
German police raid homes over Facebook hate speech - vezycash
http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/13/12170590/facebook-hate-speech-germany-police-raid
======
ythl
Europe is so progressive. Protecting the "social climate" of the people
through censorship and raids.

~~~
arkitaip
What part of illegal did you not understand?

~~~
Overtonwindow
That's the whole point, it should not be illegal. Suppression of speech which
does not explicitly advocate for violence is oppression. Plain and simple. You
may disagree with the speech, it may be distasteful, hateful, or whatever, but
no government should be allowed to oppress the free expression of ideas. You
should have freedom of speech, not freedom from speech.

~~~
whamlastxmas
Freedom of speech to the extent that we have in the US is not very common.
There are tons of laws in Germany specifically the limit free speech due to
being very sensitive about Holocaust deniers and people who try to incite mass
hatred.

Even Canadian free speech laws are much more limited than the US. See the
ridiculous "twitter harassment case" from last year/early this year.

~~~
pjc50
US freedom of speech in action: [https://theintercept.com/2016/07/12/after-
dallas-shootings-p...](https://theintercept.com/2016/07/12/after-dallas-
shootings-police-arrest-people-for-criticizing-cops-on-facebook-and-twitter/)

~~~
whamlastxmas
Three of those were people directly and clearly threatening to kill a police
officer. A fourth one was saying she'd kill a police officer if she was pulled
over, and got a "disorderly conduct" charge which may very well get thrown
out. She was arrested and immediately released.

Freedom of speech is working fine aside from NSLs.

------
javajosh
Words are messages, and government always reserves the right to punish the use
of some messages, and prevent them. And in this, it is a matter of degree, not
kind.

For hate speech in Germany, I firmly believe that the story should not end at
"police raids" but rather at "and the neo-nazi was adopted by Syrian
immigrants and shown great love and compassion, and he fell in love with a
nice Syrian girl and they will be married in the fall." But that has more to
do with what the punishment is.

While I'm against hate speech laws in general because of the withering
slippery-slope argument, Germany really is a special case because of the
holocaust.

Last but not least, this news article implies that _we are being monitored_.
We might not trigger visible action, or any action, but our messages are
running a gauntlet of predicates that, if any flip to "true" will get human
eyeballs on our messages, which may yield humans wielding guns in our living
rooms. Such is life.

------
elgabogringo
Just a reminder that we are the only country with the first amendment and a
constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech.

~~~
Cenk
Not true. Germany does in fact have a constitutional right to free speech.

>Freedom of expression is granted by Article 5 of the Basic Law for the
Federal Republic of Germany, which also states that there is no censorship and
freedom of expression that may be limited by law.

The US is in fact the only developed country that has no laws banning hate
speech, including no legal recourse for outright lies like Holocaust denial.

~~~
strictnein
"Free speech, except..." isn't free speech, no matter how well-intentioned it
may be.

~~~
brewdad
Then Free Speech doesn't exist anywhere in the world.

