This isn't a contradiction unless you view everything through an American cultural lens. There is no conception of absolute freedom of speech in Germany. The public sphere in Germany is not the Wild West, never has been, never will be and has always been subject to considerations about what is in the public interest. In public you're not just an individual, you're a "Staatsbürger", a citizen of the state, and you have not only privileges but obligations to maintain public life.
Right to your data, your own body, your private communication, your own image, and so forth is part of the private sphere and personal, and as such enjoys much more protection.
If anything, having lived in both the US and Germany, I feel more free in Germany. As an example, Google would not have been able to fire James Damore for his memo here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#G...
a.) Lots of people appear to be doing it:
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=mord%20an%20Oury%20Jalloh
What exactly do you fear the repercussions would be?
b.) Accusations of a crime presented as a fact appear to be "libel per se" in the US, so quite actionable:
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Criminal+libe...
"Freedom of speech, also called free speech, means the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...
(Emphasis mine).
Specifically: "The First Amendment's constitutional right of free speech, which is applicable to state and local governments under the incorporation doctrine,[6] prevents only government restrictions on speech, not restrictions imposed by private individuals or businesses unless they are acting on behalf of the government.[7]"
So companies can restrict your speech all day long, as happened with James Damore.
"However, laws may restrict the ability of private businesses and individuals from restricting the speech of others, such as employment laws that restrict employers' ability to prevent employees from disclosing their salary to coworkers or attempting to organize a labor union.[8]"
But that is not the 1st amendment or general FoS legislation, but specifically employment laws. And employment laws are notoriously employer-friendly and employee-hostile in the US.
That's not about privacy.
And with good reason. Smallpox, rabies, tetanus, and tuberculosis are practically extinct in Western Europe because of vaccines. Let's try to add Covid to that list, please?
Very crass statement, esp. considering it's Germany we're talking about.
This is literally what is done to people that are unconscious and connected to the IV. Yes,.blood is also "some chemical"
The quote goes "[…] last resort of the incompetent", see <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Foundation_(1951)>.
Impotent does not make sense here, the state is actually the entity that society grants the greatest power: monopoly of violence and decisions over medical autonomy and life and death.
There's also alternative ways to promote vaccination and, above all, to ensure anti-vaxxers cannot jeopardise public health.
Also: over 8.120.000.000 doses have been administered worldwide. If there would have been conaiderable side effects, even the rarest of the rarest ones would have shown up by now. The idea that there are delayed effects showing up after years is a myth that stems from a misunderstanding of the word "long term side effects". The long term here doesn't mean the effects show up after a long term. It means the effects show up nearly immidiately, but came to stay long term.
Any society has to weigh the right of its citizens. If a mass murderer kills a ton of people, he breaks others rights to a high enough level that the state can harm their rights by jailing them. If a person doesn't vaccinate (which in practise does no harm to them besides a little sting, as we know now) they also impact the rights of others: the rest of society has to stay home in lockdowns, businesses have to close, they potentially block the health system and endager themselves and other people, etc.
From a state perspective that has to balance these rights the decision is clear.
My point isn’t the number itself, but are you not being a little bit intellectually dishonest right now?
Isn't this just some kind of bias? For example reporting and spreading information is easier than it was in 1970s, or that we take any suspected side effect for real these days?
> that barely protect some of the people
The ratio in ICUs is currently 1:5 to 1:10 in my country, showing a protection of 80 to 90% of the people (https://ockovani.opendatalab.cz/statistiky). In other countries, for example Israel (https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/general), it's about the same. That's not "barely" and "some", I think this is comparable with efficiency of other vaccines.
I understand being anti government and fact rejecting is the new green, but I doubt it'll help you long-term.
Hitler literally used compulsory medical treatment (sometimes via injections) to sterilise people without consent (and sometimes without the victim knowing what had happened): http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/payzer2/.
Flamebait like that is egregiously against the site guidelines and will get you banned here. No more of this, please.
