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Germany Cracks Down On Illegal Speech On Social Media. (smh.com.au)
ArmoredDragon writes: German police have raided 36 homes of people accused of using illegal speech on Facebook and Twitter. Much of it was aimed at political speech. According to the article, "Most of the raids concerned politically motivated right-wing incitement, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office, whose officers conducted home searches and interrogations. But the raids also targeted two people accused of left-wing extremist content, as well as one person accused of making threats or harassment based on someone's sexual orientation."
This comes just as a new law is being debated that can fine social media platforms $53 million for not removing 70% of illegal speech (including political, defamatory, and hateful speech) within 24 hours of it being posted, which Facebook argues will make it obligatory for them to delete posts and ban users for speech that isn't clearly illegal.
This comes just as a new law is being debated that can fine social media platforms $53 million for not removing 70% of illegal speech (including political, defamatory, and hateful speech) within 24 hours of it being posted, which Facebook argues will make it obligatory for them to delete posts and ban users for speech that isn't clearly illegal.
You're doing it wrong!
There should be no such thing as illegal speech.
Authoritarian governments to the extreme since 1933.
governments are scared of the internet... they are trying to slowly kill it
Threats aren't protected speech.
They should be. In the highly unlikely scenario where someone truly intends to do me harm, I'd rather know about it than have it sprung as a surprise later. In the highly likely scenario of idle threats and foolish blustering, there's no point in worrying about it.
Coming soon to a country near you with all the snowflakes who will want legally mandated safe spaces.
Shouldn't this be under the censorship icon?
You do realize that meaningful death threats are illegal, right?
Yes, that was my point.
That's the whole point of free speech; you are free to say anything but NOT free of consequences from what you say.
Incorrect. The point of free speech is to keep the government from jailing you for speaking out against them.
Everything else in your post is sheer drivel.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The foundational cornerstone of American democracy are the first and second amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The guarantee against government interference of free speech and the right of citizens to arm themselves. Everything else, all the other rights and amendments laid out in that document flow from and depend on the first two.
If you look at Europe today, that is exactly what European "democracies" lack, real U.S. strength 1st and 2nd amendments. What they lack are real free speech rights and the ability to defend themselves from their governments or the thug migrants that rape, murder and steal en masse in Europe. This is why they don't really have democracy in Europe. The EU is made up of a bunch of watered down, pseudo-democracies essentially run by Merkel via Brussels. Granted governments have tanks, etc, but there's no question that intimidating an armed people is a hella lot harder than an unarmed people.
What needs to happen is for a U.S. citizen(s) to set up a social media / discussion board hosted in the U.S. for the sole purpose of giving the people of Europe actual free speech. Give them the ability to say political things that their governments or Merkel doesn't like, without repercussion. The site/app, having no actual presence in Europe and based in the U.S., would be immune from any European country trying to obtain user info / ip addresses. People could use whatever user name they want and not worry about Germany, England or Sweden forcing the host site to give up any info, "we are Americans, piss off".
It might be blacklisted in Europe, there are ways around that. I realize that there is Tor, etc but that is too hard for most end users right now. And there are various U.S. based sites that could sort of do this now, but it really needs to be focused on Europe and advertise itself as a site for repressed Europeans to enjoy U.S. strength free speech. If they don't have the ability to speak freely, they have no hope.
Political Correctness is fascism pretending to be Manners. -- George Carlin