Re:Germany: New government plans 'right to encryption'
by d110af5ccf on Saturday December 04, 2021 @12:32AM
(#29438944)
I believe your reasoning is faulty. In the vast majority of cases the law lays out rules and a court will attempt to determine various facts (ie truths) and interpret the rules in some broader context.
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.
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.