dishonest (at best) spin on situations like this.
    - stinkbeetle 8mo ago
      > > There have also been other high profile cases of people being arrested for posting things that were not like that burn the hotel down case > Such as? That was the only thing in my comment you took issue with? Great, that's easy to clear up because there's a few around. Here's one https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/yorkshire-man-arrested-home-middle-32559854 https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/yorkshire-man-a... Arrested for saying "F--- Palestine. F--- Hamas. F--- Islam. Want to protest? F--- off to Muslim country and protest." > Horrible underground extremist? Not so much. More likely just someone who consumes a very particular slice of media that puts a dishonest (at best) spin on situations like this. Hmm. Was your previous post a dishonest (at best) spin on it too? That would be consistent with your claim if you are a consumer of a very particular slice of media and did not know you can find articles from a whole range of publications about this stuff easily on the internet. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/19/arresting-palestine-action-supporters-censor-free-speech-white-house-official https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/19/arresting-pa... https://www.forbes.com.au/news/world-news/people-are-being-thrown-in-u-k-prisons-over-what-theyve-said-online-can-free-speech-be-saved/ https://www.forbes.com.au/news/world-news/people-are-being-t... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2922w73e1o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2922w73e1o (Online speech laws need to be reviewed after Linehan arrest, says Streeting) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/13/uk-decision-to-ban-palestine-action-as-terror-group-unlawful-court-says https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/13/uk-decision-to-ban-... https://www.politico.eu/article/freedom-speech-suspicion-britains-expression-crisis-uk-police-palestine-democracy/ https://www.politico.eu/article/freedom-speech-suspicion-bri... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/world/europe/graham-linehan-free-speech-uk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/world/europe/graham-lineh... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/palestine-action-ruling-9.7089382 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/palestine-action-ruling... https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/03/uk/uk-farage-free-speech-linehan-latam-intl https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/03/uk/uk-farage-free-speech-... https://www.fire.org/news/uk-government-issues-warning-think-you-post https://www.fire.org/news/uk-government-issues-warning-think... https://www.foxnews.com/world/shocking-cases-reveal-britains-orwellian-free-speech-crackdown https://www.foxnews.com/world/shocking-cases-reveal-britains... You really don't need to be some obscure basement dweller to have any kind of vague inkling that something might be a little on the nose in the proverbial state of Denmark.
- dirasieb 8mo ago
  lol ok https://archive.ph/bdEqK https://archive.ph/bdEqK
cal_dent 8mo ago
its wild to me how so much of online america has been radicalized into becoming nothing more that digital curtain twitchers
pembrook 8mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Censorship_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Censorship_in_Europe
- amarant 8mo ago
  Can we filter for current censorship? Hate to brake it to you but the top category in that page, "censorship in the soviet union" does not apply anymore.....
  - pembrook 8mo ago
    Spain 1) Catalan Referendum Website Seizures (2017) Spanish courts ordered ISPs to block dozens of pro-independence domains and mirror sites during the referendum. Civil Guard units physically entered data centers to seize servers tied to the Catalan government’s digital voting infrastructure. 2) GitHub Repository Takedown (2017) Spain obtained a court order forcing GitHub to remove a repository that mirrored referendum voting code and site information, extending censorship beyond Spanish-hosted domains. 3) Rapper Convictions for Online Lyrics Spanish rapper Valtònyc was convicted for tweets and lyrics deemed to glorify terrorism and insult the monarchy; he fled the country and fought extradition in Belgium for years. ⸻ France 4) Blocking of Protest Pages During Yellow Vests (2018–2019) Authorities requested removals of Facebook pages and livestreams tied to the Yellow Vest protests, citing incitement and public order concerns. 5) Court-Ordered Removal of Election Content (2019 EU Elections) French judges used expedited procedures under election-period misinformation law to order removal of allegedly false political claims within 48 hours. 6) Prosecution of Political Satire as Hate Speech Several activists were fined or prosecuted for online posts targeting religious or ethnic groups in explicitly political contexts, even where framed as satire. ⸻ Germany 7) Mass Police Raids Over Social Media Posts German police have conducted coordinated nationwide dawn raids targeting individuals accused of posting illegal political speech under hate-speech laws. 8) Removal of Opposition Content Under NetzDG Platforms removed thousands of posts from nationalist or anti-immigration political actors within 24 hours to avoid heavy fines under NetzDG enforcement pressure. 