Fines for online Hate Speech in Germany

What I've found interesting is the attitude that companies like Facebook should be pretty much precognisant of people posting hate, etc. and practically erase it before it has happened - realistically its impossible to moderate every post on facebook before it is published and automated systems can only go so far - as long as the company has proper tools for posts to be reported and is responsive in moderating posts that are reported I can't see the justification with current technology to push for anything else.

Problem is these days so many people seems to be engaged in virtue signalling and affecting the moral high ground :( society in general and especially those with actively left leaning views have become as loathsome and ugly as the things they are ostensibly protesting about.
 
Raz said:
It's Eid al-Adha, the one after Hajj.

We just have to accept that no laws are perfect and that such laws that protect individuals and society are a work in progress. The principle here is just that - to protect people and groups in society from being targeted by what are essentially idiots.

I find it hard to believe that someone who raises a concern in order to deal with it, supported by research and evidence, would be labelled as someone inciting hate. Someone who uses that information to vilify or discriminate against that group however is obviously different as their intention may not be to address the concern but to use it to, well, incite hate..
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Exactly. And that seems to be backed up by the two examples above.

It's not the data that's the issue, it's the way it's used and how it's expressed.

Not that I'm for this kind of law in many ways it would show just how far down the rabbit hole many people actually are with their hate.
 
I think the trouble with these "hate speech" laws is that they are aimed at suppressing particular criticisms and uncomfortable facts/truths that the establishment don't want disseminated, it's not like they're worried about by KKK types who simply hate for the sake of prejudice. Hopefully it's a sign of the politically correct left losing the information war.
 
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?
 
StriderX said:
So it should be right to call for genocide on the streets?
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I think inciting violence is where you draw a line tbh... No country really has complete 'freedom of speech' but this move by Germany is slightly worrying as are the cases cited by the OP. In the Brexit thread someone posted a list of 'human rights' we have in the UK and asked another poster which he objected to, the problem is that it isn't just the rights themselves but how they're implemented that is important. I.e. not everyone would consider that 'right to a family life' ought to mean the UK can't deport terrorists and to plenty of people the right to 'freedom of speech' should prevent people from being arrested for saying something 'offensive' on twitter. For whatever reason we seem to have applied the former very broadly whereas the latter seems to have restrictions you'd not see in say the US, which was the pioneer in this area.
 
Freakbro said:
The people who write the laws....
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not necessarily - the courts have rather a lot of influence in this area too

for example re: the 'right to a family life' in the UK - I doubt the people who wrote our laws intended for terrorists to be able to use it to avoid deportation
 
dowie said:
not necessarily - the courts have rather a lot of influence in this area too

for example re: the 'right to a family life' in the UK - I doubt the people who wrote our laws intended for terrorists to be able to use it to avoid deportation
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How often has it actually been used for that, and how often has it been used for situations where you consider it "correct".
 
Amp34 said:
How often has it actually been used for that, and how often has it been used for situations where you consider it "correct".
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I don't now how often nor do I see how that it particularly relevant. If it is a valid defence against deportation then others can use it in future too.
 
It's relevant because the law is always on the side of caution.

If it's used thousands of times for "good" the fact it's also been used only twice for "bad" is pretty damned relevant. Scrapping something that is almost entirely useful because a very small number of incidents is a little over the top don't you think?

If on the other hand it's used "badly" in a significant number/majority of cases then it's not a very good law/right and needs to be repealed/modified.

All about perspective.

The same one or two examples come up time and time again when this is discussed so it's likely to be a very rare occurance.

Do you propose relaxing the burden of proof in criminal cases because occasionally a murderer gets away with it? Same thing.
 
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The thread is about hate speech not right to a family life, the point was simply that these laws don't always get applied in ways people could envisage when such laws are made. It doesn't really matter how often someone has used the right to a family life to avoid deportation (it is in the hundreds AFAIK) as far as using that as an example is concerned. I'm sure that if the thread was about the right to a family life and deporting criminals then we could have a longer discussion on the matter but it isn't and frankly it is irrelevant to do so.
 
Fine, you brought it up and I asked how many times it has been used. It's unlikely to be 100 of terrorist though, which is what you first mentioned.

But I agree with the overall sentiment, even if I don't agree with the example. Broad, catchall laws are bad, but then how bad they are may depend on the reporting of the actual cases (see the two previous examples given in this thread).
 
mmj_uk said:
I think the trouble with these "hate speech" laws is that they are aimed at suppressing particular criticisms and uncomfortable facts/truths that the establishment don't want disseminated, it's not like they're worried about by KKK types who simply hate for the sake of prejudice. Hopefully it's a sign of the politically correct left losing the information war.
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Germany is worried about KKK types, given its history.

And Angela Merkel's government is not left-wing. She's the leader of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, which can be called centrist at best. She personally voted against marriage equality just this week.
 
I have to confess a minor feeling of anxiety on reading about this proposed law.
I have two German grandsons, and some time ago, when my elder son, the father of the grandsons in question, told me that his youngest had started seeing a Muslim girl, I was a tad dubious about it.
I emailed the elder grandson, at University in Kleve, and asked him how he felt about his little brother having a Muslim girlfriend.
He replied, "Opa, she's great, she loves music, her and Mark are always going to concerts and clubbing, her family own a restaurant in Bielefeld, and we're always getting invited to eat there for free, dad thinks she's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and her family are the only people I know who drink as much vodka as you."
That put my mind at rest, but on reading this thread, I thought, thank Christ that I didn't say to my kid, "Get in there and break it up, are you insane?"
 
Jean-F said:
I have to confess a minor feeling of anxiety on reading about this proposed law.
I have two German grandsons, and some time ago, when my elder son, the father of the grandsons in question, told me that his youngest had started seeing a Muslim girl, I was a tad dubious about it.
I emailed the elder grandson, at University in Kleve, and asked him how he felt about his little brother having a Muslim girlfriend.
He replied, "Opa, she's great, she loves music, her and Mark are always going to concerts and clubbing, her family own a restaurant in Bielefeld, and we're always getting invited to eat there for free, dad thinks she's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and her family are the only people I know who drink as much vodka as you."
That put my mind at rest, but on reading this thread, I thought, thank Christ that I didn't say to my kid, "Get in there and break it up, are you insane?"
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I think your post says more about you than the lawmakers.
 
Amnesia said:
Read the article, its about time
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Justice Minister Heiko Maas explained that, under the Network Enforcement Act, social media companies will face fines for failing to remove “obviously illegal” content within 24 hours. For cases and posts which are less clear, the companies will have a week to take the content down. Examples given by Maas include hate speech, defamation, and incitements to violence.

A recent example of this, separate from the issue of hate speech, was brought to light by a BBC investigation, which revealed that 80 per cent of child abuse images it reported to Facebook were not removed. Facebook responded to the allegations by requesting the BBC send examples of the material to it, then reported the BBC journalists to British authorities for sending them illegal content.
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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.
 
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