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German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

reuters.com

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Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#121

Post by dragonwriter »

Grollicus wrote: post #120
abiox wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we've had enough of that shit here 70 years ago. you had a military dictatorship. it couldn't be opposed or contested by anyone, because you and/or your family would just be killed. german citizens couldn't stop the killing any more than russians could stop millions from being killed. that was the fundamental problem. dictators do as they please. criminalizing the speech of random bob under a democratic government…

What you are writing here is a dangerous thing because it relativizes the holocaust. Military Dictatorships don't suddenly appear out of nothing. My grandparents' generation chose to actively look away because they thought it won't get "that bad". They might have told themselfes they didn't know better - you know, afterwards - but you can't remove 6 million people out of a country of maybe 60 million and no one notic…

> They might have told themselfes they didn't know better - you know, afterwards - but you can't remove 6 million people out of a country of maybe 60 million and no one notices shit.

Removal from the general population was an overt policy (and overtly not all that different than what the Western allies did with suspect populations identified by ethnicity.) The actual conditions to which Jews and others were removed, even prior to the implementation of extermination, was not overt.

No one was trying to conceal the removal of disfavored segments from the general population.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#122

Post by Grollicus »

steveeq1 wrote: post #117
Grollicus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Songs about killing people are generally not banned because of Volksverhetzung. That law is specific about the 3 things I listed in me comment above. (3) is a very strong requirement because it means the song must be theoretically able to disturb the peace in germany, eg. incite riots or something equally drastic. Theres not much that can do that. Songs about killing minorities might be banned, but then it's still ab…

> is a very strong requirement because it means the song must be theoretically able to disturb the peace in germany, eg. incite riots or something equally drastic. Many american rap songs do just exactly this, and it's not satirical. Sometimes rap songs do mentioning killing jews specifically although it is relatively rare. Most of the time it talks about killing other black people, which falls under the second part…

> which falls under the second part of the law you describe

To be hit with Volksverhetzung you need to meet all three criteria. If you have musicians that do, they better not play a gig in germany or they might stay here for a while longer. When not talking about Nazism (they have proven 3, so the bar is a little lower) to hit (3) you need to build some movement. Maybe found a local KKK? Generally there needs to be a bit more than just talk.

> Also, do germans find american thugs in low regard? One can argue they can be just as dangerous.

The average german propably doesn't care much about them. Some teenagers propably liked their idealized lifestyle. But they've propably grown out of that by now. I don't know what modern day teenagers like anymore =)

We don't really have gangs and they are propably seen more as a social problem than one for law enforcement. A symptom of the huge inequality / divide in american society.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#123

Post by Mithaldu »

sintaxi wrote: post #91
Grollicus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'hate speech' is an oversimplification chosen by the media. The law acually forces large social media companies in germany to remove illegal* content from their site within one week. Context is that Facebook has been ignoring illegal* content on their site and generally made an ass out of german law enforcement, so they got a law to rein them in. *illegal: libel, Volksverhetzung ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksv…

Are you saying facebook is ignoring court orders from the German authorities to have content removed?

No, they ignored a law the government made generally without stating penalties. Now the govt was forced to spell out penalties.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#124

Post by Mithaldu »

olivermarks wrote: post #118
Mithaldu wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That term 'hate speech' - what does it actually mean? Read §1(3). https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/netzdg/BJNR335210017.html...

§1(3) - " Illegal contents are contents within the meaning of paragraph 1, which constitute the offense of §§ 86, 86a, 89a, 91, 100a, 111, 126, 129 to 129b, 130, 131, 140, 166, 184b in connection with 184d 185 to 187, 201a, 241 or 269 of the Criminal Code and are not justified."

