This month, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) conducted a nationwide search for citizens accused of committing speech crimes. The annual crackdown is part of Germany’s robust censorship and speech criminalization policies. As European Union censors seek to expand the reach of laws like the Digital Services Act (DSA), all Americans need see the existential threat to our most “Indispensable Right.”
We have 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. The country fined YouTube to force the company to remove views that the government considers disinformation on COVID-19.
Germany has also targeted Elon Musk with threatened prosecution if he does not reestablish censorship systems at X.
None of this, mind you, has put a dent in the ranks of actual fascists and haters. Neo-Nazis are holding massive rallies by adopting new symbols and coded words, while Germany arrested a man on a train because he had a Hitler ringtone on his phone.
Last year, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser was upset that civil libertarians were calling her anti-free speech, so she tried to shut down a publication for a satirical meme.
For this reason, it was fitting that the recent World Forum was held in Berlin. I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, where European leaders gathered in one of the most strikingly anti-free speech conferences I have attended. This year’s forum embraced the slogan “A New World Order with European Values.”
That “new world order” is based on an aggressive anti-free speech platform that has been enforced for years by the European Union. It is vividly evident in the latest crackdown in Germany.
According to the BKA, there were 10,732 crimes related to online hate speech committed last year—a record number and four times the crimes from 2021. It is an example of the insatiable appetite created by censorship as people seek to silence their critics or those with opposing views.
Stefan Niehoff, a 64-year-old former Bundeswehr sergeant was convicted for posting satirical images involving Nazi imagery. While the criminal case was eventually dropped, he was fined because the judge failed to find his actions sufficiently satirical.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister, Christian Democrat Herbert Reul seemed to relish the power: “Digital arsonists must not be able to hide behind their phones or computers. Anyone who thinks anything is allowed on social media is seriously mistaken.”
He added that “people have forgotten the difference between hate and opinion.” For those who cannot tell the difference, the solution is just to stay silent or risk a knock on the door. It is the very chilling effect reflected in the recent polling showing that most Germans are now uncomfortable sharing their views in public.
According to a poll of German citizens. Only 18% of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. 59% of Germans did not even feel free to express themselves in private among friends. And just 17% felt free to express themselves online.
This is why some of us have praised Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for their stands against European censorship.
Free speech is in a free fall in Europe and E.U. censors are trying to globalize their reach, including pressuring American companies to censor citizens. They are receiving the support of leading American politicians and pundits. If Americans want to see what awaits down this road, they need only look at Germany this month.
I was censored this morning attempting to email my member of Congress – the highest form of disloyalty for any federal government employee.
My next door neighbors work at the local FBI field office, so it might be Christopher Wray but not sure.
True story:
In 2001, the United States uploaded “suspicious persons” from as far back as the 1980’s, with insufficient evidence in the 1980’s, then added these non-suspects to terrorist watch lists. Committing outright fraud, adding innocent Americans from as far aback as the 1980’s to 2001 blacklists – driven by illegally obtaining federal tax payer money through “Fusion Centers”. By definition war crimes, no American official having that authority.
In October 2001, the federal government primarily using the federal “Material Witness Statute” illegally (as found by a federal appeals court) destroyed the white collar (safe) jobs of anyone blacklisted from the 1980’s – having nothing to do with 9/11.
Now these white collar workers were forced to take dangerous jobs in construction, tree trimming, etc. They were also assigned government handlers to torture and interrogate them daily for over 20 years. Many took a 70% or worse payout for over 20 years. Take your own paycheck and multiply it by 0.3 – for more than 20 years. No crime committed, no indictments, denied judge, jury or even a guilty verdict.
Once the actual results were declassified many years later, the Attorney General and federal officials figure out they destroyed mostly innocent Americans. Good officials with ethics and morality would first apologize to their victims and then try to make their victims whole again. Bureaucracies don’t work this way, which is why judges were invented John Roberts.
Over this 20+ years, the federal bureaucrats realized they screwed up and the innocent Americans they destroyed were now working in highly dangerous occupations. These bureaucrats realizing that now they could face potential negligent homicide charges then decided to destroy their victims current occupations (their victims spent 20+ years rebuilding).
The bureaucrats couldn’t allow their virtual prisoners to continue in their dangerous occupations, after destroying their safe white collar jobs in 2001. So now these innocent Americans no longer make good wages in their construction related careers and most start over again. These innocent people can never get those 20+ years back.
