Fines for online Hate Speech in Germany

[h4rm0ny]

This was proposed in Germany a while ago but has now become law:

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-twitter-hate-speech-germany-fine

Germany already has a number of "Hate Speech" laws. What this bill does is not add to that, but give it more teeth. It allows for enormous fines for companies like Facebook and Google for not removing Hate Speech. It also adds provisions to help them comply as well - allowing outsourcing of content policing to third parties for example. In essence, the bill is saying: "here is a nice cleared path for you to go down and here is the boot coming to kick you if you don't go down it." Or alternately you could look at it as removing potential excuses for non-compliance in advance.

The good or bad of that of course depending on whether you think criminalising "Hate Speech" is a good thing or not. Rather plainly, I do not. These laws don't only apply to Facebook or Google (though that's a major issue by itself). They apply to any online forum. There are things I have said on these forums - supportable facts - that would see me fined or arrested. For example, I am strongly against Halal meat and have argued why on these forums. One critic of halal practices in France has been fined €30,000 for the same opinions I have posted here. We had a discussion about incest in Bradford here a while ago. That too could get you fined or imprisoned, imo. Evidence for that statement: a Danish historian was charged with hate speech for observing that there was a higher incidence of rape and child molestation in some muslim areas. According to the prosecution (and the law), it is immaterial whether or not his statement was true, only that he "should have known it would cause offense". He narrowly escaped fines and criminal record on the technicality that the prosecution had failed to prove that he knew his comments would be disseminated. If true statements such of that are criminalised, I can see circumstances such as the Rotherham Abuse cases where people trying to expose what was happening weren't merely ignored or sacked, but punished under the law for their efforts.

The concerns with hate speech are threefold in my opinion. Firstly, that it is wrong to criminalise opinions, thoughts and the expression of such. Secondly, that the definition of Hate Speech is a political tool of whoever is in power. In the case of Germany it is used to prevent free discussion of the issue of immigration, for example. Thirdly, it prevents the challenging of such views. If the response to something you disagree with is to punch (fine or imprison) the person you disagree with, then you have done nothing to dissuade them of their views and quite a lot to make everyone else think they have a point.

Anyway, ranting and highlighting the ever encroaching nature of Thought Police in Europe.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Careful all, the thought police are coming for you.

I'm wondering how long it'll be before videos that criticise Islam (and back it up with verifiable facts) will be considered hate speech? also how about speaking out against certain leaders, wonder how long before that will be considered hate speech?

Already covered. Am sure I could dig out some examples of videos being censored. Speaking out against certain leaders - trickier. Speaking out against organizations - pretty easy though.

Fun fact: The Weimar Republic had anti-Hate Speech laws. Goebells amongst other Nazis were prosecuted under them prior to the Nazis assuming power. Didn't stop them and in fact helped them "prove" to people that there was a Jewish Conspiracy in control of things.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Could you cite those cases that you reference in the OP please?

Sure. Bridgette Bardot is a long-time animal rights proponent. She has been fined several times for speaking out against Halal practices in France under "Racial Hatred". The fines to date total €30,000. Last fined for it in 2008, I think. And before that in 2004. One of those occasions was about the slaughtering of sheep to celebrate Eid-el-Keiber. I forget which one.

The Danish historian who they charged is named Lars Hedegaard and the case was finally thrown out on the aforementioned technicality in 2012.

I picked these because they are cases that reached some mainstream press attention.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Nice anti-democratic weapon for them, what we'll see is fines for native Germans complaining about immigration and immigration crime and very little fines issued for those inciting jihad or antisemitism.

You do get some. There's an instance of an Islamic preacher who got done for Hate Speech against homosexuals. He was handing out pamphlets where he'd made GAY an acrostic for "God. Abhors. You." A view that is repugnant to me but which I think he should be allowed to state. But I have no figures as to how hate crimes break down between Muslim and non-Muslim defendants. Honestly, it doesn't matter to me - every prosecution is a problem to me. I'm not going to agree with most of the defendants anyway - the point isn't that they're right, it's that they have rights. Though my OP might give the impression I'm solely concerned with defending people I agree with because I gave examples of such which may have been a mistake on my part. I just wanted to give examples of "Hate Speech" being misused on top of whether it was right in the first place.

