For years, we have discussed the unrelenting attacks on free speech in Europe with the expansion of hate speech laws and the general criminalization of speech, including international speech crimes. Some in the United States would like to follow down that dangerous path (and universities are reinforcing the view of the need to regulate speech). The implications of such anti-speech policies are evident in Germany where a survey, conducted by the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach(and published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) found that only 18 percent of Germans feel free to express their views in public. It is the most vivid example of how Europeans are learning to live without free speech. Undeterred, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the successor to Angela Merkel, is now calling on greater limits on free speech during election periods — a concept that would normally be viewed as counterintuitive outside of the new European model.
Notably, over 31 percent of Germans did not even feel free expressing themselves in private among friends. Just 17 percent felt free to express themselves on the Internet and 35 percent said that freedom to speak is confined to the smallest of private circles.
Even at the height of the Stasi, citizens were not nearly as controlled in East Germany. It is the irony of our times. It has been otherwise liberal governments that have succeeded with authoritarian regimes failed in getting people to give up their free speech rights. All in the name of fighting intolerance . . . by codifying intolerance to an ever-expanding range of speech.
Over the course of the last 50 years, the French, English and Germans have waged an open war on free speech by criminalizing speech deemed insulting, harassing or intimidating. We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, (here and here and here and here and here and here and here) and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). There are encroachments appearing in the United States, particularly on college campuses. Notably, the media celebrated the speech of French President Emmanuel Macron before Congress where he called on the United States to follow the model of Europe on hate speech.
I readily admit to following the classic liberal view of free speech. The solution to bad speech — even hateful speech — to more speech. It is free speech that allows people of conscience to contest the flawed and hateful ideas of bigots. Germany has proven the fallacy of changing minds through threatened prosecution. While I am certainly sympathetic to the Germans in seeking to end the scourge of fascism, I have long been a critic of the German laws prohibiting certain symbols and phrases, I view it as not just a violation of free speech but a futile effort to stamp but extremism by barring certain symbols. Instead, extremists have rallied around an underground culture and embraced symbols that closely resemble those banned by the government. 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.
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.
The view of Germans that they are living without free speech would be of little surprise. What is most disconcerting is that they seem to reconciled to living without this basic human right.
Unfortunately… the entire hyperventilating article is based on the results of a single, dodgy poll from a “conservative” polling company that will probably not be reproducible.
I didn’t know that polling results were supposed to have political leanings.
English version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allensbach_Institute
Much better German version: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Demoskopie_Allensbach
In New Zealand I met a German in self-imposed exile. He was afraid of what might happen to him after Merkel’s speech police took down his blog critical of her government. He wouldn’t even tell he his real name. That says a lot.
Very good Jonathan. Thank you! And I’d add to that the Snowden insight that mass surveillance compromises freedom of thought because nearly all communications in America are monitored and recorded by NSA/CGHQ.
Privacy is a prerequisite for freedom of thought and freedom of thought is a prerequisite for freedom of speech.
Therefore we are losing free speech in America. We need to strengthen the First and Fourth Amendment via the collective right on which all rights depend.
Ruffsoft: I enjoyed your sarcasm. Sadly, there are people in the world who do not appreciate or understand sarcasm or satire.
Pussy control with threats of plastic wear. Then fake news sometimes works well too.
The Germans, in the 20’s and 30’s, by allowing the Nazis free speech, were able to counter Nazi lies and insure the triumph of freedom. Tolerating intolerance is the path to freedom, as the free speech in Germany (and the US where hate speech against native Americans and African slaves led to their thriving) during the Weimar Republic clearly demonstrates.
Those who oppose speech which promotes discrimination and violence against others are the real opponents of free speech, for hate speech is the epitome of free speech….until it totally crushes it, as history teaches us.
If you cant vilify others in rhetoric of collective libel, what is the point of free speech? The freedom to promote hatred and crushing the rights of others is the heart of free speech. Isn’t it?
Please remind us how Germans insured the triumph of freedom over the Nazis, I must have missed that lesson in history class.
“Even at the height of the Stasi, citizens were not nearly as controlled in East Germany.”
With all due respect prof. Turley, that is preposterous. You cannot POSSIBLY believe that! And if you really do, I invite you to watch the film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) to get a sense of the Stasi’s control over citizens.