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Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

nytimes.com

101–110 of 229 posts

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#101
post #59

This bullshit is not a "hate crime law", it is a law to silence opponents of the ruling junta. Worse, it enables blocking of US citizens (like me), that don't live in Germany, through dubious, semi-private entities, based in Germany. Both things are a scandal. And why does have Facebook problems in China? Why not grant the Chinese government the same rights as the German government?

How so? They are simply making people liable for breaking laws that already existed . How are they blocking you? How are they cementing their power by punishing people for inciting to violence against people with specific religious/political viewpoints or sexual orientations etc.?

You seem to be completely uninformed regarding the actual implementation of the law. Any criticism of anything can and will be deleted under the scope of the law. Want to criticise any policy?

Hatespeech. Criticise religion? Hatespeech. It would of course never hold up in court, but that doesn't matter, for social media platforms deleting anything that could be construed as hate by anyone who feels offended is the path of least resistance.

You are not made accountable for breaking laws that already existed, you are being censored for something that is not illegal, never was, still isn't, but could offend someone if it's disagreement on a sensitive topic. It's the end of any sort of free speech on social media in Germany.

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This- also history thought us that shunned and silenced ideas, get a "cool" bonus with the youth, who just search for a reason to provoke the previous generation. Its unbelievable, that the same methods that where used to "prevent" the spreading of Gangsta-culture, and horribly "failed" (because the music was good) are used to contain extreme-right ideas. As a result a whole generation of youth, will take to the alt-…

You have a very strange view of "the left".

It's kinda correct though. Not all Left is such, but the problem is Left is tolerating people with such ideas as long as they are Left.

Edit: for all the downvoters, explain why Left tolerates Stalinists or USSR apologists in their ranks. Recently the Left seem to have a problem with antisemitism on some countries too.

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#103
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You really shouldn't blame the victim Point is, he's not a victim, he's a criminal and has received his well-deserved punishment. > you've been reading more news stories than him. When you go to another country, it is your responsibility to follow their laws. Ignorantia legis non excusat. >I grew up trusting authorities and them always being reasonable and I would never have imagined Germany was such a bizarrely br…

"And in Germany, you would have gotten jail time (§ 86a StGB), have your car confiscated and likely destroyed, and probably would have lost your driving license because you have demonstrated that you lack the adequate character to safely operate a vehicle. And I would have been ok with that." And no german would see the irony in this...

No, this was the ironic part: "As a German citizen, I trust my authorities to uphold the laws."

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#104
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You really shouldn't blame the victim Point is, he's not a victim, he's a criminal and has received his well-deserved punishment. > you've been reading more news stories than him. When you go to another country, it is your responsibility to follow their laws. Ignorantia legis non excusat. >I grew up trusting authorities and them always being reasonable and I would never have imagined Germany was such a bizarrely br…

You obviously know that it's a crime in Germany. The parent's friend obviously didn't. Are you actually in support of rule of law no matter what, or is it just this law you like? For example, are you OK with China executing Falun Gong members? Are you OK with ISIS killing gay people (it's the law of Islam!)? Are you OK with slavery as long as it's legal? Or are you just angry about Nazis especially out of all the oth…

It's like going to the US and saying to the first black customs officer you see something along the lines of "So how's slavery treating ya?"/"Boy, get my luggage and find me a car!".

This is universally known as insensitive behaviour and no amount of "muh free speech" is gonna save you from being charged with a hate crime.

When you go to a country, at the very least make the effort not to offend officials with the worst part of that country's history. Otherwise you're not just gonna be seen as a total (criminal) twat but also a lazy one at that.

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#105
They are NOT learning from their history. In fact (to quote from https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-v...):

"I found that, contrary to what most people think, Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilizing anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch, and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech. Streicher served two prison sentences. Rather than deterring the Nazis and countering anti-Semitism, the many court cases served as effective public-relations machinery, affording Streicher the kind of attention he would never have found in a climate of a free and open debate. In the years from 1923 to 1933, Der Stürmer [Streicher's newspaper] was either confiscated or editors taken to court on no fewer than thirty-six occasions. The more charges Streicher faced, the greater became the admiration of his supporters. The courts became an important platform for Streicher's campaign against the Jews. In the words of a present-day civil-rights campaigner, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the anti-hate laws of today, and they were enforced with some vigor. As history so painfully testifies, this type of legislation proved ineffectual on the one occasion when there was a real argument for it."

