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

nytimes.com

131–140 of 229 posts

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

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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.

Ignorance is not an excuse. Would you find it acceptable to go "heil Hitler!" at random people? I hope you don't.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.

Your friend must have been completely and utterly ignorant of fundamental history. That's not something to be proud of.

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

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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…

You're culturally oblivious. Stop being so insulting. I wasn't rude to anybody but I'm suddenly facing a barrage of abuse. I get it that Germans have a penchant for imprisoning people because they're insulted. But the rest of us don't have that luxury. Just stop being an asshole to people you talk to. I wasn't using whataboutism. I was showing an inconsistency in the commenter's general claim. Do you also really beli…

I'm being culturally ignorant? That's rich. Is it US culture to just randomly insult everyone?

>"Do you also really believe gays are being assholes if they have sex in Saudi Arabia? That they should show respect to the culture that has a deep shame about homosexuals?"

More whataboutism. No, I don't think they're assholes, I think they're idiots. Going to a notoriously anti-gay country, with a death penalty for homosexuality, and then completely flouting those laws? Yeah, that's a really bad idea.

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

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone spray painted a swastika on your house, how would you react? That’s basically what people are doing to the Facebook platform, and Facebook is fine with it. Which is weird, because they are already censoring you considering there is a long range of things you can’t share in their platform, such as pictures of you breastfeeding your baby. I’m not sure why breastfeeding is considered worse than hate speech at…

> If someone spray painted a swastika on your house, how would you react? Where I live (Görlitzer Park), those kinds of signs are literally everywhere -- only they're the leftwing equivalent, calling for bloody revolution, for the rich to be booted from their homes, racists and xenophobes to be punched, etc. I'm actually pretty relaxed about it -- a bunch of 20 year olds who get their kicks spray painting while drink…

Yep, always funny when protesters think they are somehow rebelling against the interests of power. Protest is primarily an expression of power. Once I understood this things made a lot more sense.

The authentic protest is almost always met with violence, either directly from the state or with the state allowing or aiding in its administration.

I think, at its core, the message of the state sanctioned protest/counter-protest is essentially "these people can be unleashed on you and you will have no recourse".

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

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pa…

I'm sorry, but you're spouting absolute nonsense. I have discussed this topic many times with my German girlfriend and her family in Germany (we live in Denmark), and you are so completely off on your "predictions", it's not even funny. German law has a very specific definition of what material is targeted, and "hate speech" is an inadequate translation. Only public speech that incites violence against religious, pol…

I am not predicting anything, this is how it has been implemented. You are aware this law is already in effect and thousands have been deleted/banned?

But this debate is pointless because you clearly neither speak German, understand German law, nor are interested in revising your opinion that this is anything other than a fight of the righteous against the bad. The law is likely unconstitutional, widely overreaching, and does in fact delete these things:

https://verfassungsblog.de/das-netzdg-und-die-vermutung-fuer...

https://netzpolitik.org/2018/die-meinungsfreiheit-und-das-ne...

https://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2017-03/heiko-maas-gese...

There are countless examples, e.g. Facebook censoring satire accounts:

http://meedia.de/2018/01/03/netzdg-twitter-sperrt-account-de...

You are celebrating authoritarian censorship because you think it targets the right people. You are calling me out for something you have no firsthand knowledge or expertise on because of tribalism. Stop.

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

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but you're spouting absolute nonsense. I have discussed this topic many times with my German girlfriend and her family in Germany (we live in Denmark), and you are so completely off on your "predictions", it's not even funny. German law has a very specific definition of what material is targeted, and "hate speech" is an inadequate translation. Only public speech that incites violence against religious, pol…

I am not predicting anything, this is how it has been implemented. You are aware this law is already in effect and thousands have been deleted/banned? But this debate is pointless because you clearly neither speak German, understand German law, nor are interested in revising your opinion that this is anything other than a fight of the righteous against the bad. The law is likely unconstitutional, widely overreaching,…

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences.

I am a firm supporter of free speech. I am also a firm believer in consequences when that speech leads to violence and persecution.

