Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

German social media law: early takedowns spur outcry

“A new law meant to curtail hate speech on social media in Germany is stifling free speech and making martyrs out of anti-immigrant politicians whose posts are deleted, the top-selling Bild newspaper said on Thursday” under the headline “Please spare us the thought police!” [Michelle Martin, Thomson Reuters] In one probably intended effect of the draconian law — drafted by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats — Twitter moved to take down some pronouncements by politicians from the nationalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. But the NetzDG enactment, as it is known, has quickly had a number of less expected applications, including the blockage of a satirical publication that had mimicked the tone of an AfD leader, and even the deletion of a years-earlier tweet by Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a champion of the law, in which he had called an author an “idiot.” [Reuters; AFP/The National; DW; Tim Cushing/TechDirt; earlier here, here, here, here, and here]

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4 Comments

  • Have they already forgotten that Nazi’s didn’t start as Nazi’s?

    • By cecil

  • But the NetzDG enactment, as it is known, has quickly had a number of less expected applications, including the blockage of a satirical publication that had mimicked the tone of an AfD leader, and even the deletion of a years-earlier tweet by Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a champion of the law, in which he had called an author an “idiot.”

    So, the night of the short deletion orders has begun early in the movement, even before the Facebook putsch.

    When will we see the newsreels of thousands upon thousands goose-typing in unison on their iPhones?

  • Sooner or later all witch hunts end when they burn the wrong people. This one sets a new speed record for starting to burn the wrong people! Less than 24 hours.

    • They end when they fail to burn the politically inopportune people. Right people, wrong people, it’s the growing size of the blaze that urges them on.

      Bob