9) Criminal Convictions for Holocaust Commentary Online Individuals have received criminal penalties for online statements denying or relativizing Nazi crimes, even when framed in broader political debate contexts. ⸻ United Kingdom 10) Police Visits Over Controversial Tweets British police have conducted “non-crime hate incident” visits to individuals’ homes over political tweets, creating official records despite no prosecution. 11) Arrests for Offensive Political Posts Individuals have been arrested under public communications laws for posts criticizing immigration or religion in strongly worded terms. 12) Removal of Campaign Content Under Electoral Rules Election regulators required digital platforms to remove or restrict political ads that failed to meet transparency requirements during active campaigns. ⸻ Italy 13) Enforcement of “Par Condicio” Silence Online During mandated pre-election silence periods, online political content—including posts by candidates—has been ordered removed or fined. 14) Criminal Defamation Charges Against Bloggers Italian bloggers critical of politicians have faced criminal defamation prosecutions for investigative posts during election cycles. ⸻ Finland 15) Conviction of Sitting MP for Facebook Posts Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen was prosecuted for Bible-based comments posted online regarding sexuality and religion; although ultimately acquitted, the criminal process itself was lengthy and high-profile. ⸻ Sweden 16) Convictions for Anti-Immigration Facebook Posts Swedish courts have convicted individuals for Facebook comments criticizing immigration policy when deemed “agitation against a population group.” ⸻ Netherlands 17) Criminal Case Against Opposition Politician Dutch politician Geert Wilders was convicted (without penalty) for campaign-rally remarks later amplified online, deemed discriminatory. ⸻ Austria 18) Rapid Court Orders Against Political Posts Austria’s updated online hate-speech regime enabled expedited court orders compelling removal of allegedly unlawful political speech within days. ⸻ Belgium 19) Prosecution of Political Party Messaging Members of the Vlaams Belang party have faced legal sanctions for campaign messaging shared online deemed racist or discriminatory. ⸻ Switzerland 20) Criminal Fines for Referendum Campaign Speech Swiss activists have faced criminal fines for online referendum messaging judged to violate anti-discrimination law during highly contentious votes.
ljlolel 8mo ago
Russia Today is banned, for one
- amarant 8mo ago
  True! Though I can't really say I mourn the loss, it is a Russian propaganda outlet dedicated to helping their expansion war. Is this the speech the USA is going to protect? It's still weird to me that the gringoes are helping the commies now, I guess I'm stuck in the old world order!
  - ljlolel 8mo ago
    I see your perspective. Can you see the risks?
- Gustomaximus 8mo ago
  That seems crazy to me I read news there occasionally as I like to view opposite sides. Go to BBC, RT, France24 ,Al-Jazeera type sites and see what each has as their focus stories. You're aware news sites are used to push agenda, some more than others, but that's half the interest of seeing what they push. And sometimes the more fringe have stories on what should be news but don't make it to mainstream media channels. ...anyway I'm more a believer in assuming people have a brain and can figure stuff out vs banning sites, both have danger to them but censorship seems the bigger danger to me.
  - ljlolel 8mo ago
    I’m in fulll agreement with you
- Epa095 8mo ago
  You mean the TV station lost broadcasting-rights, or you mean the website it actually banned? Cause the website is certainly accessible for me from my European country, although that does not rule out that it is banned in some European countries.
  - 8mo ago
carlosjobim 8mo ago
One is Russian media, just as Russia bans European media. Also the world's largest library is banned in Germany.
- amarant 8mo ago
  The first one I'm ok with, the second one I'm not sure what you're saying? Google suggests the largest library in the world is the US Congress library, but I couldn't find any sources saying it's banned in Germany? (Also, it's a physical place in the US... What?) Closest thing I could find to library banned in Germany was a collection of pirated material, which was blocked at a DNS level, meaning many users bypass the ban accidentally, and anyone who wants to can trivially use a different DNS. I mean I'm probably more in favour of digital piracy than the next guy, but I had completely missed that were calling copyright protection censorship now?
  - Epa095 8mo ago
    He probably means a famous pirating site, called library dot something.
  - carlosjobim 8mo ago
