Bizarre, Free Speech, International

German Justice Minister Barred On Twitter Under The New Speech Controls Pushed Through By His Government
Coat_of_arms_of_Germany.svgWe have been discussing how Germany has led the West in the criminalization of speech, an anti-free speech trend that is now raging in England, France, Canada and other Western nations.  Germany has continued its plunge into censorship and criminalization despite the failure of its speech laws to curtail extremism. Now even Germany’s justice minister has been censored under the laws that he and his colleagues have fostered.  Heiko Maas has been notified that a tweet in 2010 is now considered improper and thus barred on Twitter.  The offense? He called an author “an idiot.”

I have been a long critic of Germany’s criminal speech laws, including its long criminalization of Nazi symbols.  While I am certainly sympathetic to the Germans in seeking to end the scourge of fascism, there has been little evidence that the German laws prohibiting certain symbols and phrases have achieved anything other than expanding government power over political speech. It has also created an insatiable appetite for censorship among German citizens.  I fail to see how arresting a man for a Hitler ringtone is achieving a meaningful level of deterrence, even if you ignore the free speech implications.

For Maas, his speech was curtailed due to expressing his opinion of Thilo Sarrazin, a politician and the author of a controversial book on Muslim immigrants.

We recently discussed how Germany is extending its criminalization of speech to the Internet.  Germany imposed a legal regime that would allow fining social networks such as Facebook up to 500,000 euros ($522,000) for each day the platform leaves a “fake news” story up without deleting it. Governments have finally found a vehicle to get citizens to allow them to curtail or chill speech — ironically in the name of facilitating “real news” or “truth.” It is perfectly Orwellian and Merkel’s latest contribution to the erosion of free speech in the West.

Maas of course could only dutifully accept his own censorship given his role in prosecuting others for views or speech deemed inappropriate. He is quoted as saying that he has learned to conform his speech and “there are things that I would no longer tweet today.”  He insists “I’ve learnt that over the years.”

It is a lesson that he is eager to teach to not only Germans but non-Germans under the new regime of speech controls implemented under Merkel.

25 thoughts on “German Justice Minister Barred On Twitter Under The New Speech Controls Pushed Through By His Government”

  1. “despite the failure of its speech laws to curtail extremism.”

    And just how might you know this is true?

    Take your time to gather statistics – these limited proscribed speech laws have been in effect in virtually all of Europe for about 5 decades.

  4. Of course there’s also this: “BREAKING NEW UNDERCOVER VIDEO: Twitter Engineers To “Ban a Way of Talking” Through “Shadow Banning,” Algorithms to Censor Opposing Political Opinions #ShadowBan”

    Project Veritas, find at @Chillum

  5. There is another way. Twitter has found it. Go to wikileaks and watch the tape of what twitter is reallying doing to its users. Hint–they are collecting, storing and monitoring everything you do, things you post, things you thought about posting but deleted and so on..

    Germany is one kind of police state. The US is quite another. Frankly, I think the US is number 1 in repressive regimes hands down.

    1. Autumn,

      Sorry I missed the second part of your post. I’m not finding much on this story in the MSM. What a surprise!

      1. No worries – often things get crossed. =) It’s so depressing — the collection of data, blocking data, etc.

        And then you have all the fools who actually purchase items allowing Big Tech to spy on them further… most of my friends have Echos – some even have several – you know, for the kids

        Doesn’t anyone read “1984” or “Fahrenheit 451” anymore?

        “Facebook wants to put microphones and cameras in your home”

        http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/11/facebook-portal-gadget-will-put-microphones-cameras-ordinary-peoples-homes-7221722/

  8. Humans attack others in whatever way they can attack them. Give a human a gun and he kills people. Give him bombs and he destroys cities. Give him a searchable electronic communications database and he attacks people for saying stuff.

  9. when one of his tweets was deleted following several complaints,

    So Maas’ punishment was to have a 7+ year old tweet deleted? That doesn’t quite sound like he was barred from Twitter. If I were him, I would have asked my family and friends to file a complaint against that post so that I can tout to the people that even I can see the justice in the law.

    As others have said, the social media platforms will do the math and determine whether it is profitable to stay in the German market. I’ll be interested to see the reaction from users in other nations, especially if giants like Facebook and Twitter shut down access.

    1. David, thanks for the link. I agree with your conclusion. The article is a jumbled mess, full of contradictory statements and outright false claims. Germany’s journalists and editors appear to be as incompetent as American ones.

  13. Pingback: German Justice Minister Barred On Twitter Under The New Speech Controls Pushed Through By His Government | Top 100 Blog Review

  14. The Justice Minister is an idjit. The nation state is a disgrace to the human race.

    1. OH yes it’s sure GOD is there all the times but many of us are not fearing about GOD and committing EVIL DOING. AND HARMS FELLOW HUMANS. Let me say as a example most of not practices what preachING . I got amazing facts of realities but not like to mention here. GOD BLESS WORLD.

  17. Twitter and Facebook in the long tern will benefit from simply pulling out of Germany and letting their subscribers punish the politicians.

    1. I am not sure the German psych allows punishing their politicians. Witness WWWI and WWWII and the aftermath in East Germany Angela’s part of the fatherland. The French are not any better.

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