You seem to be completely uninformed regarding the actual implementation of the law. Any criticism of anything can and will be deleted under the scope of the law. Want to criticise any policy?
Hatespeech. Criticise religion? Hatespeech. It would of course never hold up in court, but that doesn't matter, for social media platforms deleting anything that could be construed as hate by anyone who feels offended is the path of least resistance.
You are not made accountable for breaking laws that already existed, you are being censored for something that is not illegal, never was, still isn't, but could offend someone if it's disagreement on a sensitive topic. It's the end of any sort of free speech on social media in Germany.
I'm sorry, but you're spouting absolute nonsense. I have discussed this topic many times with my German girlfriend and her family in Germany (we live in Denmark), and you are so completely off on your "predictions", it's not even funny.
German law has a very specific definition of what material is targeted, and "hate speech" is an inadequate translation. Only public speech that incites violence against religious, political groups or sexual orientations and the like, will be targeted by this.
NOT general critique of religions, nor of political standpoints or anything of the sort. Only public speech that incites to violence.
You are utterly wrong in your scaremongering, and this is NOT the "end of free speech on German social media".
I am not predicting anything, this is how it has been implemented. You are aware this law is already in effect and thousands have been deleted/banned?
But this debate is pointless because you clearly neither speak German, understand German law, nor are interested in revising your opinion that this is anything other than a fight of the righteous against the bad. The law is likely unconstitutional, widely overreaching, and does in fact delete these things:
You are celebrating authoritarian censorship because you think it targets the right people. You are calling me out for something you have no firsthand knowledge or expertise on because of tribalism. Stop.
Look. Posting on facebook "lets lynch some {ni..ers, Jews, Arabs, minority of your choice} also gets you into trouble with the law in the states. I doubt that anyone claims this is free speech.
But questioning the Open borders situation in Europe Germany in public (speak facebook) that is BLUNTLY violating German law and Dublin III regulation is what gets you blocked. It is a left wing junta in the final stages that is ruling Germany at the moment. And making law by chancellor decree has been out of fashion in Germany for over 70 years. Not a good idea to bring it back!
Oh, so all of those politicians and right wingers who are calling for hermetically closing the borders and imposing special laws on immigrants have all been fined and/or put in jail?
That's great news! Why hadn't I heard about this before? Perhaps because it's complete nonsense?
Left wing junta? With a Christian conservative chancellor and completely ineffectual so-called left wing parties? That's hilarious. Germany is drifting strongly to the right, and it must be stopped.
Your obvious bias is severely clouding your judgment.
Merkel is solidly centre to centre-right. The only reason she seems "left" to you, is because she doesn't support the frothing-at-the-mouth rabid nationalism that AfD espouse.
Cough, cough. Look, I gave REASONS why I think she is extremely left wing. Pointing out that she is leading the conservative party is not enough to counter my point.
What in her politics is conservative, right, or liberal?
(I would consider "marriage for all" liberal but in the end marriage should be not the business of the government)
What does the AfD stand for? Basically AfD is CDU before Merkel.
End of nuclear energy: decided and tied town by her predecessor governments, stopped by Merkel to be nice to big energy companies, likely against the wishes of the majority of the population, re-introduced by Merkel after public backlash after Fukushima happened a few months later.
Marriage for all: Was forced into parliament by the opposition parties, as common for such decisions way to vote left to individual MPs. Merkel personally voted against it.
Energy revolution isn't really a clearly left-wing policy (especially not after surrounding industries have been created), but also is merely a continuation of a previous path, with Merkels governments weakening some policies.
There's lots of possible criticism of Merkel's policies, but "left wing" really isn't it.
Hey man, Hitler may have voted against raiding Russia but it is the outcome the counts. Fact is, that Merkel's politics is a left wing come true. Proven by the support of people like Fisher and Campino, who claimed to have voted "green" his whole life.
It's funny then that the left-wing parties disagree with so much of Merkels policy then, especially in the core areas of left-wing politics. Reforming Hartz4 and the pension system, that'd be a left-wing dream. A left-wing dream certainly isn't a government with Horst Seehofer responsible for the interior and "Heimat", or Jens Spahn for Health.
Not all they do is clear right-wing (how could it be in a coalition with a center-left party?), but little is clear left-wing. Not the worst from a left-wing perspective, as you can tell by the conflicts in her party and the AfD, and the fact that the SPD got in again after much hand-wringing, but that's about it.
This ongoing coalition is of course a problem, since both parties are forced into compromises, which makes it hard to sell themselves as big successes to their voters.
Partially you seem to apply US standards for whats left- and right-wing policies to a country with a fairly different political landscape, e.g. with the examples you first cited as being clearly left-wing dreams, many of which are fairly mainstream positions in Germany.
Nonetheless it is not ok for you to cross into personal attack, either. You've also broken the site guidelines in a second way: by replying, instead of just flagging, you kept this flamewar going.
It would be good to (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow those rules when posting here. I know it's hard when someone else is violating them, but it's necessary.
You've abused HN badly in this thread by taking it into the worst kind of political/ideological flamewar. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do it again.
Hatespeech. Criticise religion? Hatespeech. It would of course never hold up in court, but that doesn't matter, for social media platforms deleting anything that could be construed as hate by anyone who feels offended is the path of least resistance.
You are not made accountable for breaking laws that already existed, you are being censored for something that is not illegal, never was, still isn't, but could offend someone if it's disagreement on a sensitive topic. It's the end of any sort of free speech on social media in Germany.