I came across this article just now looking for examples for you. It's not got many examples of muslims being prosecuted under it because the organisation is mostly focused not on that, but they do exist as well.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3026/lars-hedegaard-acquitted

Really, it shouldn't be a partisan issue. Free Speech is Free Speech is Free Speech. Only privacy and dishonesty should be used to curtail it, imo.

 

[h4rm0ny]

I suggest people read a little bit about those two examples then, because I'd say you've misrepresented it here.

People should always read things for themself where they have time. But where have I misrepresented anything? I feel if you're going to accuse me of something you should say: "h4rm0ny - this part here is untrue", not make vague intimations.

Not that my argument really depends on whether Brigette Bardot was charged with Inciting Racial Hatred or not - that's just an illustrative example. But she was. And it was as a result of her speaking out against Islamic slaughtering of animals. So where have I misrepresented anything in that, for example?

 

[h4rm0ny]

I would suggest that the bit she was charged for was where she said things like "my country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims", and not for talking about halal slaughter, which was your argument.

Also regarding Lars Hedegaard, he wasn't charged for, as you said, "observing that there was a higher incidence of rape and child molestation in some muslim areas", he actually said "girls in Muslim families are raped by their uncles, their cousins, or their dad", which has a very different meaning.

I am not a lawyer, I didn't follow the cases, I just skimmed Wikipedia because your OP sounded slightly off. If you know better then I'll happily be corrected on this. But if we're going to have a discussion I think it's important to base it on facts.

Well I'm unable to find the letter she wrote to Sarkozy because due to Hate Speech laws it's been taken down and removed from public view. So much as you might want to base the discussion on facts, these laws prevent us from having the discussion we'd both prefer. We're forced to trust that the state made the right decision in censoring the letter. Which is another point against such laws, imo. They boil down to the state saying "you shouldn't read this. We will tell you that it's bad." From what I can read the words you quote from her above are from a letter protesting halal slaughter and the sacrifice of goats at Eid-el-kieber. I might well agree with her to see Britain's progress in animal welfare overturned by immigrants who do not share such values and demand weakening of animal welfare laws in the name of their religion. I wouldn't phrase it as she did but she has spent a good portion of her lifetime campaigning for animal welfare. Decades in fact. It is one of her driving forces if you know much about her. I don't think the above should be censored and she fined for it. And if you're about to object that you're not commenting on the law but my example being misrepresentative, well - her letter IS about halal (we presume) and the above is related to foreign values impinging on French culture (which did not practice Halal butchery) so she is right in that.

As to Lars, I don't know if the interview as a whole is still out there and I lack the Danish to really tell. So again, we're left debating the fine points of something neither of us can see. Is he anti-Islamic? I think so - his website is mostly concerned with that topic and he's previously had people try to kill him for his views. He says that the lines you quote above aren't about all muslims but the specific group he was talking about. I know in my posts I've made comments that I specifically said were about Pakistani communities in Northern England. If you stripped that out and took select sentences you could very easily claim to someone that I had made statements about how all muslims encouraged incest. Which wouldn't be an accurate reading but if the original post were deleted and you were allowed to select a sentence fragment as was done by whoever you copied the above from, I could be made to sound that way. Again, we simply cannot tell and that in itself is a problem. As Richelieu said: "Give me six lines by the most honest man in France, and I will find something therein with which to hang him."