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#106
post #104
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously know that it's a crime in Germany. The parent's friend obviously didn't. Are you actually in support of rule of law no matter what, or is it just this law you like? For example, are you OK with China executing Falun Gong members? Are you OK with ISIS killing gay people (it's the law of Islam!)? Are you OK with slavery as long as it's legal? Or are you just angry about Nazis especially out of all the oth…

It's like going to the US and saying to the first black customs officer you see something along the lines of "So how's slavery treating ya?"/"Boy, get my luggage and find me a car!". This is universally known as insensitive behaviour and no amount of "muh free speech" is gonna save you from being charged with a hate crime. When you go to a country, at the very least make the effort not to offend officials with the wo…

Racist comments aren't hate crimes in the US. It's violence that is. You won't be charged with anything.

You subscribe to the might-makes-right mindset by demanding respect for people who have the power to punish you. That's practical, but not morally very solid since it implies less politeness to weaker people.

Some would argue the 30 years war was worse than the Nazis. It killed more people than the holocaust, and at a time when the population was much smaller.

I totally oppose physical violence against people for saying insults. That's terrible to me. For exactly this reason - innocent people not trying to hurt anybody end up getting punished because they're misunderstood. The swastika really doesn't mean the same thing to people everywhere in the world. Not everyone shares the Germans' violent anger at people who remind them of their past.

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#107
post #42
post #34

And yet the hammer and sickle are regarded as symbols of freedom and Marxism is regarded as a movement to empower the oppressed. How revolting. Adherents to Communist ideology have killed many millions more than Nazis ever dreamed of and caused untold amounts of devastation over the past century.

Not only that, but communism is still an ongoing danger, unlike Nazism. Venezuela just experienced it. Zimbabwe a decade before, and now South Africa is slipping closer towards it. It's a real danger to human life but somehow people celebrate it.

lol, "nazism is not an ongoing danger"

This is amazing, it's like Charlottesville never happened and Bannon never had the president's ear.

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#108
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously know that it's a crime in Germany. The parent's friend obviously didn't. Are you actually in support of rule of law no matter what, or is it just this law you like? For example, are you OK with China executing Falun Gong members? Are you OK with ISIS killing gay people (it's the law of Islam!)? Are you OK with slavery as long as it's legal? Or are you just angry about Nazis especially out of all the oth…

>"I grew up playing Wolfenstein 3D and watching the History channel. Nazi symbols were completely normal and everywhere." You obviously should have paid a lot more attention, then. Can it with the whataboutism, it's not helping you. If you visit a country, you respect its laws and customs. You don't go around breaking them because you disagree with them. Leave it to the residents of that country to change their laws…

I'm sure he didn't know that law. That seems to be lost on everyone in this thread. It would be a complete surprise to someone who didn't see Nazis as a real personal terrible anger-shame-inducing thing and who comes from a country with freedom of speech.

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a whole class of people who have every hour of the day to nanny and harass other people - to rile them up- with any means possible, seems like a good cause. Bonus Points if you put a Hammer and Sickle right next to them. Creepy Thought-controll-freaks of all nations united- in outrage. My man.

Hammer and Sickle gets you into serious trouble in much of East Europe, particularly in Poland and the Czech Republic.

I’ve seen people (fellow foreigners) wearing hammer and sickle on tshirts in czech and it didn’t seem to cause any trouble. I’m sure people quietly thought “what an idiot” but nobody actually did anything. Weirdly a friend of a friend who was a member of the local football ultras threatened to kick the shit out of a someone who was wearing that iconic Che-Guevara-face t-shirt ... but nothing happened (and that’s probably one of the more violent people).

Re: Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate

#110
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You really shouldn't blame the victim Point is, he's not a victim, he's a criminal and has received his well-deserved punishment. > you've been reading more news stories than him. When you go to another country, it is your responsibility to follow their laws. Ignorantia legis non excusat. >I grew up trusting authorities and them always being reasonable and I would never have imagined Germany was such a bizarrely br…

You obviously know that it's a crime in Germany. The parent's friend obviously didn't. Are you actually in support of rule of law no matter what, or is it just this law you like? For example, are you OK with China executing Falun Gong members? Are you OK with ISIS killing gay people (it's the law of Islam!)? Are you OK with slavery as long as it's legal? Or are you just angry about Nazis especially out of all the oth…

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