German Prosecutors Think It’s Funny People’s Homes Are Being Raided And Their Devices Seized Because They Said Stuff On The Internet
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Germany is a wild place.
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Intellectually lazy opinion piece. It's outrage fuel, not acknowledging that the topic is a bit more complex than conveyed by a short "60 Minutes" clip.
For those worried about free speech in Germany: it's fine
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Damn don't get me wrong I'm against hate speech but government is not the one to decide what is hate speech and what is not that's how a democracy is destroyed.
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The government didn't decide that though, courts do. As long as that still holds, that's exactly how democracies are not destroyed, isnt it? I think, German law enforcement may be overstepping their boundaries in these cases and for example in the case of Andy Grote mentioned in the article, the actions taken were actually ruled to have been illegal (in court). Honestly seems more like a democracy doing democracy things.
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Imagine if half of liberal America was prosecuted for calling Trump "orange cheeto" or saying he has small hands. WTF is this even.
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courts are part of the government…
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No, courts are just naturally occuring phenomenon, like the weather or the tides
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These kind of laws are gonna get used against political dissent and rivals by the government. It's so obvious honestly if you can't see it then I don't know what to say
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95% failure to convict indicates the defendants may have shown rehabilitation and regret so the judge applied jurisprudence. I know this may be a foreign concept to a US american but in the civilised world, prison is a rehabilitation solution, not a "for profit" slavery distributor to help GAP and McDonald's get free labour.
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This is an Afd talking point bit by bit and is part of a concerted effort from the anglophone fascist world to get that nice Swiss lady as a Kanzlerin. There's so much money being pumped into EU far right is not even funny.
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What I'm referring to by "government" is the executive branch. This might be a difference in languages and/or political systems, but that's what is commonly referred to in Germany by "government". This excludes the judiciary branch and therefore the courts.
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"You can't take away people's right to be assholes."
- Demolition Man
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Lol, no one who just "expresses concern" will be sued in Germany. It will always be insults and incitement to violence that will lead to this.
However I would say that there have been trials because of really "easy" insults, started by politicians. And here you've got a point IMO that these laws are also used for intimidation. As a politician you should be able to tolerate some insults without having to sue each and every offender out there.
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Yes, I think this is what we're gonna see. Even more so once the far right takes power. They will use the anti-hate speech laws against their creators because they are easy to abuse.
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Imagine trump was procecuted each time he called for genocide of an entire ethnicity.
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Interesting how we see here news, related to the AFD, just a few days before the elections.
To be honest I hate that.
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Guys like Bannon or Elmo are the visible faces of a much broader movement that has been diverting funds towards the European far right. We're seeing a reverse paperclip op. There isn't a single far right European party with electoral expression that wasn't involved in some scandal about funding of dubious origins (in countries where there is oversight).
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it might be a difference of language but it's important to recognize that courts are part of your system of governance regardless of the words you use to describe it, and are subject to most of the same incentives and corrupting influences, and some thatare unique to courts.
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Meanwhile, United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese:
“What is happening in Germany is not normal.”
“The more I hear, the more I’m shocked. This is a country that has lectured the Global South on fundamental freedoms—freedom of assembly, freedom of opinion.”
“What are Germans waiting for to say: enough!”
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That law is definitely problematic. The phrasing was even back then critizised rightfully as too broad, too open to interpretation. It generates a bad precedent, as it could just as well be used against anti fascism activists once the AFD manages to grab power anywhere.
Now where does that come from?
It stemmed from one of those actionism-phases in politics where someone said 'oh there's so much hate on the internet, it inspires hate on the streets, what should we do?'The backdrop was a consistent uprising in really troubling hate speech on the internet, where people with their clear names called for lynching politicians and their families.
The thing is, addressing this would not have required new laws. We would have been fine with someone actually persecuting the laws we already had.Now the "new law" ofc makes it easier to persecute those criminal cases. But that prosecution still only happens if the police actually stand up to it. Arguments like "insufficient public interest" "insufficient staffing" "that could have been anyone writing this, how should we know that an account named Max Mustermann actually belongs to said Max Mustermann" still give the police in the more right wing states in Eastern Germany easy ways out. If they don't want to prosecute a crime, they will always find a way around it.
With all that being said, I can only concur with observations that this law is only now being discussed in international news as right-wing governments with media ties try to make a bad mood against Germany and influence the upcoming elections. Otherwise the anti-protest laws in the UK that bring climate activists behind bars for peaceful non-violent protests would top those headlines every time.
Tl/DR; yes, that law is shit and good intentions don't help. Police still only prosecute those they want.
