Happy to provide an anecdote here. Had my home searched for user generated content on a Hetzner server around 2014. Some reports were also forwarded to me when the service was still alive. Hetzner provided a signed statement of me responding to abuse reports within a few hours of me asking.

> lacks freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech is article 5 of the German constitution.

What you mean is that it differs from the US version.

No, you're not allowed to publish gory video games or racist literature[1] in Germany, which is clearly prior restraint. It's not that the US has some crazy absolutist freedom of expression (it does not), it's that Germany simply lacks it.

You can't have "mostly" free expression. It's either abridged or it isn't. Germany censors harmless digital art that the government deems inappropriate for adults to be able to see. It's a classic slippery slope (modern Germans defending their government's censorship and lack of free expression will usually cite Hitler/racist stuff, but that's not all that's banned).

It doesn't really matter what the constitution says, if in practice you don't have those rights. It's sort of like how the 2A in the USA says that the people have the right to keep and bear arms, but I don't suggest attempting to exercise that right in Central Park, because you don't actually have it. Same goes for free expression in Germany.

From https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/19123 :

> Germany is one of the strictest censors of violence among the world’s video game consumers. Due to its history and a cohesive national opinion, the legislature limits content severely, much more severely than the surrounding European nations. This results in international developers choosing not to market to Germany, creating censored titles specifically for the German market, or finding themselves on a list of banned titles illegal to buy or sell.

[1]: there's also no indication that racist publications were responsible for WW2 (versus, say, Hitler himself), making this censorship-for-censorship's sake. Many other countries do not prohibit racist literature and have not committed a holocaust. So, of course, they banned violent video games too, because those don't cause violence either.

Freedom of speech is not absolute in United States either, see https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re....

> It's sort of like how the 2A in the USA says that the people have the right to keep and bear arms

Why leave out the for the maintenance of a well-regulated militia part?

Because you asked, even though it's now way off-topic for this thread (and I will not respond further):

Because the text of 2A does not indicate that the right is contingent upon participation in a militia (and indeed 10 USC 246[1] legally defines the US militia as all able-bodied male citizens of ages 17 to 44 inclusive, as well as all female citizens who are members of the National Guard, even if it did), as 2A actually specifies RKBA as a right of the people (not "people of the militia", just "people").

[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246

Heh, and where was this interpretation when the Black Panthers were arming themselves in California? Even the NRA supported gun control back then.

> In contrast to the NRA’s rigid opposition to gun control in today’s America, the organization fought alongside the government for stricter gun regulations in the 1960s.

https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-...

stupid irrelevant gotcha, the nra is not the scotus

From 1930s to 2008 it was read differently. The words also don't say the mentally ill with violent uncontrollable ideations can't have them, but we constitutionally allow the disallowing of that presumably both out of common sense and because forcing allowing that has nothing to do with a well regulated militia.

Your information on video games is about a decade out of date, there were no video games put on List A or B for the past 2 years at least, and I haven't checked further. The last high profile ban was Wolfenstein, and that was for it's use of the Swastika.

https://www.schnittberichte.com/svds.php?Page=Indizierungen&...

Freedom of speech was also Article 125 of the Soviet constitution.

The US First Amendment version is the only one that is worthy of the name.

I encourage you to read up on the J.E. Hoover and J. McCarthy on how much the US First Amendment is worth. Or maybe try running a pro ISIS webserver in the US, see how quickly you have the FBI knocking on your door. Let's not even talk about DCMA takedowns etc..

The US ranks lower than Germany in the FH and RWB freedom of the press indices [1], which while not quite the same is highly related to freedom of speech.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_country

> Or maybe try running a pro ISIS webserver in the US

Bad counterexample? CloudFlare did just that, triggering a strangely pro-censorship round of hacktivism in the form of #OpISIS.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/19/cloudflar...

That's not really running the website though is it? It seems like they run DDOS protection for them which is not really the same.

The First Amendment is stronger than any equivalent rule in any other modern country that I'm aware of. The fact that it's been undermined repeatedly, both in the past and the present (due to the recent wave of authoritarianism that has been sweeping US politics, which can be seen clearly on HN itself), doesn't have any bearing on its relative ranking - so, it can suck (or just be a little suboptimal), but still be better than everything else.

Moreover, how is DMCA relevant? Copyrighted works are outside the bounds of free speech.

Wait, what? How does the fact that it's undermined not have an impact on how useful a US right is to me?

DMCA, and in general the US legal system are extremely relevant to me as a user. If I have a theoretical right to free speech, but in practice any big US media company could kill it then I'm much better off in another country where maybe the theoretical right is 10% less but I can actually practically enjoy that right.

Those rankings just encode the political outlook of a certain leftist NGO.

In the USA, Neonazi publications are allowed, while in Germany they are illegal. Therefore, the US has a freer press than Germany. Freedom House would disagree, and they are simply wrong.

Don't try to tell that to Julian Assange.

He's not a US citizen though. Their constitution only applies to them.

