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German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

reuters.com

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Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#101

Post by Amezarak »

shaki-dora wrote: post #43
nsnick wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter should not enforce ridiculous German laws. The tech companies need to call the bluff of countries that demand censorship.

That's such a juvenile reaction... Germany is considering a stable, open, democratic, peaceful, constructive and successful country. There are any number of rankings/scoring regarding freedom of the press and of expression, resilience to corruption, democracy, economic opportunity etc in which Germany scores better than the US. These are laws passed by the national parliament, elected to represent its constituents. T…

> There are any number of rankings/scoring regarding freedom of the press and of expression, resilience to corruption, democracy, economic opportunity etc in which Germany scores better than the US.

One of the reasons people regard these rankings as a total joke is exactly because of incidents like this - Twitter being forced to delete satirical tweets.

More broadly, I think most people would agree that beyond the extremes (say, US vs North Korea), the precise rankings of countries on these metrics are based on questionable methodologies with vague priors and are generated largely by politically motivated organizations.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#102

Post by Pica_soO »

nailer wrote: post #58
IBM wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany does have a good record with the former considering that they've completely denazified themselves while remaining a liberal democracy. The fact is that Germany is the perfect counterpoint to the, frankly tired, slippery slope arguments made by the libertarians of Silicon Valley. And I enjoy seeing them try to explain it.

Germany generally has more members of the far right than than the UK and France, despite having laws against expressing these ideas.

Also these have been shown that they have a solid power block of around 40 % in society, the illusion of some outliers, that can be put back into the box wont take hold once more.

The outrage powering the likes of the AFD is partially due to hundreds robbed of their ability to articulate their opinions while being declared non existent or terrorists by media campaigns. The dschinn is out of the lamp and all of polishing and rubbing wont house him again.

All that remains is housing this political opinions in a party that slowly civilizes them - by taking them serious where they have a base and taking them apart, where science can come to the rescue. Until recently the left had for uncomfortable questions no decent answer except loud screams.

A recent article here on HN, which explained why cultures with entrenched polygamy are prone to more instability. Instead of taking this and running with it, trying to stabilize North africa and taking a teeth from the racists- the usual subjects where found and rallied against.

This sort of laws do not protect civilization, they hide a problem, and prevent its resolution in debate. Not accepting cultures who obviously are erroding democratic societys (like runaway exponential captialism or islam/ extremist christianity) has nothing to do with racism or foreignfear. Its valid critique- and a society should be allowed to demand the removal of commendments/indoctrinations of cultures who have such a history. The stomach can not be allowed to dissolve itself. To clarify, the member of the culture is still part of the society and citizen, in my eyes -unless he explicitly chooses his believe over his citizenship - and a "paradise" on earth exists. Then he/she/it is free to migrate to whatever statefull-dystopia or tax-free-heaven promises ascension.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#103

Post by abiox »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #54
abiox wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> criminalizing speech to stop the spread of fascist ideas i wonder... is that actually something that works? or does it just mean fascist ideas gain a more polite presentation?

The thing is it does work. Because it forces the rotten core of the ideas to the forefront. It's the difference between having to enumerate all the people the mob think should be dead (which ironically is probably a collection of disjointed sets) vs just waving a flag and gathering all that hate anyone . By criminalizing specific icons of hate, you can rob those who would build a following from using them as a rallyi…

> Because it forces the rotten core of the ideas to the forefront.

it seems to me it would do the opposite. it simply requires that one pursue the same goal in a more polite manner, to avoid being put in prison for one's words. ideas and intents can be rendered in a vast array of ways.

> By criminalizing specific icons of hate, you can rob those who would build a following from using them as a rallying point.

i don't see how. all this means is that people will use allusions, metaphors or otherwise use substitutes for that 'icon', whatever it is. or even just endorse similar policies, concepts or other things. or instead of being against x, they'll be for y. etc.

the real way to "stop" ideas (rather, the way to sway the majority of people) is showing why an idea isn't great and presenting a better idea. with logic and reason.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#104

Post by sintaxi »

Razengan wrote: post #77
everdev wrote: post #8

This is exactly the moral dilemma with free speech vs hate speech. Do you use fascist techniques like criminalizing speech to stop the spread of fascist ideas? Or do you simply hope fascist ideas don't take hold? The former is a scary slippery slope but Germany doesn't have a great track record with the latter.

