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In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

economist.com

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Re: In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

#41

Post by hwh »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #28
hwh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A notion in the more calmed legal discussion (as opposed to lobby talk from the freedom movements, which I usually support but feel to be very narrow-sighted at the moment w/ regard to this law - see what is now carried into the comments here) is that this effect might be mitigated by a counterweight law - or rather addendum - that mitigates overreaction by the corporations. This is german legal culture: our law syst…

> Note that the stated goal of the law is most probably the exact point: making access to effective defense of your rights possible to anyone. Which is completely and utterly fails at in the obvious way, in that your right to free speech is limited by a strong incentive for corporations to silence you if in doubt? > The reality consisted of slow law enforcement (which has to act against people who made the speech in…

It mostly mirrors classic consumer protection law. It's a civil law issue and regulation in such issues is always a try to remedy imbalances of power. As law enforcement goes, there is no public office assigned to deal in behalf of a party in civil law cases. There's the courts, which are slow and arguably understaffed and with a much higher bar to access them in the first place. And regulation. Regulation does not always get it right and I'm not arguing that it did here. My point is that there was a problem and regulation tried to solve it. I don't see that bad effects were intended, which is the point I was trying to make. I think that the legal discussion in Germany mostly prefers an addendum to, not a revokation of the law in question.

Re: In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

#42

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

emn13 wrote: post #35
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that is a reason to make a law that has a private company decide what are in effect criminal cases against citizens. The minister responsible at some point made the completely idiotic remark that that is the right way to go because Facebook and the like are making a lot of money, so they also should be responsible for these costs. It seems like you can be a minister in Germany and never have heard of this con…

By any normal definition these aren't criminal cases. People don't end up losing jobs, going behind bars, gaining criminal records. They usually won't even lose their accounts; certainly the law doesn't suggest that. They simply cannot spread hate-speech. The actual effects of this law in terms of possibly useful message lost are minuscule compared to the real culprits of goverment-enforced speech restrictions: namel…

> By any normal definition these aren't criminal cases.

It is a decision made to limit your constitutional freedoms due to legal obligations towards the public. That is very much the definition of a criminal case.

> People don't end up losing jobs, going behind bars, gaining criminal records.

Parking in the wrong spot also doesn't lead to any of that, but it's still a criminal case.

> They simply cannot spread hate-speech.

So, Titanic was spreading hate speech then?

> The actual effects of this law in terms of possibly useful message lost are minuscule compared to the real culprits of goverment-enforced speech restrictions: namely copyrights ( and extras like DMCA) & libel laws. Those actually matter.

Which is relevant to whether this is a good law how?

Re: In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

#43

Post by Tomte »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #38
Tomte wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that never went anywhere, because Facebook disobeyed even court orders. They never replied to judges. They never took down posts a court had ordered them to. The NetzDG is bad law, and will probably be repealed before the Constitution Court rules it unconstitutional. But it was a reaction to social networks disobeying the law. An overreaction, yes, but a reaction. I wish it were more commonly known in libertarian…

Well, sure, but it didn't go nowhere because a clear procedure for reporting didn't exist, but because the law was not enforced and maybe because some pieces necessary for successful enforcement were missing (which the NetzDG adds, in addition to all the crap that privatizes the law enforcement). Really, I don't see many people in "net freedom circles" who object to forcing Facebook to delete illegal posts. The objec…

The thing missing for enforcement was Facebook respecting our laws. They simply said „none of our officers is living in Germany, so fuck off“. Now we‘ve added a way to make them hurt. Financially.

And I see virtually everyone in the net freedom circles objecting to FB deleting illegal posts. Because our laws are unjust, you see. Only American laws count.

We really need to teach Facebook, Twitter, Uber, AirBNB and all those companies some manners and respect for our society.