------
mapleoin
The problem I see with this is: how do they know someone is who they claim to
be on Facebook? There's no indication in the article that they collaborated
with Facebook and an ISP to link a user's post with their (possibly dynamic)
IP address and home address. There's a big leap from "it appears someone
posted hate speech using your facebook account" to "you are guilty of posting
hate speech on facebook".

~~~
yAnonymous
Facebook is readily complying with all of this, as they do in all countries
with similar government censorship. They even gave a private company working
for the German government access to delete Facebook posts as they see fit.

[http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/15/9329119/facebook-
germany-h...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/15/9329119/facebook-germany-hate-
speech-xenophobia-migrant-refugee)

[http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Facebook-
Hasskommenta...](http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Facebook-
Hasskommentare-werden-nun-in-Deutschland-geprueft-3071824.html) (German)

It's not too far-fetched to assume that they have access to IPs.

------
facepalm
In the German newspapers I read it was reported that the statements in
question were actual calls for violence, not merely hate speech (I guess "kill
all xyz" vs "xyz are evil").

So the police statement is rather misleading. To be sure, some official
institutions have been involved in questionable campaigns against "hate
speech" recently, so perhaps they wanted to show that they are making
progress. It seems likely to me that the raid was actually about real illegal
activities, rather than hateful opinions.

I think even in the US calling for somebodies death is not really protected by
"free speech"?

Nevertheless it is worrying that official institutions lent their name to the
questionable campaign against hate speech. (Questionable because it was
initiated by several people with a track record of hate speech, and because it
seems to be designed to simply silence unwelcome opinions, as hate speech is
not clearly defined by the campaigners).

------
hsod
Hard to judge this without knowing specifically what was said, but it doesn't
seem great.

I don't believe that government forces should enter peoples homes and imprison
them for expressing their opposition to immigration, which could easily be
cast as "xenophobia".

------
guard-of-terra
> Operation targeted 60 people accused of posting far-right content to a
> private Facebook group

Does "private" Facebook means what I think it means? I.e. outsiders won't see
this at all? What's the problem there then? Next time they'll raid my bedroom
because they don't like what goes on there?

> most of the suspects were accused of posting... xenophobic... messages

What's wrong in being xenophobic, from moral perspective? Is it now a
requirement for me to avoid feeling emotions against people who I don't
approve?

> "strong rise in verbal radicalism"

It's definitely easier to combat verbal xenophobes than real terrorists. First
of all, they don't shoot back at you.

------
venomsnake
> In its press release, the BKA said that the operation carried out this week
> aims to combat a "strong rise in verbal radicalism."

Raiding homes of people posting stupid private shit on the internet is also
great way to get more physical radicalism.

~~~
king_phil
It is more than stupid shit, it is illegal stupid shit. Please read (edit:
replaced, was "the") the German legal code. From your argument it would be
better not to pursue crime just because you _might_ "(to) get more physical
radicalism"? That is clearly not justice.

~~~
frabbit
That's right. If it's the law then it must be right. It's a simple way of
thinking that has worked out very well in many situations.

Meanwhile: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/15/angela-
merkel-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/15/angela-merkel-
agrees-prosecution-comedian-erdogan-poem)

~~~
king_phil
You forget that in Germany we have "Gewaltenteilung", meaning that
legislation, judiciary and executive are separated. This is a concept that is
fundamental to our country and culture. If the law is not okay it is not in
the power of the executive to change, not enforce or bend it. There is a
separate process for it that must be invoked. (In this case) there seems to be
no critical mass that calls for changing this particular law. And you can rest
assured that we have a very active public discussion about changes to the
criminal code right now, with thousands of people actively participating. As
you might be better informed the me, could you please cite at least one
instance of what these people or people in similar cases said/wrote that
should NOT the punishable, but is under current law?

 _edit_ : citing the decision to allow prosecution of Böhmermann reveals how
little you understand the German legal system. The article is misleading at
best and not covering the legal grounds and background correctly at all.

~~~
king_phil
@frabbit exactly, but they did NOT yell "fire" but "open fire on the
immigrants" (literally: in one instance the comment was posted beneath a
picture of a immigrant child "you need a flamethrower to get rid of these
bugs", with bugs might not be the best translation here) posted besides Nazi
symbols.

At least for me, this makes a difference.

 _edit_ : I am going out on a limb here, but I thought exactly this was one of
the purposes of RICO. Telling someone to commit a crime in a formed group is a
crime and not free speech. I am a total amateur in US criminal code, is this
understanding correct?

~~~
frabbit
You are correct. Legal codes in many countries criminalize the act of speech
itself.

This even goes all the way back to the concept of "assault" in anglo-saxon
legal traditions[1] (which is the simple threat part of the pair "assault and
battery". Many of us use "assault" to mean a physical attack, but it seems
originally to be simply causing someone to fear.)

Again, though, you are arguing that because something is the law then that in
itself makes it moral and useful.