We'd appreciate it if you'd please stop posting flamewar comments and ideological battle comments to HN in general. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. I'm not going to ban you, because you've also been posting some good comments, but please stick to those in the future.
You are not allowed to do certain stuff in a society, and the society has a variety of enforcement mechanisms to enforce compliance.
This is absolutely false. And that’s as it should be.
The police, and law enforcement more broadly, generally do not prevent crime, rather they investigate and charge after crime has occurred.
As a consequence of that, perhaps, some future crimes may be prevented.
Mandating medical intervention and limitations on those who refuse is idiotic because it’s ham fisted and will obviously radicalise at least some people, for very debatable gains.
I think that for example the law forbidding you from burning plastic trash in your furnace, or running a diesel car without a DPF, can be well classified as "to prevent individuals from bringing harm to others by doing what they please".
The gains in case of covid seem to be to prevent costly impact on healthcare system (non-covid care getting postponed, staff burning out and quitting).
Policing people based on an abstract statistical potential to do harm is an unworkable approach to running a society. And has disturbing implications.
Where is my freedom to drive drunk?
Both of those are bad. Negligent driving is also criminal; there is a legal expectation that you are in control of your vehicle. And that is what is being attacked by the law.
The vaccine mandates aren't based on how in control your immune system is over the coronavirus; I won't rehash the natural immunity arguments but as an example they apply here.
And none of this is going to save you from the coronavirus. The evidence is that it is here to stay and we're all going to get it eventually. The vaccines aren't good enough to wipe it out and there is already an impressive number of vaccine escapes being seen. It isn't like an accident where you could go your whole life without being in one.
I commend you to support vaccines even when I know They aren't 100% effective in reducing severe disease, and the effectiveness is going down. They don't prevent you from becoming infected and they don't prevent you from infecting others. This is what masks and social distancing are for.
I understand your concern. But even if you are convinced a government is your enemy, the vaccine is not that enemy.
Keep in mind that some interest groups were already pushing agaisnt vaccines before coronavirus. There is gain to be had from social unrest.
And while vaccinated people can still carry the virus, they are much less likely to carry it than non vaccinated people. You can't deny that.
Where I live, many places now mandate to show both a vaccination certificate, and a negative test result.
No?
Only some subset of those who are infected are required to isolate / quarantine.
Those who don’t get tested are free to meander.
And we should call them for what they are: mobile biohazards.
There are established protocols and procedures for dealing with such.
I’m not convinced we, here in Australia anyway, have achieved a balance sufficient to satisfy my particular set of beliefs - as far as they go in this five minute period.
Since worklplaces and public transport require at tests for the unvaccinated now, those walking around untested are mostly the vaccinated.
The tetanus vaccine takes up to 5 shots and then still usually doesn't provide lifetime sterilizing immunity. If Pfizer's COVID vaccine takes three doses before sticking, that'd still do better.
Also, none of those other diseases are current pandemics.
…? Actually, it has exactly the same effect as the smallpox vaccine. It vaccinated, aka immunised. What are you on about?
I guess what is commonly called sterilizing immunity. Immunity which is so effective that the illness doesn't occur and which makes it impossible to infect others.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease#Prevention
Vaccines vary in effectiveness. Both the extent of immunity they confer and how long those effects last. A vaccine that's less effective than we might like is still a vaccine. I don't think arguments over what should officially constitute "immunity" are very interesting or insightful - it's a meaningless line in the sand. Ask instead about (relative to the unvaccinated) incidence of death, incidence of permanent effects, severity of symptoms, rate of hospitalization, rate of spread to others, and similar.
Well, this is desirable to a degree, but if you take this idea all the way, you get totalitarianism.
From your perspective. I suspect most of those supporting it would feel differently.
Also, I don't understand the discussion: Why is limiting free speech contradicting privacy efforts? Allowing people to prevent that their house being displayed on the internet is completely independent of stopping people writing racist slurs on the internet.
In Germany it's not about some extremist scalar ideology of freedom or control. You have basic rights and in daily life the rights of people collide.