Re: In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

#44

Post by thesimon »

yorwba wrote: post #16
hh3k0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are already laws against defamation and "volksverhetzung" Exactly. There was no need for this new internet censorship law at all, for they could've just started applying existing hate speech laws. Instead they introduced this new shady law, which essentially turns social network companies into a part of the judicial branch. The situation now is exactly as you have described it -- the companies fear the German…

> There was no need for this new internet censorship law at all, for they could've just started applying existing hate speech laws. The new law (NetzDG, roughly "network enforcement act" [1]) was intended to facilitate applying existing laws against illegal content, by mandating that every site with > 2 million users needs to have a clear procedure for reporting illegal content. Unfortunately, there are only fines fo…

>Unfortunately, there are only fines for failing to delete obviously illegal content

This is not the case, there is no fine for failing to delete obviously illegal content.

Re: In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

#45

Post by b6 »

pluma wrote: post #32
jack9 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neither category is less real. I think the context is that "real world" is supposed to mean it has a physical effect. The implication is that physical crimes are legitimately categorized crimes and speech crimes are not exactly legitimate (according to where you say words, they might be criminal). I believe that some words that make someone/some group possibly feel bad (intrinsically, not just to libel), are not a…

That's the massive understanding I see when people who don't live in Germany complain about German censorship of speech: It's not about feelings. It's about shaping other people's opinions. If someone says "jack9 is a kiddy fiddler" the damage is not that it might make jack9 upset, the damage is that others might think it's true and take actions that harm him. If someone says "kill the kikes" the damage is not that J…

> Hitler rose to power by manipulating people's sentiments with language. He created scapegoats and convinced people it's okay to channel their hate and frustration towards those scapegoats.

People should have the freedom to be persuaded to believe things that you don't agree with. It's OK to have a "wrong" opinion. Let people say what they want and believe what they want. I'm stunned that I still have to defend freedom of expression.

Re: In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

#47

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

baq wrote: post #37
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that is a reason to make a law that has a private company decide what are in effect criminal cases against citizens. The minister responsible at some point made the completely idiotic remark that that is the right way to go because Facebook and the like are making a lot of money, so they also should be responsible for these costs. It seems like you can be a minister in Germany and never have heard of this con…

Facebook makes money off that criminal activity via ads. It's not as clear cut as you make it.

... and therefore they should be the ones that decide the case?! I'm not sure I follow.

Every large corporation makes money off people using their services for illegal purposes, that's not exactly a reason to give them powers to decide legal cases against their customers, is it?

Re: In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

#48

Post by thesimon »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #42
emn13 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By any normal definition these aren't criminal cases. People don't end up losing jobs, going behind bars, gaining criminal records. They usually won't even lose their accounts; certainly the law doesn't suggest that. They simply cannot spread hate-speech. The actual effects of this law in terms of possibly useful message lost are minuscule compared to the real culprits of goverment-enforced speech restrictions: namel…

> By any normal definition these aren't criminal cases. It is a decision made to limit your constitutional freedoms due to legal obligations towards the public. That is very much the definition of a criminal case. > People don't end up losing jobs, going behind bars, gaining criminal records. Parking in the wrong spot also doesn't lead to any of that, but it's still a criminal case. > They simply cannot spread hate-s…

>It is a decision made to limit your constitutional freedoms

Just because your Facebook post is deleted does not mean your constitional right to free speech is limited.

Re: In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

#49

Post by vertex-four »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #47
baq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook makes money off that criminal activity via ads. It's not as clear cut as you make it.

... and therefore they should be the ones that decide the case?! I'm not sure I follow. Every large corporation makes money off people using their services for illegal purposes, that's not exactly a reason to give them powers to decide legal cases against their customers, is it?

Actually... the most obvious case where large corporations make money off people using their services for illegal purposes - banks - require the bank to shut down the account if it appears the customer might be doing something dodgy. So there's definitely precedent.

Re: In Germany, online hate speech has real world consequences

#50

Post by thesimon »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #47
baq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook makes money off that criminal activity via ads. It's not as clear cut as you make it.

... and therefore they should be the ones that decide the case?! I'm not sure I follow. Every large corporation makes money off people using their services for illegal purposes, that's not exactly a reason to give them powers to decide legal cases against their customers, is it?

>powers to decide legal cases against their customers

Facebook is free to do whatever they want on their platform. There are no legal cases involved.

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