You've argued in good faith and I'll try to do the same. Is it possible that the two examples I picked are people who have a wider dislike of Islam. Yes. Probable, I'll even agree. But that's okay. It's okay to dislike Islam. If Brigette Bardot laments an influx of foreigners who slaughter animals in unnecessarily cruel ways, that's her right. The danish one I just came across looking for good examples. If he had been talking about Rotherham, he'd have been right. As it stands, we can't know the context for what he said. He's against a lot of aspects of Islam from what I can gather. He has that cartoon of Mohammed on his website for example. So if you feel I have picked examples and made them sound lillywhite when in fact there is wider dislike of Islam in there, I'll accept that. But then my argument was less about the examples and more about the principle. I perhaps should have picked an example of someone saying something reprehensible and then argued why they should be allowed to say it. But I wanted to show how genuine statements got shot down by such laws as well. And whether Bardot was criticising Halal and if you're pro animal welfare then it's not inaccurate to say that immigrants have undermined French values by bringing such practices there. I don't know about the areas of Denmark that Hedegaard refers to but there are areas in the UK where rape and child molestation are higher due to immigrant communities. Criminalising saying so is not a good thing.

Obviously any law should apply equally to everybody, I just feel that it's quite common for the "but our free speech!" brigade to very quickly forget what they stand for as soon as somebody who is different to them holds up a sign with something they don't agree with written on it.

I'm actually pretty absolutist in my approach to Free Speech. For example, the anti-gay rhetoric the Islamic preacher was dolling out which I reference in an example above. I find it repugnant and wrong. But I believe it is his right to express his views. Sure, others are not so consistent in their standards, I will agree.

 

[h4rm0ny]

So it should be right to call for genocide on the streets?

Ethically right? No. Legally? Yes. I can't think of a "cure" that isn't worse than the disease.

 

[h4rm0ny]

So who defines what is 'hate speech'? Or is it just going to be anything that criticises a 'certain community' and the hordes of murdering rapists that Merkel opened the gates to?

Well Germany has had Hate Speech laws for a long time - this is essentially adding teeth and making companies enforce it rather than introducing something fundamentally new to Germany. Though that is my point - this is a meaningful step. The reason to emphasise this is because we already have a good idea of how Germany defines Hate Speech - although it is ever changing. Generally, at least based on what Germans have said to me, it's about incitement to violence rather than simply expressing dislike. So oddly, it's more a concern in other countries than Germany perhaps. Though I still find this very ominous in Germany as well. It's important to recognise that under the Hate Speech laws, factual accuracy is not a defence. You could say that the large-scale immigration in Germany has resulted in an increase of rape incidents and I think you'd be right in that. But it could still be Hate Speech.

The people who write the laws....LOL, I see you're one of those who are worried that the hyperbole they spout might fall foul of said laws

I don't think it's hyperbole. Once you give the state the power to supress opinions and conversations with force, where do you think it will end? Do you really have that much faith in governments? I do not. Here's an interesting one. I have long hated the way the pro-Israeli attempts to conflate Zionist with Jewish. It's a deliberate and repugnant trick which I believe actually increases anti-Semitism. There are plenty of Jewish people who are not rabid Zionists. There are plenty of Zionists who are not Jewish. Yet an Israeli minister and his lobby has been campaigning behind the scenes with success to create a legal definition of anti-Semitism that explicitly includes criticism of Israel as a Jewish state as constituting such. It's been adopted by US departments, US judges trained on it and the Conservative Friends of Israel got it approved in the UK recently as well:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/12/europe/uk-anti-semitism-definition/

It all sounds great - who doesn't want to reduce anti-Semitism? Until like many things you go beyond the name and look at the actual contents. Here's an in-depth and citation-heavy analysis and history of it:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/05/i...alizing-criticism-of-israel-as-anti-semitism/

(Note, the DV isn't my usual source - they have a pretty anti-capitalist stance, but a well-researched article is a well-researched article).

Police, judges, politicians are being instructed to view criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. I.e. Hate Speech.

It is NOT hyperbole to be worried that these laws will shut down discussion of reasonable dialogue. The difficult part for a government is getting such powers. Abusing them afterwards is pretty easy. Besides, I'll defend freedom of speech even for those I disagree with.

So it's not just going to fine white people who don't like Muslims and Brexit, but also peadophiles and extremists who upload content.