    Yes, I'm referring to the pirate site, which is the largest collection of books in the history of mankind. Of course it is a bit fringe to talk about censorship when it comes to piracy, but I would say that it is. While noting that the US also censors pirate websites.
- jeroenhd 8mo ago
  Piracy is illegal in most countries. Unless you mean the American Library of Congress, but that's an American decision, not a European one.
drnick1 8mo ago
Porn (now requires age verification), online libraries, movies, some news websites, sports (because of obscure copyright laws) and countless other things.
- josefrichter 8mo ago
  I’m in the EU and haven’t encountered any of these, except the copyright restrictions - which is really a different matter.
  - ivan_gammel 8mo ago
    if you are in Germany, try opening ria.ru. It’s not like we are deprived of something worthy - it is Russian propaganda after all, but it tells enough about freedom of speech.
    - micw 8mo ago
      I am. It just opens. But I can't read russian ^^
      - ivan_gammel 8mo ago
        Looks like German firewall has more holes than Russian or Chinese one. Are you using VPN? It’s still blocked for me.
        throwaway140126 8mo ago
        Germany uses DNS blocks.. So you can circumvent the censorship by using a DNS provider different than the DNS provider of your ISP.
        micw 8mo ago
        There is no such thing like a German firewall.
    - josefrichter 8mo ago
kettlecorn 8mo ago
I think part of this is preempting concerns that the EU could ban or limit X / Twitter. They've already fined X heavily for lacking transparency, like not providing a database of advertisers or allowing researchers to access internal data to evaluate misinformation concerns. The EU has threatened that if they need to they may ban or limit X. Musk and conservatives view X as a critical tool to spread their preferred ideology, and Musk has shown he's not beyond algorithmic and UX manipulation to achieve desired outcomes.
throwaway140126 8mo ago
In Germany there are some examples for the suppression of speech. For example popular examples are: (1) getting your house raided for calling a politician a dick (2) getting your house raided for calling a politician stupid (3) most recent, just in this week, a retiree gets into trouble with the police for asking worried questions about migration (1) https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/hamburg-wohnungsdurchsuchung-wegen-pimmelgate-war-unrechtmaessig-a-de489269-6589-453f-896f-56e728128cea https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/hamburg-wohnungsdurch... (2) https://www.justiz.bayern.de/media/images/behoerden-und-gerichte/staatsanwaltschaften/bamberg/pm_45-2024-_sta_bamberg_-_wohnungsdurchsuchung_wg_beleidigung_zu_lasten_dr_habeck.pdf https://www.justiz.bayern.de/media/images/behoerden-und-geri... (3) https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article6996cb47fc148b255d14fa1a/saarland-kalifat-scharia-burka-zwangsehe-staatsschutz-ermittelt-wegen-karnevalswagen.html https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article6996cb47fc148... These are examples that spontaneously come to my mind. So I can not talk for whatever country you live in but Germany has a problem about being able to express opinions.
- hananova 8mo ago
  (1) Is also because it's literally vandalism. (2) Also points out that there were posts of holocaust denial, which has been illegal in most of europe for literal decades. (3) Is an article about an investigation into whether or not the cart was protected by freedom of expression or whether there would be grounds for further trial. Nobody is in trouble yet. Isn't it convenient how all posts that say something that rhymes with "You can get in trouble in EU country X for just doing Y." The "just" is doing a lot of concealed lifting? None of your three links actually support your assertion.
  - throwaway140126 8mo ago
    (1) Calling a politician a dick is vandalism? That's nonsense. (2) The corresponding prosecutor made clear that his house was raided for calling the politician stupid and NOT for anything else. You would have known that if you would have read the document I linked to. To quote it: Wegen des Tatverdachts einer gegen Personen des politischen Lebens gerichteten Beleidigung gem. §§ 185, 188, 194 StGB erfolgte am vergangenen Dienstag, 12.11.2024, eine richterlich angeordnete Durchsuchung der Wohnung des Beschuldigten durch Polizeibeamte der Kriminalpolizei Schweinfurt Translated to english: Due to suspicion of an offence of insulting persons in political life pursuant to Sections 185, 188, 194 of the German Criminal Code (StGB), a judicially ordered search of the accused's apartment was carried out last Tuesday, November 12, 2024, by police officers from the Schweinfurt Criminal Investigation Department. (3) He is in trouble in terms that there is an police investigation against him and no it is not okay to have police investigations just because a person expressed his worries about migration. So, yes my links support my assertion.
NotPractical 8mo ago
This site claims to list them out: https://eylenburg.github.io/countries.htm https://eylenburg.github.io/countries.htm I cannot vouch for its accuracy but I thought it was interesting.

