App Detects Neo-Nazis Using Their Music

Daniel_Stuckey writes "German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that the country's interior ministers will meet this week to discuss use of an app developed by local police in Saxony that has attracted the unofficial name of 'Nazi Shazam.' Just like Shazam works out what song you're hearing from just a few bars, the system picks up audio fingerprints of neo-Nazi rock so police can intervene when it's being played. The whole situation sounds pretty insane to an outsider, but apparently far-right music is a big problem in Germany, where it's considered a 'gateway drug' into the neo-Nazi scene. The Guardian reported that in 2004, far-right groups even tried to recruit young members by handing out CD compilations in schools. That sort of action is illegal in Germany, where neo-Nazi groups are outlawed and the Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors is tasked with examining and indexing media — including films, games, music, and websites — that may be harmful to young people."

Comments

Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

It is despicable that anyone would be attracted to this sort of movement. However, it is extremely important that people be given the freedom to make the wrong choice of ideology. Only harmful actions should be punished.

Re:Freedom of thought

[g0bshiTe]

I agree, hate groups aren't right, but barring freedom for one to choose for themselves to be involved with a hate group is worse.

Re:Freedom of thought

[quax]

Since this is only with regards to minors, how does this differ from the US censoring (there it's all about sex).

I strongly suspect that American police would arrest people handing out pornographic material to kids at school?

Re:Freedom of thought

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I know I'll get marked as a troll for this

"Mod me up! Mod me up!"

from the euro-centric crowd, but this is exactly why you embrace freedom-loving society and not authoritarian socialism like they have in Europe. As John Green has said, you cannot declare war on an idea or noun because nouns are so amazingly resilient.

Your argument would be a lot more convincing if you'd left off the second sentence there. The freedom-loving US has declared "War on $NON_MATERIAL_THING" more often than any other country I can think of.

Re:Freedom of thought

[jellomizer]

Freedom of speech isn't safe. In fact it is very dangerous. That is why the United States has that first in its bill of rights, because it is so dangerous, you need a powerful law to keep it intact.

But it is really fair for the Government to say protect Far Left ideas while trying to hinder far right ones?

Now I do not support this ideology, and I agree it could lead to dangerous behavior. But trying to suppress it, could be worse. That means you could have a large population afraid to speak their minds. And if there was a government shift to the Far Right, there could be far more supporters then you would think. With little education to help moderate many of them.

Freedom of Speech and Democracy are hand and hand. Now Democracy isn't about getting the best leader, it is about balancing safety with freedom of speech.
If you have Far Right ideas and you are vocal about them, and you still loose each election, it means you probably will not be able to take over the government, any attempt including military fill fail as bulk of the citizens will be against you. However if you hinder the freedom of speech, you could have the majority to join on your side in case of some revolution happens.

Re:Freedom of thought

[sideslash]

Making immoral actions legal is not an ability a majority in America has.

That obviously depends on whom you ask. Many people consider the right to life debate the most important civil rights issue today -- in some places it's legal to kill late term babies.

Even if you disagree on the abortion issue, I suspect that you can see that "constitutional" doesn't equate with "moral" if you look at where we've been in America with slavery and so forth.

Re:Freedom of thought

[liamevo]

Did you decide to fly in the face of most political scholars and historians to try and score some political points by describing Nazism as left wing?

Re:Freedom of thought

[Entropius]

As someone who's been involved with universities for a while: you cannot get arrested by campus police for trespassing on most campuses. Public universities are public property, and most places in most buildings are open to the public. (Of course, if you wander into a professor's lab without his permission, you're likely to get in trouble.) At the University of Arizona where I got my doctorate, homeless people would regularly come to the library to use the computers for internet access.

Many private universities incorporate substantial tracts of public land (they consist of buildings on public streets), or are on private land but are open campuses. Only a few campuses are truly closed campuses where visitors are not welcome; those are no different than any other private land. So I don't know quite what you mean.

