Policing the internet in Germany, where hate speech, insults are a crime | 60 Minutes

> Trusted Flaggers > 1 Pimmel Affäre > Schwachkopf Affäre Oder zuletzt > link and last but not least: > ▶ this video Germany is very much implementing censorship by chilling effect.

German speaking here: People here in Germany do not want to think about just how bad our constitution really is designed. We only get free speech lte, There's no fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine leading to constant prosecutorial overreach and illegal searches[0] that are later ruled illegal but with on effect and our public prosecutors are so much lacking in independence that they aren't allowed to issue european arrest warrants [1]. But I've heard people tell me with complete conviction how great our constitution is. I can't even bother arguing about it anymore. [0] And they brag about it on 60 minutes ▶ this video [1] link

Well, CBS News dedicated an entire episode on these “propaganda stories”… ▶ this video link Germany’s constitution (the Basic Law) does protect freedom of opinion and expression, but it explicitly allows restrictions via “general laws” to protect personal honor, youth, and human dignity. Recent enforcement shows how this plays out: police raids have targeted individuals posting “hate speech” or “extremist” content online. What constitutes hate speech or extremist content is “conveniently” interpreted at times.

The UK arrested around 12.5k people in 2023 over social media posts, according to the Times. Not all of them related to immigration at all (but I would wager: many are). It is sufficient to 'cause distress' - against whom, or in what form, or what qualifies as 'distress' is deliberately kept vague to maximise persecution rates. Some cases saw a squad car with six Bobbies take the very average, middle-class parents of a teenage daughter to the precinct to question them on why their daughter has had strong opinions on the way her school's new head was chosen [1]. While - as so often - no-one was later sent to a court for sentencing, the chilling effects are there, and I'd say half a platoon of police officers descending on someone's front lawn is definitely "getting in trouble with the law". [1] link Money quote: > More often than not, the police record these episodes as “non-crime hate incidents”, with over 13,200 recorded last year. What’s so extraordinary about the police’s zealous pursuit of these non-criminals is that the rate at which they’re catching actual criminals is falling. Fewer than seven in 100 crimes now lead to a charge or summons, down from 17 in 100 in 2015. In the year to September 2023, the total number of burglaries left unsolved stood at 213,814, a rise of 4 per cent on the previous year. So ... police gets their numbers up persecuting people for wrong thought while they avoid having to deal with actual, real criminals which might fight back violently.

Germany, where they lock you up for criticizing politicians[1] or where they have a ban against protesting for Palestine because it's "antisemitic"?[2] Or UK where you can get locked up for blasphemy[3] or where they lock up ~30 people a day for saying offensive things online because of their Online Safety Act?[4] Or perhaps Romania where an election that didn't turn out the way the EU elites wanted is overturned based on nebulous (and later proven false) accusation that the election was somehow influenced by a TikTok campaign by the Russians that later turned out to have been funded by a Romanian opposition party.[5] I could go on and on, but unfortunately most other western democracies are just as flawed, if not worse. Hopefully we can all strive for a better future and flush the authoritarians, from all the parties. [1] ▶ this video [2] link [3] link [4] link [5] link

I'm not the parent, but one reference they made but didn't link was this 60 Minutes clip "Policing the internet in Germany, where hate speech, insults are a crime". It was a bit of a meme in Germany. ▶ this video Still, the author of the original article has some pretty polarising and crude views, and I think it's valuable to keep that context in mind. The key is not to be lazy and just dismiss everything that doesn't come from the smoothest PR media personality. For me, it felt like reading a frustrated author arguing against over-reliance on the service sector as an economy, given the dependencies it creates. There is certainly nationalism, realism/geopolitical views and a somewhat raw criticism of the current monetary system in the mix. The author sprinkles a lot of cultural references all over it and concludes with a tongue-in-cheek hint at an accelerationist strategy. .. based on that random blogpost I probably still wouldn't buy any gold just yet.

If you insist: ▶ this video It was pretty heavily debated on r/DE. link Please tell me how you think this "protect one's honor" law doesn't get abused. Also, an youtuber from my country made a video during the pandemic exposing the mistreatment of seasonal fruit picking workers from my country working in Germany, and the video got blocked in Germany by Youtube, most likely on request by flagging. So do do you expect to learn about censorship of German media if you follow German media which is subject to censorship? Do you realize the irony of it all? Did you ever expect for German media to go out and say "here's how we're censoring you"? Germans are living in Plato's cave allegory and are irate when people call them out for it.

>US government's openly hostile attitude towards immigrants who simply exercised free speech Source for such claims please? German and UK governments are even more authoritarian on free speech. You can get arrested for a tweet insulting a politician: ▶ this video >the US has touted freedom of speech frequently and loudly when chastising autocratic foreign powers So did Germany and Austria and most of western EU. They were buddy-buddy to Putin in the past for their gas, and now they're buddy-buddy with Azerbaijan who's slaughtering Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh because EU needs their gas. link >to make examples of a handful of legal immigrants Source for such claims please? How many skilled legal immigrants have been deported or subject to illegal government oppression?

Having a slow and archaic birocratic system doesn't stop governments going totalitarian on their citizens. Case in point In Germany the Polizei will SWAT and arrest you if you post a meme on social media that angers someone's dignity. That's not a joke that actually happens. This typical German "our government is not slow and inefficient, it's just protection against totalitarianism" is pure cope. Edit: @helloplanets Source: ▶ this video

I'm just using common sense here. If you can go to jail or be fined for saying something inflammatory online, you don't have freedom of speech. My "there" comment referenced Germany since that was my example and where the 60 Minutes segment was done. You can watch the interview yourself here: ▶ this video It's worth pointing out the usage of "insult" in the interview. > "Is it a crime to insult somebody in public?" > "Yes."

One example is Germany will now arrest you for insulting someone in public or online, including insulting politicians. The UK has had some questionable laws passed as well. Pockets of Europe has much weaker free speech protections than the US does, that much is for certain. 60 Minutes did a recent segment on German speech laws. ▶ this video