German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by sheepmullet » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 1:49 AM UTC

shaki-dora wrote: post #43

nsnick wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter should not enforce ridiculous German laws. The tech companies need to call the bluff of countries that demand censorship.

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…

> Germany is considering a stable, open, democratic, peaceful, constructive and successful country.

The German people have always had a strong authoritarian "we know best" streak and it has caused a lot of problems in the past.

Hence why the peoples of other nations are much more concerned by Germany trying to dictate what constitutes free speech on the internet than they are by a few tweets.

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

#142

Post by Houshalter » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 1:49 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #137

Houshalter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously though, how do you oppose immigration without criticizing the people who are immigrating? The comment may have been hyperbolic, sure. But it's completely reasonable to be concerned about immigrants raising the crime rate. Or having objectionable cultural beliefs and changing your country's culture. Look at it from an outside view. Tibet was taken over by China and they are intentionally flooding it with Chi…

Comparing a weak country that has been overrun by a much stronger one with economically dominant western countries that have suffered some integration problems is a false equivalence. Germans do not find themselves in the same predicament as Tibetans, by any stretch of the imagination.

>Comparing a weak country that has been overrun by a much stronger one

What does this matter at all? How does the GDP of Germany change anything? If Germany was poor it would be different?

>Germans do not find themselves in the same predicament as Tibetans, by any stretch of the imagination.

How exactly is that? It looks like exactly the same thing to me. The native population is being completely replaced with immigrants. It's a tragedy.

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

#143

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 1:51 AM UTC

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…

> Many american rap songs do just exactly this

Which American rap songs, specifically, have incited riots or similarly drastically disturbed the peace, in Germany or elsewhere?

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

#144

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 1:56 AM UTC

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…

This is incorrect. Logic and reason have value, of course, but most people are emotional animals rather than pure rationalists. The trick of political demagoguery is is to activate those emotions and then rhetorically direct them. This is why laws against incitement and suchlike generally require the potential harm to be imminent.

It's one thing for someone to say 'really, I think out_group_X bears liability for certain faults of society,' which is unpleasant to hear but not directly threatening insofar as it's refutable. It's another to be at the locus of a mob with people stating their intention to kill you in the immediate or near future.

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

#145

Post by randyrand » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

I'm so very glad the USA founders made the first amendment. Other countries are not as lucky as we are.

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

#146

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #86

Houshalter wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people aren't "nazis" or "fascists". They have beliefs that would have been considered completely normal and moderate in 1940's US. The people that defeated the Nazis would be considered Nazis today. It's obscene how far left the overton window has moved. Opposing immigration is a pretty long way from Nazism.

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".

[deleted]

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

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Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 2:04 AM UTC

abiox wrote: post #68

somenewacc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that calls for genocide are part of the global discourse.

this seems like a red herring or something... are 'calls for genocide' actually a thing worth caring about? is there a legitimate possibility that, say, bob goes on twitter and says 'kill all romanians!' and suddenly there's a genocide of romanians? it's doesn't make sense. i mean, i get that it's attempting to appeal to one's aversion to a very bad idea, but random bob can't cause a genocide. a strong dictatorship a…

are 'calls for genocide' actually a thing worth caring about?

If you're a member of the subject group, then they most certainly are. Instead of constructing silly examples, let me suggest you look into the history of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia or Hutu-Tutsi animus in Rwanda.

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

#148

Post by randyrand » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 2:05 AM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #6

nwatson wrote: post #2

Whether the satirical Twitter account should be shut down or not ... satire's not very effective per Malcolm Gladwell's "Revisionist History" podcast at [0] (automated lossy transcript at [1]) ... targets of the satire often find the satire humorous themselves, and can find enough "truth" in exaggerated viewpoints to reinforce those views rather than call them into question. [0] http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes…

Whether or not speech is effective at achieving its ultimate goal is an entirely irrelevant issue here. "Hate Speech" is extremely ineffective at promoting hate, but here we are.

Hate speech does not refer to spreading hate, really. It's just a misnomer.

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

#149

Post by rubatuga » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 2:05 AM UTC

bluthru wrote: post #25

rubatuga wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it makes people fear for their lives.

Racism: can make people fear for their lives. Multiculturalism: can make people fear for their lives. People are only allowed to express their fears about one of those issues, and the government decides which of those fears is valid. This is despite the fact that both racism and multiculturalism can make people fear for their lives. That's utterly dystopian. In general with social media moderating, I'm very much agai…

I am curious how multiculturalism makes people fear for their life. Do you mean that a certain group of people may lose their lifestyle? Or do you actually mean life-death scenarios? I am trying quite hard, but I cannot think of any situation of multiculturalism that makes somebody fear their own death. Unless, if in fact you are talking about violence and crime from immigrants, you are free to express it.

Furthermore, the principles of racism and multiculturalism are so different, that it’s interesting that you compare them. Almost always racism can be shown to be linked to violence and murder, but multicultralism is a policy that my country, Canada, has successfully modeled. I have never feared for my life. I think it is safe to say that although the implementation of multiculturalism policies may be flawed in some countries, multiculturalism itself doesn’t cause life-death scenarios.

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

#150

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 2:07 AM UTC

sintaxi wrote: post #108

somenewacc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that calls for genocide are part of the global discourse.

That isn't an argument. People who call for genocide can be charged with a crime. There is no reason to remove the content from public record until there is a conviction, and even then there is an argument to be made to leave the content online as an example of what not to say if you want to stay out of jail.

You can charge them with a crime, but leaving specifically objectionable content up is rather pointless because you're not litigating whether it's specifically prohibited (as calls for genocide are in Germany) but whether liability attaches to the apparent speaker/writer (whose account might have been compromised, for example).

Another reason not to leave it up is because it's frightening to the subjects of such eliminationist discourse, who shouldn't have to put up with being considered acceptable targets for systematic violence.