161–170 of 228 posts
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So you don't know?
Banned groups largely stop recruiting and killing. But then, in a different universe, maybe they would have stopped recruiting and killing even without the ban. How would you know?
It still doesn't justify curtailing individual liberties anyway.
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"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.
At that point, the choice is not between "freedom of speech" and "censorship". It's "censor the Nazi" or "let the Nazi censor everyone else". You must choose the option that preserves the most freedom of speech.
And this goes for every other entity that threatens violence - not just Nazis. I'm only mentioning them because we're talking about the German legal conception of freedom of expression. Nobody says "I'm going to kill you" for the sake of it; they say it to terrorize other people into doing things they want, including things like not saying words they don't want spoken. This also goes for threatening violence against groups of people rather than speakers of certain words, and political speech that proposes using the state as a means to do the above. All of that is censorious, and as far as I'm concerned a definition of freedom of speech that does not include freedom from threats of violence is incomplete.
That being said, censorship by terrorism should be construed narrowly. One might have thoughts of, say, radical Islamic terrorism while reading the above paragraph. This would be an example of censorious speech. However, ISIS, Boko Haram, and/or the Taliban making use of censorious threats does not mean that the entire religion of Islam is guilty of the same thing. Same thing for Nazis or neo-Nazis - they don't make Christians or neo-pagans valid targets of censorship just because they happen to belong to the same religion.
[0] Or at least, some long chain of escalating legalistic rituals that we call a lawsuit, which is backed by the government's monopoly over violence within an area. This is a distinction without a difference.
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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.
If removing threats of violence is considered censorship, then the word "censorship" has no meaning. Think about it: how does censorship really occur? Do governments cast a magic spell that makes it so that the words can't come out of your mouth? No. They threaten violence[0], in order to punish you for saying the thing you don't want to say, which creates a chilling effect. This is no different than what Nazis do -…
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>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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If removing threats of violence is considered censorship, then the word "censorship" has no meaning. Think about it: how does censorship really occur? Do governments cast a magic spell that makes it so that the words can't come out of your mouth? No. They threaten violence[0], in order to punish you for saying the thing you don't want to say, which creates a chilling effect. This is no different than what Nazis do -…
Denying the holocaust didn't happen isn't a threat of violence. It is saying that something didn't happen.
Also a threat of violence has to be credible.
> At that point, the choice is not between "freedom of speech" and "censorship". It's "censor the Nazi" or "let the Nazi censor everyone else". You must choose the option that preserves the most freedom of speech.
This is a false dichotomy.
> And this goes for every other entity that threatens violence - not just Nazis. I'm only mentioning them because we're talking about the German legal conception of freedom of expression. Nobody says "I'm going to kill you" for the sake of it; they say it to terrorize other people into doing things they want, including things like not saying words they don't want spoken. This also goes for threatening violence against groups of people rather than speakers of certain words, and political speech that proposes using the state as a means to do the above. All of that is censorious, and as far as I'm concerned a definition of freedom of speech that does not include freedom from threats of violence is incomplete.
Your conception of freedom of speech isn't freedom of speech. It is "freedom to hear things that aren't too unpleasant".
As for the the chilling effect might work with some people. It won't work with others. With me it wouldn't work. I would tell them to "fuck around and find out". I won't live in fear.
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This isn't about "anti-mandate" discussion, it's about blocking the channel of someone (Avocadolf) who's got an open arrest warrant for inciting hatred and denying the holocaust as well as death threats to politicians (actual threats, not just dancing around the issue). I believe death threats are illegal even in the US.
Death threats are illegal pretty much everywhere but not necessarily subject to censorship. The threat is the crime, not the content. If someone is already dead, I can safely print a whole hardcover book of death threats against them. On the other hand, forcibly removing content for the sake of the content is censorship. It can be censorship that most people approve of - which they usually do when the content is suff…
And yes, content was censored on. But not only death threats were censored but also holocaust denial, eugenics and inciting hatred against ethnic groups (Jewish groups, specifically).
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>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 Germans will have to prosecute those going to the website and using it or remove it from German DNS servers. Germany has no right to try and limit the rights of US citizens by extension of limiting those of Germans. > I's not about "disparaging things about the ", it's about running a website or service and…
And? That's exactly what happened. The Telegram Operators were given a choice and they picked. If a US operator is given the same choice, they can pick no business with German users or remove the content the germans don't like. If they pick the later, you have no business to complain about that, really, since it doesn't affect you as US citizen.
>As much as I hate the Nazis, Nazi sentiment is not illegal in the USA as long as they stay within the law. The German government has no right to push their ideology and laws here. Again block Germans from the site or sue to have Parler block German user IP addresses (good luck with that, it won't last 5 minutes before the judge laughs and says "next case")
Nazis have no right to push their ideology here. Nor should they have anywhere. "They ought to be hammered back into the holes they crawled out of" to cite a recently popular music single in germany. All their ideology leads to is authoritarianism, oppression, violence and war.
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>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 s…
Ask your lawyer. Not any lawyer but yours. Anyone else answering is likely to give you bad answers, especially on HN.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That changes when the "wholly USA" website is being used by German citizens, who are under jurisdiction. Then Germans will have to prosecute those going to the website and using it or remove it from German DNS servers. Germany has no right to try and limit the rights of US citizens by extension of limiting those of Germans. > I's not about "disparaging things about the ", it's about running a website or service and…
>Then Germans will have to prosecute those going to the website and using it or remove it from German DNS servers. Germany has no right to try and limit the rights of US citizens by extension of limiting those of Germans. And? That's exactly what happened. The Telegram Operators were given a choice and they picked. If a US operator is given the same choice, they can pick no business with German users or remove the co…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
Well you don't. Telegram blocked the channel in germany. So I don't get what your anger is all about then. Telegram Operators were given the choice of leaving germany entirely and blocking users there, be blocked by germany or remove the channel. They choose their favorite option.
This should not be the responsibility of the website owner to comply with the laws of a country they don't have a presence in, presumably under threat of either extradition or arrest if they one day happen to enter the borders of the country.
If the website doesn't comply with the laws of the country, that country should block it, and that should be the extent to the action they can reasonably take. Unless you think Belarus should be able to arrest somebody passing through their airspace because, say, some other individual made a comment critical of Lukashenko on their blog?