In the case of Google Street view, there is the right of Google to choose their work (Art. 12 GG) vs. the right for privacy (derived from Art. 2 Abs. 1 GG) of people. Courts then have to follow a defined procedure to weigh those rights against each other. Apparently, it was ruled that the additional effort of blurring does not hinder Google's right to follow its occupation.
In the case of NetzDG (the law which enforces big social platform to delete criminal posts, such as racial slurs, which you probably refer to), you have the right of free speech of the poster (Art. 5 GG) and the right of human dignity of the guy who receives human dignity. Additionally, Art. 5 GG defines boundaries for free speech:
"These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honour. (Art. 5 Abs. 2 GG)."
I learned how the constitution works in detail in uni, and I think it's beautiful. To me, this is a recipe to have a healthy democratic society. And a democratic society has to be able to defend itself against anti-democratic, racists. Otherwise, it'll just collapse sooner or later.
As I recall there was no legal obligation from Google to blur houses. They did so to calm this hot-button political topic.
At least back then there was the Panoramafreiheit which basically allowed you to take pictures in any public area without aids(e.g. a ladder or stick). For this reason they had to lower the height of the cameras for Germany to fall under this clause I think. I also think the legal situation changes quite a bit since this was last broadly discussed.
16 years of CDU. It's not been contradiction, but good intentions with reliably poor execution by the coalition partner SPD, and the usual CDU SNAFU.
Otherwise we pride ourselves with pretty incompetent intelligence agencies, so please keep your NWO conspiracy narratives to yourself.
Also nobody was talking about NWO conspiracies until you brought it up. Projection? :)
I didn't expect the CDU to do anything, but stagnant and corrupt policies. The SPD, however, was merely enabling the CDU for the sake of government "participation". No one but the SPD is at fault for not pushing for their own promises.
I think that is why the person you replied to mentioned that they work together with other intelligence, which is not so much a conspiracy narrative if you've followed this stuff post Snowden.
> so please keep your NWO conspiracy narratives to yourself.
I welcome them, so please don't selfishly tell people to censor themselves just because you don't like it.
Thanks.
...even if those same buildings can be seen by anyone standing in the street.
It's privacy theater. (Or maybe theatre, because Europe.)
Only in America mass surveillance is a form of "freedom"
Which also makes any cybersec company operating in Germany also illegal.
Although, no one has been prosecuted for this, it makes getting insurance impossible…
https://iclg.com/practice-areas/cybersecurity-laws-and-regul...
Mapping a network is not an activity exclusive to criminals.
Though, this particular interpretation does make Google Chrome illegal; it has dev tools that can be used for manually sending HTTPS POST requests with forged headers. (It also has XMLHttpRequest, which can be instructed to do what nmap does with relative ease.)
But the part about hacker-tools applys only for tools that cannot be used legally (basically none) or are explicitly and knowingly made or acquired to be used illegally (as in you explicitly stated you are downloading this tool in order to get into a computer you do not have permission to get into). They have to prove you are not intending to use it legally (like checking your own network or one you were hired to check).
Do you mean "free speech"? Here in germany have free speech, except for denying the holocaust (And this makes really sense, as this is simply wrong)
It is nearly impossible to speak about sexual harassment - because the perpetrator can sue you for intruding his private life.
More generally it is basically impossible to say anything negative about someone if you can't prove it true - it is considered slander. By contrast in the U.S. as far as I know it's up to whoever accuses you of slander to prove that what you say is untrue.
That creates a whole large area where you can speak freely about someone while not being able to accuse them legally before the court - in Germany that would either fall into "slander" bucket (if what you say has public significance but you can't prove it) or "private life" bucket (if what you say has allegedly no public significance even if you can prove it true).
Certain depictions of violence are also considered to inherently violate human dignity as a whole (“Gewaltdarstellung”). That seems to be why there’s traditionally been so much video game censorship in Germany, like green blood or replacing all characters with robots[2].