Re:Freedom of thought

[erikkemperman]

Even if a Left wing Socialist group like the Nazi party was voted in they could never get a foothold on an action that would harm other races.

You realize that the Nazis are about as RIGHT wing as you can get, I hope. Yes, yes, I know they abused the word, but they were Socialist in much the same way that North Korea is Democratic.

We have the constitution.

Do you?

Re:Freedom of thought

[jythie]

Eh, historically the constitution was pretty routinely ignored too. Even before the final draft lawmakers were making it clear that they did not intend to follow its literal interpretation and instead had all sorts of 'well of course we didn't mean XYZ, use common sense!'. Much of the bill of rights only really started gaining legal traction over the last few decades as civil rights pushed literal meanings more. For instance, cases involving religion, until very recently, assumed that freedom of religion only applied to 'real' religions such as Protestants. Quakers, Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, even though they were 'close' were not considered 'real' religions and thus the establishment clause (and freedom of speech) did not apply, and religions not from the same tree were even less protected.

Re:Freedom of thought

[jythie]

On the other hand, pushing something underground, while it makes it more concentrated, tends to de-normalize it. An open, normalized movement can be a pretty powerful political shift. If you look at all the major changes in US politics, it was only after groups became open and normalized (more or less) that they actually got traction and got policy put in place. When they were underground they had strong core groups but their general connection to the population was minimal.

Re:Freedom of thought

[LWATCDR]

This is in Germany. They have a different history than we do in the US. You will find laws like that in France and other nations that where under Nazi rule. They are a democratic nation and it is up to them to change their laws if they see fit. Canada also has laws about hate speech that would not fly in the US. The US never had Nazis in control of our nation so we feel the best protection is freedom of speech. In many places in the EU they do not feel secure in that. The US has stricter restrictions on porn because of our culture. Although the restrictions are really very minimal outside of broadcast TV and radio.
I hate when a bunch of people from Europe start spouting off options about the US's rules. Germany is a free nation so let it's citizens decide what works best for them.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no "left" or "right", those terms mean nothing.

There is a spectrum of individual liberties - from total freedom to complete oppression.

In theory it wouldn't matter what form of government we had, if people were nice. You can imagine anything from a peaceful groovy hippie commune all the way to some fairy tail kingdom with an all powerful monarch that wisely allocates resources to create great public works for the good of all. In practice, both ends of the spectrum suck.

Re:Freedom of thought

[hairyfeet]

I wonder if they bust OTHER hate groups, like the mosques that preach hate, or the other "* Power" groups? Wanna bet the answer is no?

You see THIS is the problem I have with so called "hate crimes" (like someone is gonna bash your head in because they like you) is because you ALWAYS seem to end up with "protected classes" and "acceptable racism", for examples see black power versus white power (Protip: Both are run by racists that incite violence) or how the Muslims in this country can burn bibles and American flags all day but that preacher said he was gonna burn a koran and got thrown in jail.

Either the law is the law, equal for all, or its just so much politically correct farce and sadly more and more in the west the law has become the latter,with certain groups being ignored when they are racists while others are punished. If racism is wrong then its wrong across the board, all this politically correct bullshit does is make old hatreds fester and give the racists plenty of recruitment fodder.

Re:Freedom of thought

[LWATCDR]

Yea so you do not just feel secure in ignoring them. Actually wanting to destroy someone that you do not fear just because you disagree with them is frankly evil. That is what Nazis do. Really think about it for a minute. If they are no threat why not just ignore them? Simple answer is you worry about them becoming a threat.
AKA there is no shame in not feeling secure in Germany about Neo-Nazis. In fact if you where just okay with it I would worry. It has happened before and that knowledge should keep you on your guard.
BTW my Uncle was reported killed in action twice in Europe during WWII and had a terrible scar on his arm from where his watch branded him his tank caught fire and helped liberate one of the camps. He was from Brooklyn his however his grandparents on both sides where from Germany. He died in the 1980s but I think he would for the most part be happy with how Germany is today.

