"Germany, home to a tough new online hate speech law", anybody have the definition of hate speech according to this law? This article has a lot of information but a cogent definition of hate speech is not given.
The NetzDG (which the article is about) exhaustively lists applicable statutes. Among them is Volksverhetzung, which is what is referred to here as hate speech, which is wildly inaccurate.
> Who does one of the following in a way apt to disturb/destroy public peace/harmony agitate against national/racial/religious or ethnic group, or against parts of the public or against private persons due to their belonging to a recognized group / part of the public, in order to incite hate or violence. attacking the human dignity of <the same blob of text as above> or defames or libels. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13039422#13043027
Reading the translation I have a couple questions. Is the same punishment given whether it is "hate" or "violence"? (I assume not)
What is Germany's definition of "hate"? Is it just up to the court to decide if something is considered hate?
The important point is not "hate", but "in public": You are free to believe whatever you want in private, you are free to talk with your friends about it in whatever way you like. But when you do this in public, with the possible (very likely intended) consequence of making others use violence against some group (usually a minority), than this is bad.
So the intention of the law is to protect the victims of the violence before the public incitation can reach a point where they become victims. Because that's what happened during the Third Reich in Germany on a large scale (and it's still happening everywhere on the world).
In other words, your personal freedom (of free spech) ends where it starts to violate the personal freedom of other people (bodily harm via a third party). That's different from the American view, which somehow has glorified free spech as an absolute virtue, and doesn't care about negative consequences.
So this law is not about violence at all (which is also punishable, by other, very different laws). This law is about public behaviour. And if a case comes before a court, the court won't have to define "hate", the court will have to decide "is this public behaviour which can serve as incitation to violence against others". And in a case like "seven people were beat to death in India after a false viral message on Faceback", it's probably pretty easy to decide. In other cases, it will be harder, but that's what courts are for.
And a big problem of course is that the internet is blurring the distinction between public and private: Before the internet, you'd need to print and distribute flyers, or manage to get an article in a newspaper, or book a slot on TV. That's costly and not open for everyone. Now, you can just write a message on Facebook at no cost at all, and millions can read it.
The law has to catch up with this problem somehow, to protect the victims. In what way the law needs to be modified to deal with it remains to be seen; but it should be obvious by now that the big actors like Facebook have no interest in dealing with this problem on their own, without prodding.
not a lawyer, but I think the spirit of the law is to punish not those who hate, but those who instill hatred / potentially incite violence.
For example, I have never heard of someone being convicted of "Volksverhetzung" (demagogery, incitement of the masses) just because they were homophobic. Its when they incite other people is when that paragraph is applied.
There's no new "hate speech law". There's only new law that punishes sites for failing to remove content that was already illegal. For this they have up to 24 hours, or a week if it is a more complex matter.
That article generally misrepresents German laws, making them seem more draconian than they actually are.
For instance displaying a Swastika is perfectly legal if you don't "objectively" use it to "promote (the) national socialism".
The German definition of Volksverhetzung, often translated as "hate speech", is also quite a bit a narrower than what your average native english speaker would understand as hate speech: basically, under that law, ONLY hate speech against a group or individual targeting them for belonging to a certain ethnic group, nationality, or religion is illegal IF it is disseminated in a way that has the potential to disrupt public peace.
> displaying a Swastika is perfectly legal if you don't "objectively" use it to "promote (the) national socialism".
It seems that only applies if your work falls clearly within a few categories of exceptions. For example, Wolfenstein, a game about a Jewish commando fighting against the Nazis, was censored in Germany to comply with the law.
> "In Germany, we've removed all Nazi symbols and references. Unlike films and other works of art, video games in Germany are forbidden to use such symbols and references as they are classified in Germany as toys and not media art." The illegal display of Nazi imagery is punishable by three years in prison in Germany. (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27488254)
Even "Maus: A Survivor's Tale" struggled to be published uncensored. They eventually succeeded in convincing the culture ministry to allow publication, but it's not enough to be anti-Nazi.
>For example, Wolfenstein, a game about a Jewish commando fighting against the Nazis, was censored in Germany to comply with the law.
Art, sciences and education are obviously exempt from these rules and while many pretty much assumed games to be art a recent court confirmed that games would be ruled as art.
The reason why Wolfenstein was censored is because of the USK, the board behind age ratings in germany, which has in the past been rather strict with nazi symbolism, regardless of context. They've softened up a lot and would wave through games with nazi symbolism like the newer Wolfenstein titles, however publishers don't want to take the chances of having to reapply for rating and simply already submit a censored version before it even hits their desks.
> For instance displaying a Swastika is perfectly legal if you don't "objectively" use it to "promote (the) national socialism".
Yet the chilling effects are real, leading to silly examples of censorship. Particularly in new mediums such as video games - most famously Wolfenstein 3D. The Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (BPjM) / Jugendschutzgesetz (JuSchG) has made some questionable decisions in the past.
I agree that "hate speech" has a different connotation than Volksverhetzung (particularly in this day and age), and it's a bit more nuances than the article presents it.
Yes you're right. I was setting some facts straight and answering my parent post's question. I wasn't voicing my opinion on whether or not I agree with those laws (I don't) and think they're well-designed (they're not IMHO).
There are no easy definitions for everything, the world is complex, deal with it. It is the same, for example, with pornography. One and the same image might either be pornography or a work of art, one and the same image might either be a holiday picture from the beach or child pornography, and you would be unable to tell the difference just from looking at the images.
In some situations it is just more practical to leave things vague and deal with the facts on a case by case basis once the need arises instead of trying forever - and probably failing - to come up with an airtight definitions covering each and every edge case.
Actually Germany has a pretty clear definition and precedent of this and it is certainly nowhere near to being congruent with what Americans call hate speech. This likely makes the translation "hate speech" a factual error.
I don't know how good or bad the German definition of hate speech is, my point was more that even if there is or were no precise definition, it would still not be a huge problem. This just seems to be a rather popular misconceptions that laws require and are not useful without perfect definitions for everything. In reality there is a lot for variation, some things are totally nailed down, some things are intentionally left open to interpretation.
The justice system in Germany is operating completely different than the US justice system. While in the US precedent is one of the most important factors, German courts try to apply "common sense" (quite literally). Laws take this into account and leave a lot more wiggle room for the courts. Thus the laws in Germany occur strange to Americans that only know "if it's not explicitly forbidden, it's allowed".
Algolia says: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13039422#13043027
Here is the full text of the law in question: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/netzdg/BJNR335210017.html (and here is a legally non-binding English translation: https://www.bmjv.de/SharedDocs/Gesetzgebungsverfahren/Dokume... )
§ 1(3) contains the exhaustive list of crimes I mentioned above.