And now you know.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#125

Post by Mithaldu »

Amezarak wrote: post #101
shaki-dora wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's such a juvenile reaction... Germany is considering a stable, open, democratic, peaceful, constructive and successful country. There are any number of rankings/scoring regarding freedom of the press and of expression, resilience to corruption, democracy, economic opportunity etc in which Germany scores better than the US. These are laws passed by the national parliament, elected to represent its constituents. T…

> There are any number of rankings/scoring regarding freedom of the press and of expression, resilience to corruption, democracy, economic opportunity etc in which Germany scores better than the US. One of the reasons people regard these rankings as a total joke is exactly because of incidents like this - Twitter being forced to delete satirical tweets. More broadly, I think most people would agree that beyond the ex…

> Twitter being forced to delete

It is not at all though. The law very clearly spells out that for unclear cases (and the satire tweet definitely falls under that) there are significant exceptions and leeway.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#126

Post by Amezarak »

Mithaldu wrote: post #125
Amezarak wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are any number of rankings/scoring regarding freedom of the press and of expression, resilience to corruption, democracy, economic opportunity etc in which Germany scores better than the US. One of the reasons people regard these rankings as a total joke is exactly because of incidents like this - Twitter being forced to delete satirical tweets. More broadly, I think most people would agree that beyond the ex…

> Twitter being forced to delete It is not at all though. The law very clearly spells out that for unclear cases (and the satire tweet definitely falls under that) there are significant exceptions and leeway.

Twitter is strongly incentivized to err on the side of caution (for them) by deleting in unclear cases. If they wrongly believe a tweet is legal, they are punished. If they wrongly believe a tweet is illegal, nothing happens. To pretend a company in this situation is not being legally forced to delete "protected" satire is sophistry. The only rational thing to do in that situation is delete all tweets anyone could possibly claim are illegal if there's the slightest bit of grey area to them. The matter is made worse by time limits: they have to delete NOW, not have staff discussions and legal assessments.

The supporters of the law said exactly what you said, ignoring that reality. The result is in the article.

Additionally, from outside Germany, this looks less like "stopping hate speech" and more like enforcing the "basic consensus" of the CDU cited in the article.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#127

Post by Frondo »

abiox wrote: post #103
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is it does work. Because it forces the rotten core of the ideas to the forefront. It's the difference between having to enumerate all the people the mob think should be dead (which ironically is probably a collection of disjointed sets) vs just waving a flag and gathering all that hate anyone . By criminalizing specific icons of hate, you can rob those who would build a following from using them as a rallyi…

> Because it forces the rotten core of the ideas to the forefront. it seems to me it would do the opposite. it simply requires that one pursue the same goal in a more polite manner, to avoid being put in prison for one's words. ideas and intents can be rendered in a vast array of ways. > By criminalizing specific icons of hate, you can rob those who would build a following from using them as a rallying point. i don't…

Bigotry is not a reasonable attitude, and you can't reason someone out of an attitude they didn't reason themselves into in the first place.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#128

Post by Grollicus »

dragonwriter wrote: post #121
Grollicus wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are writing here is a dangerous thing because it relativizes the holocaust. Military Dictatorships don't suddenly appear out of nothing. My grandparents' generation chose to actively look away because they thought it won't get "that bad". They might have told themselfes they didn't know better - you know, afterwards - but you can't remove 6 million people out of a country of maybe 60 million and no one notic…

> They might have told themselfes they didn't know better - you know, afterwards - but you can't remove 6 million people out of a country of maybe 60 million and no one notices shit. Removal from the general population was an overt policy (and overtly not all that different than what the Western allies did with suspect populations identified by ethnicity.) The actual conditions to which Jews and others were removed,…

> The actual conditions to which Jews and others were removed, even prior to the implementation of extermination, was not overt.

That is not correct. Most Jews in Germany were sent to work camps and used as slave labour for local factories. Check out this response: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3mnglz/did_t...

Generally Germany knew, or at least had an idea that something was wrong. Everyone who tells you differently is selling you an agenda.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#129

Post by [deleted] »

Houshalter wrote: post #88
icebraining wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accusing the police of trying “to appease the barbaric, Muslim, rapist hordes of men” by putting out a tweet in Arabic is not just "opposing immigration".

Yes, I'm sure if someone called Catholics pedophiles and backwards barbarians, they would be treated similarly. Or Muslims themselves making similar comments about homosexuals or Western women. Somehow these laws only ever seem to be used against conservatives.

[deleted]

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#130

Post by dang »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #98
Grollicus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually you should look at the flip side of the coin: We - Germans - just decided that letting Nazis not speak their hurtful lies harms nothing of value.

nazism is not a well defined concept, nor is hate, you'll figure it out soon enough

Please don't post glib, baity comments about divisive topics. That's close to the troll line if not over it, and we ban accounts that do it repeatedly. From the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
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