Re:Freedom of thought

[erikkemperman]

For what it's worth, I think it's fair to say that in much of the rest of the world, Left and Right are about wealth distribution, and about who should be in control of means of production (investers or workers). Not saying this is better, or worse, just noting the difference. That said, it is probably also fair to say that most international observers, assuming they use this classical economic notion of left/right, would consider the US to be pretty far off to the right. Again, just saying.

Re:Freedom of thought

[pla]

You do know where the term left and right wing actually originated? The German parliment, where the communists sat on the far left, and the nazi party on the far right.

The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville explained, "We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp." However the Right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but should not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms "left" and "right" to refer to the opposing sides.

Re:Freedom of thought

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Actually yeah, it was, though a different flavor of socialism than what you're used to.

But to be honest, I think sticking the terms right wing or left wing on these is stupid. It basically implies that there are two major schools of thought to politics when in reality there are many (infinite dare I say, because new ones spring up now and again.) Sure you can stick a compass for any one dimension on a particular ideology (e.g. freedom vs despotism) but you'll often find people traditionally identified as both left and right on either extreme of just about every dimension.

In fact, sticking a right or left label has the same effect as saying there's only one form of socialism. Marxist socialism is working for the betterment of the people, whereas national socialism is working for the betterment of the state (and part of building a strong national identity and pride.) Marxism might stress individual liberties with a collective identity, whereas national socialism is strictly a collective.

At least, this is what these things say on paper. Whether or not they actually do them is a whole other issue (for example, individual liberties never last under Marxism.)

Re:Freedom of thought

[CTachyon]

Uhhh...just FYI? Rohm and the SA leadership were pretty much ALL gay and Hitler and pals didn't have a problem with it until Rohm started talking about a "second revolution" because he thought "the little colonel" had betrayed the socialist part of national socialism, just FYI.

Hitler had a pretty firm "babies good, homosexuals bad" policy for the common folk. Rohm was a party insider long before Hitler was elected Chancellor; in general, Hitler was pretty willing to give special treatment to party insiders, even ones less senior than Rohm. Even so, I'm not aware of any other SA leaders who got a pass for the same reason; care to name names?

For that matter, Hitler's family doctor Eduard Bloch was Jewish, and he got special treatment too (only Jew in Linz with special protection from the Gestapo, notes Wikipedia). Adolf reportedly had quite the soft spot for him after he did everything he could to treat Klara Hitler's rather horrifically advanced breast cancer, despite her financial hardship. Basically, Hitler was a giant hypocrite who tried to ignore the brutality of his own policies by shielding only the people he cared about and could personally see suffering from them.

I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[jjohn]

...and now I am a pansexual vampire.

Music: it's as bad a Hitler.

Protect your freedom of speech..

[xtal]

There's two unique things about the US:

#1. Absolute freedom of (written) speech, at least for the most part, to a degree that I am not aware of existing anywhere in the civilized world.

#2. Private citizens can own handguns and assault rifles for their own protection and uses.

Fight for those rights with all you have, because once they're gone, I doubt the world will ever see them again. Particularly #1.

If an idea is so repulsive, the place to discredit it is in the open, not to push it underground into the recesses of the underworld, lending credence and appeal to the idea through it's illicit nature. The written word is not a place for the state, any more than the legislature is a place for preachers.

Nobody should be put in jail for their words. Not even vile ones.

Talk about mixing up cause and effect.

[gallondr00nk]

The trouble isn't Neo-Nazi CD compilations leading upstanding, bright young people down an alley into right wing extremism. If they're disaffected, for whatever reason, they will continue to be so even after the CDs are destroyed or the books are burned.

Yeah alright, ban it all. Ban the CDs, ban the literature, ban the swastica. No-one will be a Neo-Nazi anymore, right? All the problems are solved.

Wrong. You don't become a Neo-Nazi because you love and respect the society you live in. You become one because you want to tear it down. They'll just funnel their dissatisfaction elsewhere.

The key to learning from history isn't to ban it, but to educate and prevent the social and economic conditions that would mean repeating it.