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In a coordinated campaign across 14 states, the German police on Tuesday raided the homes of 36 people accused of hateful postings over social media, including threats, coercion and incitement to racism.
Most of the raids concerned politically motivated right-wing incitement, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office, whose officers conducted home searches and interrogations. But the raids also targeted two people accused of left-wing extremist content, as well as one person accused of making threats or harassment based on someone's sexual orientation.
"The still high incidence of punishable hate posting shows a need for police action," Holger Münch, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office, said in a statement. "Our free society must not allow a climate of fear, threat, criminal violence and violence either on the street or on the internet."
The raids come as Germans are debating the draft of a new social media law aimed at cracking down on hate speech, a measure that an array of experts said was unconstitutional at a parliamentary hearing on Monday.
The measure, championed by Justice Minister Heiko Maas for passage this month, would fine Facebook, Twitter and other outlets up to $53 million (50 million euros) if they failed to remove hate speech and other forms of illegal content.
The left ladies and gentlemen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @03:38AM (1 child)
The American concept of freedom of speech isn't a universal truth.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @07:28AM
Of course it's not. Otherwise, this article would not exist and we wouldn't be discussing these injustices. I have no interest in your 'Country X will respect people's freedom and Country Y will violate it, and that's just fine' excuses. Our values are irreconcilable.
Also, America isn't without its censorship. We still have FCC censorship, free speech zones, rules against bomb jokes in certain places, and a number of puritan restrictions on free speech (see the Miller Test); all of those violate the Constitution. So, it's not that I follow the American concept of freedom of speech, but that I am a principled advocate of free speech. Authoritarians will never understand that position.