[alphazard]

> not as an oppressive tool, but as a safety valve for the society.

This strikes me as just incorrect. What example from history shows totalitarianism being successfully avoided because of controls on speech?

The first item in the totalitarian playbook is controlling speech, and there are historical examples of that in every single totalitarian regime that I'm aware of.

[9dev]

Well I can tell you from day-to-day experience in Germany that the fact it’s illegal to say „Heil Hitler“ and similar nazi slogans draws a very clear line between ordinary citizens and right extremists. It’s a good thing nobody can walk around and loudly proclaim their veneration for the darkest period in our history, for doing so makes them an enemy of our democracy and everything it stands for. A society has to have limits to the tolerable, and defend them.

This has worked well for more than half a century here, and I assure you that Germany hasn’t succumbed to a totalitarian regime yet. Quite the opposite to some, erm, land of the free that seems to struggle a lot with freedom lately.

[metalcrow]

I think Germany has not succumbed less because of the laws around speech, and more because of other reasons. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_German_coup_d'%C3%A9tat... was a very recent example of a direct attempt to upend democracy there, calling this working well may be overstated