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Germany Starts Enforcing Hate Speech Law (bbc.com)
Germany is set to start enforcing a law that demands social media sites move quickly to remove hate speech, fake news and illegal material. From a report: Sites that do not remove "obviously illegal" posts could face fines of up to 50m euro ($60m). The law gives the networks 24 hours to act after they have been told about law-breaking material. Social networks and media sites with more than two million members will fall under the law's provisions. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will be the law's main focus but it is also likely to be applied to Reddit, Tumblr and Russian social network VK. Other sites such as Vimeo and Flickr could also be caught up in its provisions.
You know, what with their long and illustrious history of totalitarianism and censorship. Which always worked out so perfectly, right?
I guess the correct reply to this whole censorship thing would be "Jawohl, mein Führer!" (spoken to their "Minister of Justice" who came up with this insanity). And I wish this was funny, instead of tragic.
And so it begins again.
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All human institutions must demonstrate their worth or they will be discarded. That's not a value judgment, its a statement about human nature. History is littered with discarded institutions that became irrelevant or even detrimental - chattel slavery, adultery laws, male-only suffrage, latin-only bibles, the feudal system, colonialism, monarchies, etc.
The reason free expression is under attack is because its perceived as doing more harm than good. If you think free speech is important, then you can't just make empty declarations of how terrible these developments are and expect to make any difference at all. You need to actually use your right to free speech to make the world a better place because the forces of evil are dedicated to using their right to free speech to make the world suck.
... that social media is not your father's "me too," AOL.
The problem is not that there's hate speech on social media.
The problem is that people on social media validate the activity by objecting.
When governments regulate social media, social media becomes a branch of the government.
It's not. Leave it alone and don't feed the trolls.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
That's a good point.
Another thing we should remember is that it's always the political left pushing for "hate speech" legislation. It doesn't matter if we're talking about European nations, Canada, Australia, or even the US.
It's always members of the political left who want to start classifying speech and limiting it in such ways. Of course, it's conveniently also always members of the political left who get to determine what is and what isn't "hate speech".
The political right takes the opposite approach. Instead of preventing the expression of ideas, they prefer to use free expression to point out where they think that others are wrong, allowing any listeners/readers/viewers to come to their own conclusions.
President Trump is a good example of this. He doesn't push for the shutdown or silencing of media organizations that he questions the reporting of. Rather, he calls them out in public, often right to their faces. He presents his case, and lets everyone else make up their own minds.
When we compare the two approaches, it's clear that the pro-expression approach used by the political right is preferable for society at large. It's far more open and equitable than the censorship and silencing that the political left would prefer to use.
The political right pushes for free speech and free expression for all. The political left pushes for highly-controlled speech, where it is they (the political left) who decides what can be expressed.
...is always about Mind Control. They know that their ideology is so faulty it cannot stand the test of free speech. So they ALWAYS try to control the flow of information.
Marxism, Mohammedism, SPARTA - all the same idealist, brutish, deadly stuff.
They are learning from the mistakes of the past, and are doing their damnest so these horrors never happen again.
"We had to become Nazis to prevent Nazis!"
German leaders have become corrupt totalitarians (again). Yes, they learned from the Nazis. I just don't think the lessons they came away with are the same ones that everyone else came away with and assumed everyone shared.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
How many people were killed by American "alt-right" ?
What I can see is ANTIFA STORMTROOPERS here in Germany. They use SA methods, just short of outright murder.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
The left has always had a more slippery slope towards authoritarian, fascist, totalitarian rule since they are imposing it all for our own good.