> the moral dilemma Why is it so hard to codify “Don’t be a dick to anyone” into a law? (non-rhetorical question)

It already is, just some people want want to extend the law to force people to think & behave the way they want them to. American law covers everything necessary for every individual to live a civilized life where they can pursue happiness and meaning as they choose to define it.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#105

Post by Mithaldu »

danschumann wrote: post #57

The problem with hate speech laws are, it means you can't insult everyone equally. If you call someone stupid, they could accuse you of a crime, but you're not calling them stupid because of their race. And I want people who actually are racist to talk, so I know who I don't want to be friends with. If they're all keeping their racist opinions to themselves, I might waste a bunch of time being their friends. And I ca…

> I want people who actually are racist to talk, so I know who I don't want to be friends with.

I keep seeing this statement, but all i can think is:

Fuck, i wish i was lucky enough to have so few racists around me to be able to think i can spare the time and mental health for additional ones.

Good for you, be glad you apparently have few to none racists around you, so you don't know what it's like when there's tons of them and they all talk unhindered.

Edit: LMAO, i do wonder what kind of people i managed to upset with this.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#106

Post by Mithaldu »

olivermarks wrote: post #70

That term 'hate speech' - what does it actually mean? This seems like another assault on free speech to me and there is a danger in limiting the online Overton Window to a massive bland snooze fest. The current joy of the internet is being able to read all sorts of perspectives from 'sensible' to radical and I really hope that continues...I worry for all the citizen journalists and investigators who have been so magn…

> That term 'hate speech' - what does it actually mean?

Read §1(3).

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/netzdg/BJNR335210017.html...

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#107

Post by steveeq1 »

Grollicus wrote: post #99
steveeq1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you hold that same opinion if the thing said were, say, violent american black rap lyrics?

I don't understand your meaning, sorry. Do you mean would I want to see 'violent american black rap lyrics' banned? Depends on what is said I guess? If theres a song about 'kill all the jews' we've had enough of that shit here 70 years ago. Generally german courts are very narrow about what is Volksverhetzung. If you run afoul of it you are very far away from any sensible discussion. The law is basically "don't (1)in…

> I don't understand your meaning, sorry.

Meaning if there's american rap song about killing people, do germans ban it? These violent lyrics seem to fall under the law as you described.

Also, are violent american rap songs banned (in practice) in germany? Do germans have this same negative attitude to american "thugs"?

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#108

Post by sintaxi »

somenewacc wrote: post #42
nsnick wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not. Germany can block twitter, but I don't think the German people will accept that. Countries that love censorship need to realize that if they want to be part of the global discourse, they need to be part of all of the global discourse.

I'm not sure that calls for genocide are part of the global discourse.

That isn't an argument. People who call for genocide can be charged with a crime. There is no reason to remove the content from public record until there is a conviction, and even then there is an argument to be made to leave the content online as an example of what not to say if you want to stay out of jail.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#109

Post by nailer »

kofejnik wrote: post #89
everdev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-Immigration != Racism Saying you don't want immigration isn't racist if it applies to more than just immigration from certain racial groups. However, her tweet was not about that. She called out Muslims as having certain behaviors which is clearly racist.

the left are constantly calling out Christians for certain behaviors, is this racist?

I dislike stuffed crust pizzas, which are also not a race, but I imagine everdev considers that racist too.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#110

Post by abiox »

Grollicus wrote: post #99
steveeq1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you hold that same opinion if the thing said were, say, violent american black rap lyrics?

I don't understand your meaning, sorry. Do you mean would I want to see 'violent american black rap lyrics' banned? Depends on what is said I guess? If theres a song about 'kill all the jews' we've had enough of that shit here 70 years ago. Generally german courts are very narrow about what is Volksverhetzung. If you run afoul of it you are very far away from any sensible discussion. The law is basically "don't (1)in…

> we've had enough of that shit here 70 years ago.

you had a military dictatorship. it couldn't be opposed or contested by anyone, because you and/or your family would just be killed.

german citizens couldn't stop the killing any more than russians could stop millions from being killed.

that was the fundamental problem. dictators do as they please. criminalizing the speech of random bob under a democratic government isn't doing much of anything, and these laws mean nothing to a dictator.

what actually matters is having a democratic government that is beholden to the citizenry. if anything this speech criminalization is a theater of sorts that makes you less safe.

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