Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws” • Hacker News Board

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#131

Post by mannerheim » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #106

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #98

This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. What this is all about is incremental conditioning towards normalizing censorship for "local law" violations … the same kinds of wanton "laws" conjured up by all the dictatorial regimes that all the western societies are quickly drifting towards. The German government has even tried attacking Gab, an…

>This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. They are. The operators of the channel have an open arrest warrant for inciting hatred, denying the holocaust and death threats against public and private persons. > wholly based in the USA because it does not like things on the website that are no only legal in the USA, protected by the fundamental…

> That changes when the "wholly USA" website is being used by German citizens, who are under jurisdiction.

Then block the website in your country. If I have no physical, legal, or economic presence in your country, I shouldn't expect to have to follow your laws. Do I need to start enforcing Thai lèse majesté laws too, now?

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#132

Post by ls15 » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

Arnt wrote: post #119

ls15 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix has "rooms".

Do rooms work like a blog/feeds/readers? I thought they were more like Signal's groups.

I think threaded discussions are planned, but so far it is only for linear discussions.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#133

Post by YEwSdObPQT » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #110

YEwSdObPQT wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not the American way but I’m quite ok with Germany doing this. Why? Germany has literally criminalised thinking the wrong things and denies people to associate freely based on the things that they happen to think. It doesn't stop those people thinking those things and it doesn't stop people from associating with each other.

> Germany has literally criminalised thinking the wrong things, and denies people to associate freely based on the things that they happen to think. Yeah, like "all jews should be killed". Good thing. > It doesn't stop those people thinking those things and it doesn't stop people from associating with each other. It prevents such things from being normalized and makes it harder for them to be put in action. Yeah, I k…

> Yeah, like "all jews should be killed". Good thing.

Do you think it stops them from thinking that? Because you made is illegal.

It doesn't.

> It prevents such things from being normalized and makes it harder for them to be put in action.

This gets trotted out all the time and it is nothing but a sound bite. I haven't met anyone hear about an atrocity and genuinely say it was a good thing.

> Yeah, I know what you learned in school that this is worse than actual mass murder, and that everyone should be allowed to advocate for mass murder so that they can be disputed in the "marketplace of ideas".

No I didn't learn this in school. I have no memory of this ever being discussed at school.

I read lots of books about things like maintaining political power, how the state works and economics and I came to this conclusion myself.

> In reality, what you get is echo chambers that lead people to believe that they're part of a majority who thinks that mass murder (of the right groups, of course) is good, and then some of them start to think that it's up to them to just go and do it.

That doesn't happen. In fact the opposite happens. If you stop people from talking freely what happens is that they will only talk with people that they believe to be on their side.

> In reality, criminalizing thinking certain clearly defined wrong things protects the freedom of everyone.

It literally doesn't. Because it allows other less odious things to be criminalised when it is criminally expedient. That is because the precedent has been set.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#134

Post by mannerheim » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #127

mannerheim wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the German government has a novel interpretation of their jurisdiction as covering any website with content in the German language (see the Project Gutenberg debacle).

On one hand, they can believe in many things, including jurisdictions, on the other hand, what can they actually do, against a company that is registered in some other country and abiding the laws there?

Presumably they could arrest you if you're ever in Germany.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#135

Post by _-david-_ » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

delecti wrote: post #55

thgaFa wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's pretty "no true Scottsman". Some of the Ottawa protesters are waving swastika flags. If it walks like a duck and waves duck flags. Sources citing the presence of swastika flags, (linking multiple because a couple are paywalled): https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/canada/ottawa-truck... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/thousands-protest-covid... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ottawa-covid-trucker-…

The person you are talking to is talking about US free speech. I am not sure if you are aware of this, but Ottawa is not in the US.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#136

Post by hutzlibu » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

YEwSdObPQT wrote: post #108

hutzlibu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Germany's constitution explicitly denies freedom of speech to Nazis." Not exactly like this. You are allowed to speak your mind as a Nazi. You may say you are a Nazi and also say why you think they are superior etc. blablabla. You are not allowed, to wear certain symbols of NS times (swastika and co) and you are not allowed to deny that the holocaust happened and to glorify certain SS organisations.