What content bans does Europe have? /Confused European

by amarant 8mo ago

What content bans does Europe have? /Confused European

There's a hate speech / violence law in the UK that is getting some people arrested for saying things like "round up all people of race X, put them into a hotel, and burn the hotel down." People like Joe Rogan and his ilk are re-packaging those examples as "people being arrested for just sharing their opinion."

amarant 8mo ago
Oh, is that what y'all are on about? I'm not too worried then. About Europe.
stinkbeetle 8mo ago
I don't know what Joe Rogan says or who his ilk are, but this is a pretty extreme characterization of the situation that I don't think is accurate. For example, UK police track what they consider to be undesirable "non-crime" speech, build databases of people, and intimidate them for these non crimes (knock on their doors, invite them to come to police station, advise them not to say such things, etc). This is quite a new thing, within the past ~10 years. There have also been other high profile cases of people being arrested for posting things that were not like that burn the hotel down case. They arrested 12,000 people in 2023 and convicted 1,100 of those. For cases where the evidence is as cut and dried as posts made online, they could only secure convictions in 8% of cases, which seems staggering to me when UK's conviction rate generally is like 80%. Even the conviction rate, even if you say yes there are laws to prohibit certain speech, how far is too far? Are these kinds of laws and convictions needed? Why don't all other countries need them? Why didn't UK need them 20 years ago when there was still internet and social media? Is it not concerning to you that we're told this kind of action is required to hold society together? I'm not saying that calls to violence don't happen or should be tolerated, but if it is not a lie that arresting thousands of people for twitter posts and things is necessary to keep society from breaking down then it seems like putting a bandaid on top of a volcano. It's certainly not developing a resilient, anti-fragile society, quite the opposite IMO. Is nobody allowed to be concerned about any of this without being some horrible underground extremist, in your opinion?
- amarant 8mo ago
  Damn I keep forgetting the UK is still located in Europe. Ever since they left the union they feel like their own continent. Actually they feel like they might secretly be the fifty first state!
- seattle_spring 8mo ago
  > There have also been other high profile cases of people being arrested for posting things that were not like that burn the hotel down case Such as? > Is nobody allowed to be concerned about any of this without being some horrible underground extremist, in your opinion? Horrible underground extremist? Not so much. More likely just someone who consumes a very particular slice of media that puts a dishonest (at best) spin on situations like this.
  - stinkbeetle 8mo ago
    > > There have also been other high profile cases of people being arrested for posting things that were not like that burn the hotel down case > Such as? That was the only thing in my comment you took issue with? Great, that's easy to clear up because there's a few around. Here's one https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/yorkshire-man-arrested-home-middle-32559854 https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/yorkshire-man-a... Arrested for saying "F--- Palestine. F--- Hamas. F--- Islam. Want to protest? F--- off to Muslim country and protest." > Horrible underground extremist? Not so much. More likely just someone who consumes a very particular slice of media that puts a dishonest (at best) spin on situations like this. Hmm. Was your previous post a dishonest (at best) spin on it too? That would be consistent with your claim if you are a consumer of a very particular slice of media and did not know you can find articles from a whole range of publications about this stuff easily on the internet. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/19/arresting-palestine-action-supporters-censor-free-speech-white-house-official https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/19/arresting-pa... https://www.forbes.com.au/news/world-news/people-are-being-thrown-in-u-k-prisons-over-what-theyve-said-online-can-free-speech-be-saved/ https://www.forbes.com.au/news/world-news/people-are-being-t... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2922w73e1o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2922w73e1o (Online speech laws need to be reviewed after Linehan arrest, says Streeting) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/13/uk-decision-to-ban-palestine-action-as-terror-group-unlawful-court-says https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/13/uk-decision-to-ban-... https://www.politico.eu/article/freedom-speech-suspicion-britains-expression-crisis-uk-police-palestine-democracy/ https://www.politico.eu/article/freedom-speech-suspicion-bri... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/world/europe/graham-linehan-free-speech-uk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/world/europe/graham-lineh... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/palestine-action-ruling-9.7089382 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/palestine-action-ruling... https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/03/uk/uk-farage-free-speech-linehan-latam-intl https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/03/uk/uk-farage-free-speech-... https://www.fire.org/news/uk-government-issues-warning-think-you-post https://www.fire.org/news/uk-government-issues-warning-think... https://www.foxnews.com/world/shocking-cases-reveal-britains-orwellian-free-speech-crackdown https://www.foxnews.com/world/shocking-cases-reveal-britains... You really don't need to be some obscure basement dweller to have any kind of vague inkling that something might be a little on the nose in the proverbial state of Denmark.
dirasieb 8mo ago
lol ok https://archive.ph/bdEqK https://archive.ph/bdEqK

