[sho_hn]

I'll take the bait because I'm annoyed by the boiling-frog aspect to vaguely alluding to things.

Here's the press release on this:

https://www.bka.de/DE/Presse/Listenseite_Pressemitteilungen/...

tl;dr Since in Germany it is illegal to e.g. make public postings calling for the rape of women or share video footage of women being murdered and tortured for the purpose of entertainment and gloating, one day ahead of International Womens Day police staged a big showy series of raids on individuals doing such things, to make a point and call attention to the issue.

Sounds like an excellent use of my tax money, to be honest, but it was certainly controversial also in Germany.

[on_the_train]

It is also illegal to share crime statistics or make jokes about politicians

[sho_hn]

Observe how hyperbole comes without links, in comparison.

[on_the_train]

https://www.bz-berlin.de/meinung/kolumne/kolumne-mein-aerger...

[the_why_of_y]

This article doesn't report the facts correctly; the search warrant was issued for posting an anti-semitic Nazi meme.

(Just for the record, I believe that a well-known politician should just have to live with being insulted.)

> The Bavaria resident is also accused of posting Nazi-era imagery and language earlier in 2024. According to prosecutors, this post may have violated German laws against the incitement of ethnic or religious hatred.

> The man was arrested on Thursday as part of nationwide police operations against suspected antisemitic hate speech online.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-greens-habeck-presses-charges-...

This article is more informative:

Translated (with DeepL.com):

> The public prosecutor's office in Bamberg has now announced: The search had already been requested before the Green politician himself filed a criminal complaint in the case.

> Habeck only filed a criminal complaint in the case more than a month after the search warrant had been requested.

> According to the public prosecutor's office, the suspect is also facing another charge: According to this, in spring 2024, he allegedly uploaded a picture on X with a reference to the Nazi dictatorship, which could potentially constitute the criminal offense of incitement to hatred. According to the investigators, it shows an SS or SA man with the poster and the words “Germans don't buy from Jews” and the additional text “True democrats! We've had it all before!”.

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/schwachkopf-belei...

(Note the date on the last article - 5 days later than the one you linked - likely the facts weren't known to the public before then)

[pembrook]

Hrmmm, German supports using the monopoly on violence given to the state to make raids on people who make undesirable social media posts.

There’s only one problem. Whos to say you won’t be the next target if the political climate shifts to cracking down on pro-censorship voices like yourself?

Will you think its still a good use of your tax money when the opposition is putting you in a police car for this exact HN comment?

[aleph_minus_one]

> Hrmmm, German supports using the monopoly on violence given to the state to make raids on people who make undesirable social media posts.

The German society is insanely divided on a lot of (in this case: political) topics. Better avoid making such generalizations.

[alexey-salmin]

In my reading he meant the author of the parent comment specifically, hence "German supports" and not "Germans support". So not a generalization.

[sho_hn]

> German supports using the monopoly on violence given to the state to make raids on people who make undesirable social media posts.

Yes. As a sibling poster mentioned, this has historical roots. German law recognizes something called "Volksverhetzung", similar to concepts in other national criminal codes in other countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

You can probably guess which hot button issue it comes up with in context the most often (if not: Holocaust denial).

Essentially, there was a landmark judgement that certain forms of calling for violence against women publicly can qualify as this, and so may potentially be criminal (this would be decided case by case in an actual trial, of course).

I can completely understand coming from the perspective of the First Amendment US system and having a different opinion on this. As a crude analogy, it's a bit like Americans love their free market while Europeans usually think a bit more regulation of capitalism is a sane thing to do. It's going to be difficult to agree across the pond.

These things exist on a gradient. Note that plenty of other intact democracies are much stricter than Germany, e.g. South Korea where legal action against online hate speech occurs at a far larger volume, and comes together with far more tracking infrastructure and lack of anonymity on the internet (e.g. since everyone has a client cert for online commerce). And you know what? Many South Koreans want internet hate speech and trolling and bullying policed even much harder.

In Germany there is constant, sometimes quite heated debate on the reach of the application of the Volksverhetzung idea. I think that's very good and have had different opinions across various cases.

> Will you think its still a good use of your tax money when the opposition is putting you in a police car for this exact HN comment?

I know the legislative and political processes of my country well enough to know the long process it would take to get there. If I see things slide in the wrong direction, you bet I'll vote or take to the streets on that issue, too.

A country is a process that takes active participation. It's not a black or white thing you settle one time.

[alexey-salmin]

What's you position on criminal prosecution and house searches for insults of politicians?

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/08/05/german-politic...

> The offence means that in certain cases, criticism of the government that constitutes insult or defamation against political figures is subject to criminal prosecution in Germany.

> Specifically, Section 188 was amended by law, adding "insult" to the offence in addition to "defamation" and "slander". The offence was also extended to include local politicians.

> Robert Habeck of the Greens, for example, filed 805 criminal complaints. The Greens' Annalena Baerbock filed 513, Marco Buschmann of the FDP 26, and Boris Pistorius of the SPD 10, among others.

> Politicians from other parties such as the CDU and AfD have also filed criminal complaints against insults from citizens.

> This includes AfD leader Alice Weidel, who has filed hundreds of complaints for insults online and has also made use of Section 188, even though her party is in favour of abolishing it.

> CDU leader Friedrich Merz, before he became chancellor, had also filed several criminal complaints for insulting behaviour, which in some cases led to house searches.

[sho_hn]

I think the insult prosecution goes in most cases too far. For me the difference is that Volksverhetzung targets entire groups and raises sentiment against them, while these insults are individual, and public persons are already special-cased in some other ways. I also think the people pressing charges are usually doing themselves no favors, when this is covered in the press they usually end up looking like power-abusing bullies.

[alexey-salmin]

Do you mean that the law is OK, just the prosecution somehow goes too far? Or the law itself allowing prosecution of insults is the problem?