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

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're culturally oblivious. Stop being so insulting. I wasn't rude to anybody but I'm suddenly facing a barrage of abuse. I get it that Germans have a penchant for imprisoning people because they're insulted. But the rest of us don't have that luxury. Just stop being an asshole to people you talk to. I wasn't using whataboutism. I was showing an inconsistency in the commenter's general claim. Do you also really beli…

I'm being culturally ignorant? That's rich. Is it US culture to just randomly insult everyone? >"Do you also really believe gays are being assholes if they have sex in Saudi Arabia? That they should show respect to the culture that has a deep shame about homosexuals?" More whataboutism. No, I don't think they're assholes, I think they're idiots. Going to a notoriously anti-gay country, with a death penalty for homose…

That's not what whataboutism means. It means A criticizes B so B responds by criticizing A for a comparable thing.

Here, I'm trying to tease out the meaning from you and a grandparent's posts that seem to ridicule anyone breaking any law, no matter how unjust the law might be. Your particular disrespect seems to be focused on foreigners visiting a country, which seems kind of arbitrary but you've done such a poor job explaining what's behind your judgments that I don't think there's much there besides the desire for violence against anyone who, even unknowingly, offends you. You've also been offensive to me in this thread (feeling free to because I don't have the power to punish you?) and say that you would insult the victims of anti-gay laws. It's clear now that you're a hate filled person so I don't want to know what you really mean anymore.

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

#137
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…

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You seem to be defending all laws of current legitimate governments. Is that right? So if ISIS won the war and became a legitimate government, would you then accept that people should be killed for having gay sex there? Would you ridicule those people, and even gay people in other countries who expressed understanding of their suffering?

When I live, saying "Heil Hitler" is not a crime so you have no business telling me I'm doing anything wrong or that I'm a bad person. I'm following my country's laws.

> the Romans were law-abiding people who did not try to overthrow a legitimate government.

No. They invaded many countries (or states or whatever you'd call the smaller entities that existed) and overthrew their governments. Unless you mean most of Europe and North Africa had no legitimate governments then?

I'm not the OP of the border guard story and you're making the least charitable assumption about my intentions. I think you're so angry about Nazis that you're seeing them everywhere and supportive of punishing anyone who even smells like one.

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

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm being culturally ignorant? That's rich. Is it US culture to just randomly insult everyone? >"Do you also really believe gays are being assholes if they have sex in Saudi Arabia? That they should show respect to the culture that has a deep shame about homosexuals?" More whataboutism. No, I don't think they're assholes, I think they're idiots. Going to a notoriously anti-gay country, with a death penalty for homose…

That's not what whataboutism means. It means A criticizes B so B responds by criticizing A for a comparable thing. Here, I'm trying to tease out the meaning from you and a grandparent's posts that seem to ridicule anyone breaking any law, no matter how unjust the law might be. Your particular disrespect seems to be focused on foreigners visiting a country, which seems kind of arbitrary but you've done such a poor job…

We've now wandered way too far off from the original topic.

The simple truth is, if you go visit a country, you do a bit of preparation before you go. That includes any local laws and customs that may differ from those in your home country, in order to avoid trouble.

You wouldn't try to bring a pocket knife on a flight, would you? Like me, you probably disagree with the security theater that has been put in place, but that does not mean you get to plead innocence because of ignorance, or because you disagree with the rules.

Once again: ignorance does not confer immunity from the law, no matter how unjust the law is.

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

#139
post #9

I find it interesting that platforms are liable for hosting hate speech, but individual users are not liable for creating it. It's also interesting that Human Rights Watch has come out against the German law: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/14/germany-flawed-social-me...

Hate speech laws aren't completely uncommon, so individual users would be liable for creating it. In NZ law, it's part of our Human Rights Act: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/D... "It shall be unlawful for any person to publish or distribute written matter which is threatening, abusive, or insulting, or to broadcast by means of radio or television or other electronic communication words wh…

Wow that's terribly vague. Insulting people publicly is illegal?

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

#140
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"The left" is not some sort of grand organization with common leadership and common goals.

I certainly don't support tankies nor the USSR dictatorship and oppression, nor do the vast majority of people with left-wing views.

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