FYI - not according to the US constitution. It applies to everyone on US soil, and is supposed to bind the federal gov’t in general in how it acts everywhere.

De facto and de jure of course being completely different things.

> FYI - not according to the US constitution. It applies to everyone on US soil, and is supposed to bind the federal gov’t in general in how it acts everywhere.

Sure but that ship sailed years ago. Their constitution is also supposed to guarantee a right to a fair trial but obviously the legions of drone victims didn't get one.

Good luck naming your baby "X Æ A-Ⅻ" in Germany:

https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/german-...

An appropriate German name is one that is first recognised as a proper name. It cannot be associated with evil (e.g. Satan, Lucifer) or deemed religiously insensitive (e.g. Christus or Jesus). A name cannot be a product, brand, surname or a place name. Finally, German names have to indicate the child’s gender and they are not allowed to cross (one exception is Maria, which can be used as a boy’s second name). Neutral names (e.g. Alex, Kim) must be followed by a second name that indicates the child’s gender.

If your definition of freedom of speech means being able to name your kid whatever you want then obviously the US first amendment is not working since most states have rules regarding naming too. For example: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/11/california-b...

That’s a great article, thanks!

California like several other states bans the use of diacritical marks on official documents. Last year, the state took up a bill that would have allowed diacritical marks, but it stalled out when a $10m price tag was attached

You're right that German naming rules are overbearing, but you'd have trouble naming a baby "X Æ A-Ⅻ" in a lot of places, including many US states, I believe.

The gender restriction has been ruled unconstitutional at least 10 years ago.

> to censor content that is legal to publish in most places, but not Germany

We don't really like if somebody thinks Hitler was kind of a cool guy and that he should have continued "his work". Besides that you can say lots of things in Germany without getting too much trouble.

Yeah, so free speech is what we agree with.

Naaaaah... The first five articles of the German rule of law are pretty clear. They explicitly forbid to discriminate based on race or alike. As the ideology of the Third Reich is based on this discrimination, "cheering" this ideology is not allowed.

Things have changed in recent years. Germany now has vaguely defined "hate speech" laws, meaning they can get you for any statement they don't like. It's not just about liking Hitler anymore.

Germany always had hate speech laws. To run afoul of those takes quite significant effort though.

It's not the same thing. It has been illegal to insult people or calling for their murder. The new laws in contrast are very vague and give the government much more room for interpretation.

For example, from Wikipedia, "agitation" is not allowed.

Merely disagreeing with a politician can be considered hate speech.

It does not take a lot of effort, either, just using certain words can be sufficient.

Germany now also seems to have the concept of "protected groups" that you can not critizize in any way, which I think is probably new. I am not a lawyer, though.

That's troubling. Has it been enforced, however? Europe - and probably everywhere else too - has anacronic laws that are rarely if ever enforced.

There are a few worrying cases. One person, for example, got his house raided for calling a politician a dick on Twitter [0]. There are also a few far-reaching laws, such as the NetzDG [1], which is being pretty harshly criticized. That being said, Germany has never been as pro-free speech as the US (holocaust denial, for example, is illegal for a long time already) and you can still state your opinion pretty openly, as long as you're not an extremist.

[0] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/pimmelgate-hausdurchsuchung-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Enforcement_Act#Critic...

I'm not keeping track. Certainly a lot of things are being preemptively censored, especially on social media. People have also lost their jobs.

It is not an "anachronistic law", it is a new law that came into being very recently.

> It's not just about liking Hitler anymore.

What they enforce is Nazi shit and pro child abuse publications being banned. Really not objectionable at all. If you must be angry, there are many countries that are significantly worse than this.

Citation please?

That was literally 12 years ago and is not in effect and doesn't even have a German wikipedia page and the federal court would have nicked. Ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt!

No, the censorship laws in Germany are definitely still in effect. The petition in protest against them was 12 years ago.

You need to be more specific then, which law do you mean? Because the "Straftaten gegen die öffentliche Ordnung" is a whole section of the StGB which covers all sorts of things ranging from the prohibition of running an illegal online trading platform, to trespassing or leaving an accident. The closest is the Paragraph 131 which prohibits showing violence for the purpose of glorifying violence or to degrade the "Menschenwürde" (not sure what a good translation is).

Please see the paper linked in my sibling comment above:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29475379

(tl;dr: Germany censors harmless depictions of gory violence in video games.)

Science disagrees on you with the harmless part. It is shown that violent video games desensitise people with regards to violence, just as violent movies do except there is a categorical difference interactiveness.

I don't like that fact either but to ignore facts because they don't mesh with my politics is bad.

The primary argument I am making is that Germany lacks freedom of expression, not that depictions of violence in video games are or are not harmful.

Germany lacks freedom of expression.

This may be a concern (regulatory risk) for companies who are customers of hosting companies that are subject to German law.

? That article says there was an attempt to introduce a law banning violent video games. That attempt never was implemented, so what is this link supposed to prove?

I also read it that way.