Germany: Bill requires sites to report hate speech to police

Associated Press ^ | February 19, 2020 | Frank Jordans

[Olog-hai]

“The NSDAP is the German Left. We despise bourgeois nationalism.&K#148;

That quote from Goebbels tells me that Nazism is nowhere near the right.

[TBP]

National Socialists Against Nazism

[TBP]

Germany for the Amish! :)

[semimojo]

What do you think about German government control of American speech through the proxy of "private" companies?

I think Germany can pass the laws the people there want passed, and I think private American companies can choose to comply with those laws or not - provided they're willing to live with the consequences of their choice.

I wouldn't support a law saying private companies lose all control over what gets posted on the sites that they developed and operate with their own resources.

Ancestry.com should be able to delete off topic posts, for example.

Your approach would turn every site into 8chan and you couldn't care less about how badly it impacted the value of the owners' private property.

And your transparent dodges that exclude sites you like, like FR, from your big government approach are just that, transparent dodges.

[MarineBrat]

Over my many years of observation I have come to realize that there is an actual specific lowest common denominator of what it means to be to the left or to the right. To the left seeks to consolidate power into the hands of as few people as possible and to the right seeks to distribute power into the hands of as many people as possible.

[Olog-hai]

Ever read the German Basic Law? It’s actually set up so that laws that the people want passed won’t get passed. Take Article 5, for one example:

1. Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
   
   
2. These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honor.
   
   
3. Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution.

That is the same kind of self-nullification found in the old USSR constitution and today’s PRC constitution. First section claims that there will be no censorship, while the second section asserts that there will indeed be censorship.