There is another aspect regarding the legal situation in German that might be relevant to understand the difference to the US: The US constitution speeks only of the "freedom of speech", while the German consitution (Grundgesetz) goes much more into the detail:
(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
(2) These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honour.
(3) Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution.[2]
As an aside: "teaching" ("Lehre") refers to higher education only, but includes both, teaching in the narrower sense and learning. As a consequence a student at a German university has the right to learn as he or she seems fit and can only be forced to attend a course, if his or her physical presence is really necessary as there is no other way to learn a particular skill. So the presence at laboratory courses or courses focused on discussions can be made mandatory, but not at lectures. (The student must only attent the course exam, if there is one.) Isn't it interesting that a student in Germany has a constitutional right to be an autodidact?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insult_(legal) [2] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
I’m still a mere Ausländer here myself, so I only have a rough sense of it, but can say that every few hundred meters along the streets you can find a gold-coloured paving stone memorialising separate victims, either an individual or a family.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-g...
I'm very used to engineers' quibbles, very focused views ending up being very narrow views, clever/stupid explanations of why various laws can't be enforced, and so on.
But this has the be the biggest instance of missing the point, intentionally or not, I've seen in quite some time.
Under the assumption that is meant to be a sincere argument:
The difference between the holocaust and those crimes is that Germany's the country primarily responsible for the former, giving special meaning to the denial of that crime and the law banning its denial.
Another example is speech used to commit fraud or extortion. Were your profitable lies to exploit the vulnerable based on a genuine belief, or did you have criminal intent? The law will have to decide, and the situation will not always be clear, and often it comes down to determining intent.
In the case of holocaust denial, in Germany the potential harm of allowing it is seen as more genocide, so they've calibrated their free speech laws in respect of that. But there's never an exact place to draw the line; every legal system is going to have to make such judgment calls.
Codifying truth into law is quite unusual and seems like a bad idea to me. But then prosecuting people for hurling insults also seems like a bad idea to me - I guess I'm just thoroughly American.
Ok, so you don't have free speech.
Good. Now play the free speech game in an iterated manner where there exist a chance that a Nazi party comes to power and that likelihood is being lowered by a making holocaust denial illegal. From history you should now that there is no free expression under Nazis and that it takes them losing a world war to oust them (unlike communist regimes which collapse easier).
Does the US model really have free speech if it allows a nazi party getting to power in the future?
That is the paradox of tolerance and is what people learned from the fate of Weimar and what people incorporated into democratic constitutions made after 45.
All your text is doing is explaining why it's limited.
The "paradox of tolerance" is not a paradox at all when one contemplates the difference between speech and action. Tolerating intolerant speech, no matter how extreme, is not a problem. Tolerating intolerant actions is where tolerance breaks down.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hate_speech&oldid...
Socially, yes, of course there are views that will get you ostracized to some extent. But that's merely the consequence of freedom of association.
The only thing I'm aware of here that I would consider a true infringement of freedom of speech is our obscenity laws. SCOTUS has (sadly) upheld at least some of them.
Well, technically, there are also a lot of other things you cannot say (like with most states).
Insults, false accusations, hate speech, riot speeches etc.
But interestingly we still also have a blasphemy law, even though it is very soft now, from what it used to be.
At this point, the only way this will ever be enforced is when someone blasphemes the Quran.
> In the Hamburg court, she insisted the status of Auschwitz as a place of death is "not historically proven" and is "only a belief".
I think she deserved her 10 months in prison.
What do you mean by this word? I’ve seen it used as a political meme, but the usage always makes it seem like the supposed victim has some kind of entitlement to be a widely admired public figure regardless of what they say or do, without regard to the fleeting nature of fame and the fickleness of public admiration.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Now the government that is obsessed with making sure everyone thinks only approved things is going to codify a right to encryption and prohibit state authorities (Is there a 5+1 eyes workaround prohibition) from building in or maintaining vulnerabilities?
Maybe this really is just a bone for the peasants that will fool them into feeling like they have rights, while the Ol' 5+1 Eye Switcheroo is used to keep vulnerabilities and compromise encryption anyways.