cal_dent 8mo ago

its wild to me how so much of online america has been radicalized into becoming nothing more that digital curtain twitchers

pembrook 8mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Censorship_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Censorship_in_Europe

amarant 8mo ago
Can we filter for current censorship? Hate to brake it to you but the top category in that page, "censorship in the soviet union" does not apply anymore.....
- pembrook 8mo ago
  Spain 1) Catalan Referendum Website Seizures (2017) Spanish courts ordered ISPs to block dozens of pro-independence domains and mirror sites during the referendum. Civil Guard units physically entered data centers to seize servers tied to the Catalan government’s digital voting infrastructure. 2) GitHub Repository Takedown (2017) Spain obtained a court order forcing GitHub to remove a repository that mirrored referendum voting code and site information, extending censorship beyond Spanish-hosted domains. 3) Rapper Convictions for Online Lyrics Spanish rapper Valtònyc was convicted for tweets and lyrics deemed to glorify terrorism and insult the monarchy; he fled the country and fought extradition in Belgium for years. ⸻ France 4) Blocking of Protest Pages During Yellow Vests (2018–2019) Authorities requested removals of Facebook pages and livestreams tied to the Yellow Vest protests, citing incitement and public order concerns. 5) Court-Ordered Removal of Election Content (2019 EU Elections) French judges used expedited procedures under election-period misinformation law to order removal of allegedly false political claims within 48 hours. 6) Prosecution of Political Satire as Hate Speech Several activists were fined or prosecuted for online posts targeting religious or ethnic groups in explicitly political contexts, even where framed as satire. ⸻ Germany 7) Mass Police Raids Over Social Media Posts German police have conducted coordinated nationwide dawn raids targeting individuals accused of posting illegal political speech under hate-speech laws. 8) Removal of Opposition Content Under NetzDG Platforms removed thousands of posts from nationalist or anti-immigration political actors within 24 hours to avoid heavy fines under NetzDG enforcement pressure. 9) Criminal Convictions for Holocaust Commentary Online Individuals have received criminal penalties for online statements denying or relativizing Nazi crimes, even when framed in broader political debate contexts. ⸻ United Kingdom 10) Police Visits Over Controversial Tweets British police have conducted “non-crime hate incident” visits to individuals’ homes over political tweets, creating official records despite no prosecution. 11) Arrests for Offensive Political Posts Individuals have been arrested under public communications laws for posts criticizing immigration or religion in strongly worded terms. 12) Removal of Campaign Content Under Electoral Rules Election regulators required digital platforms to remove or restrict political ads that failed to meet transparency requirements during active campaigns. ⸻ Italy 13) Enforcement of “Par Condicio” Silence Online During mandated pre-election silence periods, online political content—including posts by candidates—has been ordered removed or fined. 14) Criminal Defamation Charges Against Bloggers Italian bloggers critical of politicians have faced criminal defamation prosecutions for investigative posts during election cycles. ⸻ Finland 15) Conviction of Sitting MP for Facebook Posts Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen was prosecuted for Bible-based comments posted online regarding sexuality and religion; although ultimately acquitted, the criminal process itself was lengthy and high-profile. ⸻ Sweden 16) Convictions for Anti-Immigration Facebook Posts Swedish courts have convicted individuals for Facebook comments criticizing immigration policy when deemed “agitation against a population group.” ⸻ Netherlands 17) Criminal Case Against Opposition Politician Dutch politician Geert Wilders was convicted (without penalty) for campaign-rally remarks later amplified online, deemed discriminatory. ⸻ Austria 18) Rapid Court Orders Against Political Posts Austria’s updated online hate-speech regime enabled expedited court orders compelling removal of allegedly unlawful political speech within days. ⸻ Belgium 19) Prosecution of Political Party Messaging Members of the Vlaams Belang party have faced legal sanctions for campaign messaging shared online deemed racist or discriminatory. ⸻ Switzerland 20) Criminal Fines for Referendum Campaign Speech Swiss activists have faced criminal fines for online referendum messaging judged to violate anti-discrimination law during highly contentious votes.