Those who make slippery-slope arguments about the vesting of power in the
state seem increasingly persuasive when we see the turning of the act of
speaking into a crime itself. For further examples of "European" countries
which illustrate the dangers you could look at Ireland's blasphemy laws which
still stand.

1\.
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault)

~~~
king_phil
I don't necessarily argue that everything is right because it is the law, I
argue that THIS exact law is right. It might not be for you, but it is for me.
And seemingly not only for.me, but for a lot of people in this country.
Otherwise there would be a (stronger) opposition to this law. I think we might
have to recognize that the German culture is different from yours (US I
suppose it is) and that we simply cannot expect to agree on everything. This
might be because we are grown up in the system that protects us both
adequately and we therefore think it is the best one, only because it is a
adequate one. This goes both ways, e.g. you are right to think your system is
better while I am right to think ours is. And exactly that tolerance is what I
would like to not only see but DEMAND from other people. And I believe this
exact law is right in a way that it makes it harder for people that don't
recognize that all people are created and to be treated equal to express and
propagate their beliefs. I think you could even find a similar or maybe exact
same argument for your position. I respect that but hope you have other ways
to ensure no one creates a climate of fear, hatred and violence (physical and
non-physical) against people that are different. This law will not be
everything the German culture sets against that climate but is one piece of
our puzzle.

~~~
frabbit
> you are right to think your system is better while I am right to think ours
> is. And exactly that tolerance is what I would like to not only see but
> DEMAND from other people.

I am not interested in the personalization of the argument or grounding it in
lived experience of any sort.

Objectively the system which you extoll results in censorship, in this case of
criticism of a near-dictator involved in genocide against the Kurdish people.

I believe that enabling a state to censor what people can say is dangerous to
democracy. I think this is adequately demonstrated through numerous historical
and current examples.

Your statement of "tolerance" is meaningless because you will be unaware of
other viewpoints of which you must be tolerant when they are censored.

Ironically as this discussion is deemed offensive to the moderators of HN this
entire discussion has been effaced.

~~~
king_phil
I can't follow. How is this incident related to any genocide, dictatorship,
erdogan... what?

I have the feeling you are just cherry picking this to troll on and not
interested in talking about the different dogmatics of legal systems. I didn't
want to personalize the discussion, just replace "you" and "me" with "any
person from your belief system" and "any person from my belief system". It
looks to me that you are not interested in thinking about other people's
opinion and/or belief system. Now THAT was a personal remark.

~~~
frabbit
> I can't follow. How is this incident related to any genocide, dictatorship,
> erdogan... what?

Really? So, you can't see the link between the German state's power to choose
which speech acts can be punished and the punishing of someone for speech
acts?

You cannot see the link between the Turkish bombing and starving of the
Kurdish people and the historical assaults by your own country on minority
populations?

I am not going to reply any more to you as you have descended to personalized
abuse, but I will close with thanking you for illustrating exactly why the
policing of free speech can never be allowed: there are too many people like
you who are incapable of exercising tolerance and rationality, and once a
lever of power and control is in your hands you will pull it.

Thank you, and god bless the USA.

~~~
king_phil
"The German state" is a construct in form of a _organization_. The people who
decide are forming the _structure_ of this organization. The concrete people
who are deciding who is punished are _judges_. As I already stated in this
discussion, we employ "Gewaltenteilung" to separate judiciary, execute and
legislative. So "the state" is not able to punish anybody, it is people who
punish. And they do by the rules that are set for the judiciary, which are
made by the legislative and carried out by the executive. The executive has a
different set of rules than the legislative and they have a different set then
the judiciary. These different sets of rules are each a corrective for
potential abuse of power. There is no "state" punishing anybody, it is a set
of rules made by people, carried out by people, watched by people. For
somebody who broadcasts that free speech is the Holy grail you act like you
don't tolerate no opinion besides your own. You're basically a fanatic and
revealed your own colors.

