German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by germanier » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 10:33 AM UTC

norikki wrote: post #155

Grollicus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'hate speech' is an oversimplification chosen by the media. The law acually forces large social media companies in germany to remove illegal* content from their site within one week. Context is that Facebook has been ignoring illegal* content on their site and generally made an ass out of german law enforcement, so they got a law to rein them in. *illegal: libel, Volksverhetzung ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksv…

According to that wikipedia article, the German law translates Volksverhetzung into English as "incitement to hatred". So no, saying that Germany has banned 'hate speech' is not an oversimplification chosen by the media. You are intentionally conflating politically incorrect opinions about immigration (aka 'hate speech') with child porn and violent threats.

Volksverhetzung is very precisely defined by decades of legal precedent and much narrower than what an English speaker would think of when hearing "hate speech". Just because translations made for the convenience of non-German speakers chose a specific translation doesn't mean that it captures the meaning with all attached connotations well.

Two examples (without saying anything about the validity of the claim): "Recent immigrations are responsible for violent crime including rape. To protect our people we need to reform our immigration policy" – absolutely fine. "Gang-raping immigrants are roaming our streets. We need to wipe them out before it's too late" is not. You are not helping political discourse with the latter either.

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

#212

Post by germanier » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 10:39 AM UTC

synotna wrote: post #194

nine_k wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter, if it wants to continue operating in Germany without facing lawsuits / prosecution, has to bow to German law. It would be better if they could just reliably block the account from reaching German users only, while other users would continue reading the tweets. It, of course, is impossible unless Germany implements a country-wide firewall, the way China did. I don't think it's likely, though. The point of act…

Reddit does geofence some subreddits in at least Germany, returning status code 451

Which they are not forced to do as there is no such law that binds foreign companies that would apply to those subreddits. They preemptively blocked it completely after they received a letter with some questions by a German government agency that was thinking about including a subreddit into an official block list used by (voluntary to use) youth-protection software or Google. Even if it had been included in the list, it would have been accessible from Germany.

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

#213

Post by raguuu » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 10:47 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #139

steveeq1 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is a very strong requirement because it means the song must be theoretically able to disturb the peace in germany, eg. incite riots or something equally drastic. Many american rap songs do just exactly this, and it's not satirical. Sometimes rap songs do mentioning killing jews specifically although it is relatively rare. Most of the time it talks about killing other black people, which falls under the second part…

'Many American rap songs' incite riots? this is news to me.

Ghetto culture?

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

#214

Post by kikimaru » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 10:59 AM UTC

InternetUser wrote: post #210

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 have been and still am friends with people who have all sorts of prejudiced views, ranging from those who hate particular ethnic groups and nationalities (including my own), to those who disparage and insult those with different interests of educational backgrounds (such as one friend who is an I.T. guy and who constantly refers to non-I.T. people, even within his own family in shocking misanthropistic terms). Ever…

Is it "fucking USERS, man"?

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

#215

Post by raisspen » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 11:21 AM UTC

tuxxy wrote: post #207

King-Aaron wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they're all keeping their racist opinions to themselves, I might waste a bunch of time being their friends I have several friends who I know hold some less-than-sociable opinions, and they do tend to keep them to themselves. I don't quite know how to frame what I'm about to say, but I feel it's equally dickish to think that becoming someone's friend is a "waste of time" just because you don't agree with their op…

I don't think that not wanting to be friends with someone because they want your kids to die for being Jewish is necessarily a dickish thing. It's an extreme example, yet an unfortunate practical one today.

Or you could take the route which others have taken, and show them why their ideas are wrong through your actions. There are plenty of examples of extremists being converted through friendship.

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

#216

Post by soziawa » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 11:44 AM UTC

echlebek wrote: post #190

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…

This is not true. Hate speech laws are designed to address speech that promotes violence against identifiable groups of people. For example, Canada's hate speech law: http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-73.html#h-... Section 318 says that you can't incite genocide. Fair enough right? Section 319 says that you can't say things that willfully promotes hatred against an identifiable group. (Unless those th…

> I can't comment on the German law since I don't know German, but I'd imagine it's similar in nature.

Not at all. This forces Twitter to remove things that could be hate speech within 24 hours or face a fine. If they remove things that are not hate speech for being hate speech they don't get a fine. Of course they'll remove as many things as possible. That's the problem with the new german law.

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

#217

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 11:50 AM UTC

raisspen wrote: post #215

tuxxy wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that not wanting to be friends with someone because they want your kids to die for being Jewish is necessarily a dickish thing. It's an extreme example, yet an unfortunate practical one today.

Or you could take the route which others have taken, and show them why their ideas are wrong through your actions. There are plenty of examples of extremists being converted through friendship.

> There are plenty of examples of extremists being converted through friendship.

But equally there are plenty of examples of extremists killing people who are trying to show them why their ideas are wrong.

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

#218

Post by musage » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #178

musage wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitler wasn't elected, he was appointed. Which doesn't take away from your point, but it's really astonishing how such easy to correct falsehoods about such a deeply important subject just linger on and get repeated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_presidential_election,_... The Nazis lied and cheated and murdered their way to power, make no mistake about it. And that was kind of like an onion, too, in that ever…

Hitler lost the direct presidential election, but Hindenburg (his competitor in that election) didn't appoint him as chancellor for no reason; Hitler's NSDAP was the largest party in the Reichstag, and was therefore a natural choice for forming a government. That's roughly the same level of democratic legitimacy as that of any other German chancellor since. The Nazis also lied and cheated and murdered, but it wasn't…

> it wasn't necessary for their rise to power [..] they could have

So you may claim, and I disagree. Importantly, "they could have" != "they did".

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

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Post by nsnick » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

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.

If you are not sure, I say we err on the side of freedom of speech.

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

#220

Post by jsjohnst » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #181

labster wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet is a terrible safety valve to vent at, because it's too easy to pretend what you say doesn't have consequences. One tweet by a dude having a bad day can help normalize stereotyping to 50 people. And there's always that other guy who takes things too far. I know that people might intend Twitter or blogs to be for friends, but it's mass media nonetheless.

See, philosophically stereotyping doesn't have to be a "bad thing". When I went to school there we "polack" jokes, blond/e jokes, yo mamma jokes, etc. They were not "mean" or meant to denigrate people. They were ways to "break the ice" as it were. But nowadays people are super sensitive, unless it's a majority or almost majority population, or it has power, unless it has power but it's also seen as being singled out…

> They were not "mean" or meant to denigrate people.

I don’t know how things were where you lived, but where I grew up, those types of jokes were definitely meant to be mean and hurtful. I speak from experience when I say that the repeated mental abuse from peers taken as a child can have long term effects on one’s psyche.