ljlolel 8mo ago

Russia Today is banned, for one

amarant 8mo ago
True! Though I can't really say I mourn the loss, it is a Russian propaganda outlet dedicated to helping their expansion war. Is this the speech the USA is going to protect? It's still weird to me that the gringoes are helping the commies now, I guess I'm stuck in the old world order!
- ljlolel 8mo ago
  I see your perspective. Can you see the risks?
Gustomaximus 8mo ago
That seems crazy to me I read news there occasionally as I like to view opposite sides. Go to BBC, RT, France24 ,Al-Jazeera type sites and see what each has as their focus stories. You're aware news sites are used to push agenda, some more than others, but that's half the interest of seeing what they push. And sometimes the more fringe have stories on what should be news but don't make it to mainstream media channels. ...anyway I'm more a believer in assuming people have a brain and can figure stuff out vs banning sites, both have danger to them but censorship seems the bigger danger to me.
- ljlolel 8mo ago
  I’m in fulll agreement with you
Epa095 8mo ago
You mean the TV station lost broadcasting-rights, or you mean the website it actually banned? Cause the website is certainly accessible for me from my European country, although that does not rule out that it is banned in some European countries.
- 8mo ago

carlosjobim 8mo ago

One is Russian media, just as Russia bans European media. Also the world's largest library is banned in Germany.

amarant 8mo ago
The first one I'm ok with, the second one I'm not sure what you're saying? Google suggests the largest library in the world is the US Congress library, but I couldn't find any sources saying it's banned in Germany? (Also, it's a physical place in the US... What?) Closest thing I could find to library banned in Germany was a collection of pirated material, which was blocked at a DNS level, meaning many users bypass the ban accidentally, and anyone who wants to can trivially use a different DNS. I mean I'm probably more in favour of digital piracy than the next guy, but I had completely missed that were calling copyright protection censorship now?
- Epa095 8mo ago
  He probably means a famous pirating site, called library dot something.
- carlosjobim 8mo ago
  Yes, I'm referring to the pirate site, which is the largest collection of books in the history of mankind. Of course it is a bit fringe to talk about censorship when it comes to piracy, but I would say that it is. While noting that the US also censors pirate websites.
jeroenhd 8mo ago
Piracy is illegal in most countries. Unless you mean the American Library of Congress, but that's an American decision, not a European one.

drnick1 8mo ago

Porn (now requires age verification), online libraries, movies, some news websites, sports (because of obscure copyright laws) and countless other things.

