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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It doesn't take calls for murder or genocide. In Germany you can have your house raided for posting a meme which calls the minister of economy an idiot. The same minister of economy who doesn't know what a bankruptcy is, and whose entire working experience is as an author of children's books.
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The article focuses on Lower Saxony, which is in West Germany. These cases are not about inciting violence or denying a genocide but about saying something about politician that that person doesn't like. Many American liberals would be prosecuted under these laws right now for the stuff that is said on e.g. Reddit, presumably BlueSky and Lemmy.world. Reminder that this sort of stuff also affects pro-Palestine activists and in fact from what I gather that is in fact case in Germany today.
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So just because people you don't like express concern about something means that it automatically must be false? This type of "logic" is very dangerous. And prosecution clearly does happen a lot. Literally 10 cases a day in one German state according to the article and only 0.5 of those cases actually result in conviction, which means that clearly this is used to intimidate and punish people generally rather than a sincere attempt to enforce the law.
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For calling a politician a pimmel?
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Uh, did your account get hacked?
That's like literal AfD propaganda you are repeating here.
And while there is some very limited truth to the first (but he has had similar competences on state level for many years), the "opposition newspaper" is like an actual extreme right wing rag and the legal process is still ongoing, the courts just ruled that the minister of interior overstepped her official competence by trying to shut it down in the legally grey area way she tried doing it.
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Hope y'all remember how we had the propaganda blitz about the made up social credit system in China that everybody in the west was freaking out about. Well, now we can see what that actually looks like in real life.
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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.