I can't disagree with it.

Well yes - that's the intent. You can implement any law, seize any power you want, if you know the magic words: "paedophiles" and "terrorists".

 

[h4rm0ny]

One further problem with this - and I'm specifically referring to the fines and the encouragement to outsource content removal - is that it creates a general attitude of speech suppression. Does anybody think that Facebook or Google (incl. YouTube) are going to sit around waiting for fines to roll in? Does anybody believe that they'll leave stuff sitting there and go to court over any of this? Or even restore it later? Nor will users be able to challenge take-downs because "Facebook reserves the right..."

What this bill will accomplish is to make online services such as Facebook, YouTube or forums (such as OCUK!) have to err on the side of not getting massive fines and just take down anything resembling Hate Speech. Some people are arguing about legal niceties but the effect of this is for dialogue to be suppressed without reference to any court.

When the largest means of social discussion - Facebook, forums like this, etc. - are privately owned, cannot be legally challenged for suppressing opinion because their T&C give them carte blanche and the government cannot be challenged because it's outsourced to Third Parties and all "guidance", then that has a very significant effect on Free Speech.

 

[h4rm0ny]

You don't think describing Syrian refugees as "hordes of murdering rapists" is hyperbole?.....hmmmm

I don't think it's hyperbole to predict bad things coming from Hate Speech laws and their heavy enforcement.

 

[h4rm0ny]

On an unrelated note (to that specific point above) the lack of a law like this is the reason Abu Hamza was allowed to continue speaking publicly for as long as he did. Either we restrict all hate speech, or we have very relaxed laws and allow much more freedom of speech. Believing that you should be allowed to say things and someone else shouldn't isn't enough.

I never actually followed the case closely. By my standards, he should not be punished for "Hate Speech". He was also imprisoned for Solicitation for Murder, attempting to set up a terrorist training camp and involvement in hostage taking, though. So it seems there was plenty else to charge him with?

 

[h4rm0ny]

I think you meant to quote @Amp34.
You've attributed an entire paragraph of his text to me.

Sorry about that - copy paste error. My fault. Fixed.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Again, same as above. You're confusing two separate parts. There was the US extradition request (the terrorist training camp, hostage taking) and the UK arrest which was for:

Ah, again - my bad. Thanks. Well Solicitation to Murder is not "Hate Speech", I believe. The rest seems to be though. Again, I don't know the case well enough to comment but if it's as it appears, then that shouldn't be criminalised, imo. Solicitation to Murder is rightly a crime, though.

There is no logical option that would allow right wing anti muslim/immigrant hate speakers to continue spouting their hate, but lock up people spouting the same hate but against "natives". It's one or the other, there shouldn't be a difference, hence Hamza being able to speak for so long.

Well my position is consistent, I feel. I would allow him to continue his bile. There are better ways to counter his rhetoric than by throwing out what we as Western society have striven so hard to achieve.

 

[h4rm0ny]

White people have far more power and status than black people.

But which do you think is more likely to be charged with hate speach for tbe same comment aimed at the other

Angilion has already answered very well but I will also add my view. A great deal of law enforcement is focused on social stability rather than justice. Groups like BLM are active political forces carrying a lot of public and media weight. In short, they threaten the Status Quo. That is the power that matters. That is why those in power must exert themselves to slam down things that offend such groups - to signal their inclusiveness of such groups. They have little need to signal their inclusiveness of "White people". "White people" seldom define themselves by their skin colour or equate it with their culture. Groups that have endured a lot of oppression - such as Black people in the USA - start doing so in response. Hate Speech laws do not come about from a desire to protect individuals, but through a desire to placate groups.

 

[h4rm0ny]

I can't find much information in the way of any significant modern anti-fa groups to make any comment on the movement.

Antifa is a modern, non-centralised group that believes in using violence and the threat of violence to dissuade people from gathering or speaking whom they consider "fascist".

Their definition of "fascist" does not match the political or historical meaning.