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A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

washingtonpost.com

141–150 of 189 posts

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#142
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't even the house of the Twitter user.

...yes it was.

No, he was registered there but it was the apartment of his ex-girlfriend and he did not live there anymore.

https://taz.de/Hausdurchsuchung-wegen-eines-Tweets/!5799732/

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#144
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. People presumably don’t start political movements because they’re happy. They typically do so to affect change. Change that may well be required, for example, to address problems in said one-party healthcare system.

I Find this definition of freedom mind boggling. By that logic, brave new world describes a free society.

Is that wrong? Huxley deliberately intended it as a critique of post-Christian morality; that people are mostly free of any responsibility is very much part of the point.

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#145
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume downvoters figured your point is obvious, but I found your comment valuable and useful.

I didn’t downvote, but I’m not sure what’s going on with HN today —- this is the third article I’ve seen with lots of HN metacomments. That said, they’re probably right that the title should be fixed. It’s just getting a bit... well. I just wish we would all be a little more grateful for how much effort a site like HN takes to run. It’s also not so easy to get good moderators with tasteful editing abilities; imagine…

Not to take away from your comment, you're free to think and feel as you like, but you shouldn't really be trying to cram your views down other people's throats. You can feel "appreciative" and find wholesome justifications for anything basically (that includes the heinous stuff) but we don't all do it all the time. Feel free to do it as much as you like, but let others feel rightfully annoyed. I doubt anyone is blaming HN for this, but the person who posted the link (and possibly the original WaPo title).

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#146
post #26

As a German I have to emphasize that this has no support at all in Germany. The uproar was huge today and its seen as a misuse of power by the politician. Especially as he is not acting as a politician but as representative of the public office of interior. The search warrant needs to be issued by a judge and I'm sure there will be formal investigations how this happened. I would not be surprised if he will be forced…

It's still a fact that in Germany you have to be careful how you express yourself. It was a total shock to me to arrive in the States and hear my cab driver unload on the US President at the time. He really wasn't choosing his words very carefully, to the point that I had to wonder if this was some kind of a test by the INS. I still chuckle today about how my views have changed since then, and how much more comfortab…

When is the last time you were in Germany? Was it perhaps in the 80th around Berlin?

The only reason why it's rarely a topic is because people just don't care enough to start talking about it.

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then most of the world isn't free I fear. Why should it be legal to publicly insult someone? You can't punch people in the USA. Does that make the country not particularly free?

Some states in the US allow "mutual combat", meaning that if both parties agree to fight you actually can legally punch people in the US.

I assume other countries allowing boxing matches?

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#148
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...yes it was.

Well, it had been, but it's not anymore. He moved.

If he's willing to call it his house, we should be too.

> "My house was searched at 6:00 this morning. Six officers in the apartment," wrote the suspect

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#149
post #26

As a German I have to emphasize that this has no support at all in Germany. The uproar was huge today and its seen as a misuse of power by the politician. Especially as he is not acting as a politician but as representative of the public office of interior. The search warrant needs to be issued by a judge and I'm sure there will be formal investigations how this happened. I would not be surprised if he will be forced…

It's still a fact that in Germany you have to be careful how you express yourself. It was a total shock to me to arrive in the States and hear my cab driver unload on the US President at the time. He really wasn't choosing his words very carefully, to the point that I had to wonder if this was some kind of a test by the INS. I still chuckle today about how my views have changed since then, and how much more comfortab…

I'm not German, but I have noticed quite the opposite just yesterday actually:

Some non-german person posted a picture of Angela Merkel and highlighted how incredible she is and humble and all the good work she did and how she should be an example for their own (the posters) country and other politicians in the world.

The result: Lots of people agreed with the overall sentiment and applauded her achievements... well, besides German LinkedIn users, many went full "Reddit" (on LinkedIn)... Many "not nice words were written" by people using their professional profile - it was surreal to see.

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure as a member of that culture, your opinions are opinions are not at all influenced by any number of different political, nationalistic or cultural biases. But from the perspective of an outsider, you have all of the same criminal statutes against speech that most other western democracies have been gradually implementing. The only thing that’s slightly different about Germany, is that you also have defamation…

You argue that the Germans have let the lawmakers erode the law of free speech over time. This does not make sense, since the laws and the system allowing for the abuse of power by this minister are very old. The fact that this could have been abused for the last 50 years and happened only now seems to strongly suggest that your argument does not hold true.

Whether this particular case would have been enforceable 50 years ago or not doesn’t undermine my point at all. Germany (like almost every other western democracy) has been slowly eroding freedom of expression liberties. However restrictive the country was 50 years ago, it’s more restrictive now, both as existing laws as applied to novel new speech suppression scenarios, and as new laws are created. As recently as 2017 (as far as I’m aware) Germany has been legislating new speech criminalizations (with the Network Enforcement Act), which was rather widely criticized for suppressing freedom of expression and the press.
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