Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against online hate speech

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by Certhas on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:01PM (#24982148)

No we don't. The law is against insulting people, not against "saying stuff we don't like on the internet". The laws predate the internet by decades. The freedom to express your opinion is constitutionally protected, this does not cover all speech acts, in Germany and everywhere (see slander laws). Courts protect this constitutional guarantee, as several recent cases showed. Vigorously enforcing laws against insults and other speech acts that are hostile towards constructive discourse seems to me to be the only way forward when it comes to restoring a semblance of sanity to societal conversation. The social networks by themselves have proven to be utterly incapable of doing so.

The most comprehensive survey on various freedoms in the World that I know of ranks Germany at 94, ahead of France at 90 and the US at 86. (100 is the perfect score)

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-cou...

Freedom of speech is also a guaranteed right in the German constitution, as it is in the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

In every jurisdiction there are limits to the freedom of speech. This applies to the US as well as everywhere else:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by Lambdanaut on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:05PM (#24982181)

In this case, the content of the insult is a subset of "stuff we don't like" said over the Internet.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by mariusor on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @04:14AM (#24987509)

Well, not really. On a summary Wikipedia[0] investigation you can find that the UN definition of freedom of speech also contains caveats[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#cite_note-3

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20080705115024/http://www2.ohchr...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by systemvoltage on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:06PM (#24982197)

Can you now explain what is considered hate speech? You've just painted a pretty convincing argument on one side (Freedom of Speech).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by strawberrypuree on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:19PM (#24982338)

Here's the English translation of Section 130: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stg...

Which might help explain what is considered hate speech. These discussions tend to devolve (as all good online discussions do) into the nuance and what-about's. It's the role of the courts to determine that, and it's an ever-evolving collection of legal precedent as a result.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by cblconfederate on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:20PM (#24982352)

If that standard was applied worldwide, there would be hundreds of lawsuits here, on HN every day (and HN is heavily moderated). It s one of the reasons why no social media can grow in europe.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by content_sesh on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:32PM (#24982500)

There are hundreds of attacks every day on HN against people on account of their belonging to a national, racial, or religious group? Guess I've been missing all the spicy comments

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by cblconfederate on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:33PM (#24982509)

parent said "The law is against insulting people"

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by type0 on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @03:25PM (#24983591)

yeah I know these terrible attacks hurt someones feelings every single day, by that measure half of HN posters should be raided, and the other half deserves to be raided for being spineless spice hating mongrels

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by op03 on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:09PM (#24982232)

Above all, dont insult the German football team.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by type0 on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @03:16PM (#24983503)

and politicians

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by xupybd on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:04PM (#24982176)

I'm not sure how insulting people can be a crime?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by s9w on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:09PM (#24982231)

Insulting is explicitly illegal in Germany. In person or internet, doesn't matter.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by tpush on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:58PM (#24982748)

You’re getting downvoted, but it’s true: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by antpls on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @05:55PM (#24993924)

From the link, not every insult is punished :

"Mutual exchange of insults

If an insult is immediately reciprocated, the court may declare one or both of the persons involved in the exchange of insults not to be liable to punishment."

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by s9w on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:10PM (#24982857)

There's a group of people downvoting everything I post, even about c++. No worries

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by ummonk on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:15PM (#24982299)

Freedom of speech is not guaranteed in Germany. If it were, holocaust denial wouldn’t get people jailed.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by InterMilan on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @04:45AM (#24987663)

Remind me of a time I was in Germany. I was out with some friends (none of us was german) and one friend joked about hitler, he put a finger over his mustache and did the hitler salute to tell a joke. A guy who was standing next to us came running and said you will get jailed if the police who were close to us see you. So much for freedom to tell a joke. It seems this is the norm, so be careful when in Germany [1].

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40842853

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by s9w on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:17PM (#24982324)

Well it's one of the typical lawyer tricks. There is a paragraph in the constitution that explicitly grants you freedom of speech. There's also others that more or less say you get to jail for saying xyz. Unfortunately, law is not a program that has to compile.

Then put selective enforcement on top and you have a very powerful weapon that gets great PR ("against hate").

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @04:26PM (#24984193)

No, there is no such paragraph. The German constitution guarantees freedom of opinion - not speech.

So you can’t get prosecuted for disliking someone (and saying so) but you can for saying insulting or untrue (e.g. holocaust denial) things - those are not opinions.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Germany raided 83 homes in coordinated raids against onli... by s9w on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @03:48AM (#24987382)

Well you can get convicted for saying you like a joke. That did happen.

[ Parent | on HN ]