josefrichter 8mo ago
I’m in the EU and haven’t encountered any of these, except the copyright restrictions - which is really a different matter.
- ivan_gammel 8mo ago
  if you are in Germany, try opening ria.ru. It’s not like we are deprived of something worthy - it is Russian propaganda after all, but it tells enough about freedom of speech.
  - micw 8mo ago
    I am. It just opens. But I can't read russian ^^
    - ivan_gammel 8mo ago
      Looks like German firewall has more holes than Russian or Chinese one. Are you using VPN? It’s still blocked for me.
      - throwaway140126 8mo ago
        Germany uses DNS blocks.. So you can circumvent the censorship by using a DNS provider different than the DNS provider of your ISP.
      - micw 8mo ago
        There is no such thing like a German firewall.
  - josefrichter 8mo ago

kettlecorn 8mo ago

I think part of this is preempting concerns that the EU could ban or limit X / Twitter. They've already fined X heavily for lacking transparency, like not providing a database of advertisers or allowing researchers to access internal data to evaluate misinformation concerns. The EU has threatened that if they need to they may ban or limit X. Musk and conservatives view X as a critical tool to spread their preferred ideology, and Musk has shown he's not beyond algorithmic and UX manipulation to achieve desired outcomes.

throwaway140126 8mo ago

In Germany there are some examples for the suppression of speech. For example popular examples are: (1) getting your house raided for calling a politician a dick (2) getting your house raided for calling a politician stupid (3) most recent, just in this week, a retiree gets into trouble with the police for asking worried questions about migration (1) https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/hamburg-wohnungsdurchsuchung-wegen-pimmelgate-war-unrechtmaessig-a-de489269-6589-453f-896f-56e728128cea https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/hamburg-wohnungsdurch... (2) https://www.justiz.bayern.de/media/images/behoerden-und-gerichte/staatsanwaltschaften/bamberg/pm_45-2024-_sta_bamberg_-_wohnungsdurchsuchung_wg_beleidigung_zu_lasten_dr_habeck.pdf https://www.justiz.bayern.de/media/images/behoerden-und-geri... (3) https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article6996cb47fc148b255d14fa1a/saarland-kalifat-scharia-burka-zwangsehe-staatsschutz-ermittelt-wegen-karnevalswagen.html https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article6996cb47fc148... These are examples that spontaneously come to my mind. So I can not talk for whatever country you live in but Germany has a problem about being able to express opinions.

hananova 8mo ago
(1) Is also because it's literally vandalism. (2) Also points out that there were posts of holocaust denial, which has been illegal in most of europe for literal decades. (3) Is an article about an investigation into whether or not the cart was protected by freedom of expression or whether there would be grounds for further trial. Nobody is in trouble yet. Isn't it convenient how all posts that say something that rhymes with "You can get in trouble in EU country X for just doing Y." The "just" is doing a lot of concealed lifting? None of your three links actually support your assertion.
- throwaway140126 8mo ago
  (1) Calling a politician a dick is vandalism? That's nonsense. (2) The corresponding prosecutor made clear that his house was raided for calling the politician stupid and NOT for anything else. You would have known that if you would have read the document I linked to. To quote it: Wegen des Tatverdachts einer gegen Personen des politischen Lebens gerichteten Beleidigung gem. §§ 185, 188, 194 StGB erfolgte am vergangenen Dienstag, 12.11.2024, eine richterlich angeordnete Durchsuchung der Wohnung des Beschuldigten durch Polizeibeamte der Kriminalpolizei Schweinfurt Translated to english: Due to suspicion of an offence of insulting persons in political life pursuant to Sections 185, 188, 194 of the German Criminal Code (StGB), a judicially ordered search of the accused's apartment was carried out last Tuesday, November 12, 2024, by police officers from the Schweinfurt Criminal Investigation Department. (3) He is in trouble in terms that there is an police investigation against him and no it is not okay to have police investigations just because a person expressed his worries about migration. So, yes my links support my assertion.

NotPractical 8mo ago

This site claims to list them out: https://eylenburg.github.io/countries.htm https://eylenburg.github.io/countries.htm I cannot vouch for its accuracy but I thought it was interesting.