So you aren't allowed to speak freely and they are controlling what people can and can't wear? So they do deny freedom of speech and freedom of expression to people that the government doesn't like (in this case Neo-Nazis). The amount of mental gymnastics people do is astounding.

"So they do deny freedom of speech and freedom of expression to people that the government doesn't like "

Of course they do, every state on earth limits freedom of speech. In germany regarding certain topics even more so. But nazis are still allowed to express their ideology. This is a difference to a time, when also this was forbidden. (for example in the NS area)

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#137

Post by hedora » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #106

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #98

This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. What this is all about is incremental conditioning towards normalizing censorship for "local law" violations … the same kinds of wanton "laws" conjured up by all the dictatorial regimes that all the western societies are quickly drifting towards. The German government has even tried attacking Gab, an…

>This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. They are. The operators of the channel have an open arrest warrant for inciting hatred, denying the holocaust and death threats against public and private persons. > wholly based in the USA because it does not like things on the website that are no only legal in the USA, protected by the fundamental…

Two things:

1) If the site is run as a tor endpoint, and says "no German users allowed", I wonder how the jurisdiction thing plays out. (Yes, I'm asking HN for legal advice!)

2) The US recently had Mein Kampf toting neo-nazis working in the white house (Trump's PR team didn't even bother hiding this, and publicly praise Hitler's propaganda machine.) So, the US is pretty far down the Paradox of Tolerance rathole. At some point we'll need to flip the "Nazis must die!" bit like we did in WWII, unless the GOP corrects it's own course.

Apparently Pence publicly disagreed with our deposed dictator about the VP's ability to unilaterally overthrow elections. Trump didn't resort to name calling like he usually does. (Over 70% of Trump voters and 75% of Americans agree with Pence on this, for what it's worth.)

Maybe there's still reason to hope the US isn't headed to some sort of Apartheid-style "democracy", where idiots run everything and just ignore election results. Maybe?

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#138

Post by YEwSdObPQT » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #126

YEwSdObPQT wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not the American way but I’m quite ok with Germany doing this. Why? Germany has literally criminalised thinking the wrong things and denies people to associate freely based on the things that they happen to think. It doesn't stop those people thinking those things and it doesn't stop people from associating with each other.

It's ok because the thoughts they ban are not novel, they had their time and were thoroughly executed on. You'll have hard time convincing anyone that thought "Jews are inferior race and should be exterminated" should have the same right to be considered as any other. When we already thought this thought extensively and even based our actions on it and it led only to unprecedented nhuman suffering.

> It's ok because the thoughts they ban are not novel, they had their time and were thoroughly executed on.

"Because it is not new it is okay". Sorry that isn't very convincing.

The issue is that if you ban one set of ideas you have set a precedent to ban other ideas that aren't as odious.

Using the same justification you can criminalise believing in the Earth is flat or any other fringe idea.

> You'll have hard time convincing anyone that thought "Jews are inferior race and should be exterminated" should have the same right to be considered as any other. When we already thought this thought extensively and even based our actions on it and it led only to unprecedented nhuman suffering.

I am not saying they should be considered equally. I am not saying that those ideas are equal. I am saying that someone shouldn't be criminalised for thinking or expressing such ideas.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#139

Post by YEwSdObPQT » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

Arnt wrote: post #122

YEwSdObPQT wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying that the laws in place haven't worked?

The bans seem to work, AFAICT, but only after each ban takes effect, not before.

So you don't know?

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#140

Post by hedora » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #94

pessimizer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are many banned named groups. Germany is not unique in this. That's a thing foreign to the US that Americans may not understand, which is why I mentioned it. I can start a group called the "Destroy The Government Now Neo-Nazis" in the US with no fear that it will ever be banned.

> I can start a group called the "Destroy The Government Now Neo-Nazis" in the US with no fear that it will ever be banned. Gang injunctions (sufficiently, but not exclusively) prove that this is not true.

Neo-Nazis are good white Christian folks. Domestic terrorism and gang laws don't apply to them.

(I wish I was joking.)