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Twitter Censors German Neo-Nazi Group, Within Germany
judgecorp writes "Twitter has censored a neo-Nazi group, blocking Besseres Hannover (Better Hannover), a group accused of promoting race hate. This is the first time Twitter has used its power of blocking users in specific countries, announced back in January. Although blocked in Germany, the group is visible to the rest of the world." Update: 10/18 14:46 GMT by T : Note, that's Twitter doing the blocking, not Google, as it appeared originally. HT to reader eldavojohn.
It's nothing to raise a führer about!
That's a nice rant since Google is obviously a typo by the submitter given that they're talking about Twitter which is NOT owned by Google....
Oh, and Twitter is just following the law in Germany, being a neo-nazi or espousing neo-nazi ideas is illegal in Germany.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
We're going to show how the Nazis' censorship was wrong, by censoring...whoops...
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Doubly good rant since it was posted at the time the article went live, by an account which has (as of this writing) only a single post. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll see some half-hearted posts in other threads today to make it look slightly less like a complete shill.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Because they would like to do business in Germany.
Besides, fuck neo nazis.
In Germany, pro-Nazi speech is illegal. It's not Twitter's fault that they're complying with the law of the country they're doing business in.
The reason it's illegal is twofold: (1) the United States and other allies imposed that rule on the Germans in 1945. (2) the Germans have since then made a big effort to make it abundantly clear that they are thoroughly sorry for what happened under the Nazis and want to make absolutely certain it never happens again.
I am officially gone from
Because they offer services to German citizens and have German operations (ie twitter.de). If a company doesn't want to follow the laws of a country it's quite simple, don't do trade in that country.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
My problem with such censorship is mainly that it doesn't work.
1. It legitimizes the opposition. To them, their government now appears as a legitimate oppressor. In turn, that conveys legitimacy toward their message. If you really want to destroy them, treat their actions as a more mundane crime, like unlicensed use of unscientific ideas. Or tear a page from the Soviet book and categorize them as insane.
2. In a pluralistic society, clashes are inevitable. We now have thousands of different groups in just about every country, and most of them oppose almost all the others. Whose god is true? Whose idea of society is true? Socialism is incompatible with capitalism, some religion is incompatible with some science, many ethnic groups hate each other, most life-philosophies and political viewpoints clash, and any ideology is going to first oppose all others because to be an ideology it must claim to be the one right way. That includes pluralism, for Inception fans.
3. It is a slippery slope, for two reasons. First, the censored group is going to be evasive and start disguising their message. This means you're going to have to censor more and more stuff, and may eventually destroy your government's efficiency with lots and lots of possibly contradictory rules. Second, the more you censor, the greater likelihood that the opposition will be able to use this against you. We're already seeing this with people saying nasty things about Israel regarding Palestinians, in fact, calling them Nazis. I don't think this leads anywhere but to bad.
4. It teaches your citizens to become sheep. The message from government should not be, "We're going to get rid of bad ideas." It should be that citizens and institutions need to constantly be aware of why certain ideas are opposed. The censorship becomes a rule like traffic laws, which we evade when we can because we don't see a clear connection (mainly because it often does not exist) between going 5 mph faster and carnage on the roads. Imagine this applied to political ideas.
People usually tell you that censorship leads to 1984 and that may be true, but I find the above list even more likely and more dangerous. They are less exciting though and I'll never get on Letterman this way.
That is ultimately a matter between Twitter and the country in question. Unless you believe that national sovereignty is reserved for the US and its satellite countries.
Should Twitter also censor disparaging comments about Mohammed in Muslim countries?
If it's specifically illegal there, then unfortunately yes.
If you can't abide by the laws in a certain country, you shouldn't go there, and this applies to companies as well as individuals on holiday. It is up to the people in that country to choose their own laws.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it