No, that was certainly not the reason, on the contrary.

Speech was severely restricted at the time and Germany also had hate speech laws. That probably had a severe negative effect because people became more radical as they were disallowed to vent their grievances. Those that demanded restraint often did it because of their own vanity.

Open hate speech with government propaganda which discriminated against Jews came later. At that point the Nazis already felt justified in their actions.

I cannot say anything to Rwanda because I don't know the conflict. I tend to disbelieve those that said it was because of hateful speech.

> Speech was severely restricted at the time and Germany also had hate speech laws.

Nope. It had way too weak protections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Germany#Weimar_R...

> The Weimar Republic maintained a number of criminal provisions for hate crimes and anti-Semitic expression.

> The aim of censorship under the Nazi regime was simple: to reinforce Nazi power and to suppress opposing viewpoints and information

I believe Goebbels said something that the mistake was giving them free speech in the first place. He didn't like free speech at all, but he was also a propaganda expert and knew that some people would again try to censor speech which would work in his favor.

When Nazi regime came to power it was already too late.

And protections against ant-Semitic expression were too weak as evidenced by Nazi regime coming to power by being elected in democratic process.

Another source: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propa...

"When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, the Nazis abolished these civil rights and destroyed German democracy. "

But I concede that there are exactly opposite views.

After all it's history so anyone is free to make stuff up about it that fits his narrative.

> "When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press."

Note that these rights were not at all guaranteed pre-1919. Censorship of speech and of the press was practically institutionalized in the German Empire. It makes no sense to argue that the rabid anti-Semitism of late-19th c. and early-20th c. Germany was a result of too much freedom; on the contrary, it was directly carried over from previous authoritarian government, The Weimar constitution ultimately came too late to really improve on that state of things.

What was too little too late was not the freedom of speech, but laws against anti-Semitic expressions. They were too limited and mellow. Goebbels was sentenced for anti-Semitic expressions which didn't stop him at all.

The fact that those laws were even on the books is in itself notable given that, again, anti-Semitism had largely been endorsed by previous governments.

And it wasn't just Germany either. Remember the Dreyfus Affair? That was in France pre-WWI. Dreyfus was framed by the authorities for a crime he did not commit, and initially got a life sentence before widespread public opposition led to a reopening of the case and ultimately to his exoneration. This whole ruckus shows that the very idea that anti-Semitism was something that should be opposed could be considered radical and anti-authoritarian at the time even in "civilized, developed" La Belle Époque France, never mind Germany! The mindset was wildly different from what we'd expect today.

You're ignoring entirely the devastating economic impact of the treaty of Versailles and claiming it was all about free speech. Totally off the Mark ;)

I never said it was the only reason. Free speech is a tool. Generally wonderful invention, like a knife. But when wielded by wrong people in troublesome contexts it helps them in achieving disastrous goals. Along with plenty of other tools.

The Rwanda civil war was partially the outcome of colonialism by Germany and later Belgian administration, creating a class society where the rich minority group of Tutsi ruled supreme over the more poor Hutu. Belgium introduced identity cards classifying each individual as Tutsi, Hutu, Twa or Naturalised.

Pretty obviously, such state of affairs wasn't stable. After world war 2 there were several riots and violence, and the Belgium administration attempted to switch side and promote Hutu over Tutsi. A Hutu government emerged and declared themselves independent, and started to purge the Tutsi population. After a few years of wars with nearby countries, instability, and displacement of Tutsi, the Tutsi population formed a armed military force and a civil war broke out. After a couple of years of guerilla wars and temporarily peaces, with neither side winning, the Hutu army/administration decided on the idea of genocide as a final solution to the conflict.

Where in this process did free speech cause the genocide?

The civil war predated the radio station by several years, and the colonialism that shaped the conflict occurred 50-100 years before the radio station was built.

This seems a bit like blaming the atom bomb for causing world war 2.

In open, freely expressed incitment to genocide that led to it and extended its scale.

Free speech apart from its all wonderfull qualities is an excelent tool for demagogues. They all are pro free speech of things they like.

>They all are pro free speech of things they like

So they're not for free speech.

About as for free speech as Fox News.

And CNN, WaPo, and basically every other news org out there. But it’s nice that you just called out your enemy!

I'm not from USA so I don't really care. I just named the station that most often contradicts science, defends itself in court by saing they shouldn't be taken seriously because they are entertainment organisation not information organsation and boldly defends free speech when it allows for voicing same manners of idiocies as they do.

Ok well intro to news in America, I can point to an instance where every major news organization in this country has disregarded facts. News in America is about selling newspapers, not distributing facts. They’re more like supermarket tabloids (if you don’t know what those are, those are the real fake news, things like lizard people are discussed there). All of them are guilty of the exactly this problem. Which is my point. Yet lefties like yourself only call out Fox News, ignoring CNN, waPo, et al. Not to mention is a bit passive aggressive. You’re not gonna get people to stop watching Fox News, so why spread more passive aggressive hate?

CNN recently, because of all of their “factual reporting”, lost about 90% of their viewership. Trump left, people got bored of Jan 6, and they had nothing else to sensationalize, so their viewership tanked. Interestingly they lost their viewers to Fox News. This is the state of news media in America, and if you’re actually interested in facts and not promoting your side of the narrative you’d easily acknowledge as much.