While the current Attorney General and U.S. Supreme Court do nothing – no official apology, no financial compensation and they actually blame the innocent Americans they destroyed in 2001.
Let’s focus on the USA’s blacklisting war crimes before pointing fingers at Germany! There’s plenty of evil happening right here!
Well, let us not forget that their grandparents killed off 6 million Jews. So there is some pretty wicked DNA coursing through those veins.
No praise for J D Vance . He is a chameleon . No trust in anything he says .
Does the U.S. Supreme Court know that state operated (federally-funded) “Fusion Centers” supposedly were created to counter suicidal-terrorist threats after 9/11. That these FCs uploaded highly inaccurate information from as far back as the 1980’s having nothing to do with terrorism?
In other words, a highly incompetent or highly corrupt police officer in the 1980’s could simply upload “suspicious persons” from over 40 years ago with no real evidence.
The more people they blacklist, the more tax money they make!
The United States has been destroying innocent Americans through covert blacklisting tactics (Cointelpro On Steroids) since 2001 and are continuing to do so in 2025.
The real evil of it is the use of local, state and federal task forces coordinated in local “Fusion Centers” (illegal blacklisting centers in your state) – a total of 80 FCs nationwide.
So there are “0” checks and balances on this tyranny since the local, state and federal agencies all benefit from this highly profitable illegal program. It’s not about public safety, it’s about illegal profiteering by destroying innocent Americans.
Anyone that knows bureaucracies knows this. When the bureaucrats discover they are participating in committing crimes against innocent people – they don’t confess or apologize to their crime victims – they blame the people they destroyed.
Many people say America is a Christian nation. If you play that card, it actually requires you to follow your Christian faith and follow your supreme loyalty oath to the U.S. Constitution. Participating in such an evil program destroying innocent Americans (more law abiding than the bureaucrats are) is not being a Christian Pam Bondi!
How long before the German government mandates the singing of the Horst Wessel Lied?
Actually, it seems that you would be fined or given other punishment under the German law if you sang a Nazi tune
The United States has been doing this for at least 20 years under both Republicans and Democrats.
The U.S. Supreme Court enacted “Carpenter v. U.S.” in 2018 to remove some of the covert weapons governments use against their own people (court outlawed longterm warrantless surveillance) – nearly every American agency (local, state, federal) simply defies the court’s ruling.
Apparently court rulings only matter if officials get caught breaking the law. They do whatever they please regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Why don’t we Americans lead by example, maybe the Germans will follow us if we do it too?
#HateLovesAbortion
Headline “Germany Returns to Fascism”!
This time the Fascists also Hate their HOME COUNTRY!
The krauts are getting uppity again.
Every government does what Germany is doing, it’s only a matter of degrees! It’s also overt vs covert.
Even in the United States particular citizens have virtually no rights at all. Never had any rights, stripped of those rights without constitutional due process.These citizens have no criminal record, never confronted or seen by a judge.
This story is about the overt-censorship by the German government, but “covertly” with programs/tactics like Cointelpro or Operation Chaos, the USA may operate the largest covert-censorship in the world.
Due to unwarranted and excessive secrecy, Americans really don’t know? It’s vastly more evil when American officials censor, since they swore a supreme loyalty to protect our First Amendment rights – unlike Germany.
You have a load of right wingers posting things assuming that you’re a conservative wingnut yourself. I had thought of you as nonpartisan. By not discouraging people like Audible/Amazon from tagging you as conservative you’re encouraging people to brand you as one, which then limits your audience since our tribal nation will only listen to products of their own tribe.
I would point out if you consider yourself non-partisan because that’s how I view you. I do not think the First Amendment is a conservative topic. I’m not conservative, and I care about free speech deeply. I’ve always thought of the right to speak freely as a progressive view. It protects people of all views, conservative and liberal. I don’t consider people of either major party as progressives.
“I do not think the First Amendment is a conservative topic.”
It’s too bad that only conservatives (or honest liberals like Prof. Turley) are defending it, while those on the left have been busy censoring and silencing everyone. Were you asleep during the censor-happy Biden disaster? Does the name Nina Jankowicz ring a bell?
Subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
They are subject to the jurisdiction, not if they are present, but if they can be summoned for jury duty.
Summon an illegal alien for jury duty.
My impression is European governments are using the crack down on free speech as an excuse to mollify radical islamists so the government does not have to face them.
SNL should be fined millions of dollars for skits lampooning Trump that are not “sufficiently satirical.”