Censorhip Always Turns Out Badly--What Is Bad To You Might Be My Constitutionally Protected View

Impact of new Germany ‘hate speech’ law felt by media, politicians

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Freedom of speech in Germany is under attack by a new law intended to stifle “hate speech” on social media. Websites that fail to promptly remove anything deemed to be hate speech within 24 hours can face fines. (juststock/Getty Images)

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Freedom of speech in Germany is under attack by a new law intended to stifle “hate speech” on social media, according to the country’s popular Bild newspaper. The law went into effect Jan. 1.

What happened?

“Please spare us the thought police!” stated a headline in the Bild’s Wednesday edition. The accompanying article called the new law a sin against freedom of speech protected by Germany’s constitution. In George Orwell’s novel, “1984,” the Thought Police is a secret agency that investigates, censors, and punishes any communications that go against the opinions of the ruling party.

So far, Twitter has deleted “anti-Muslim and anti-migrant posts” by the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, Reuters reported. It also blocked an account that poked fun at Islamophobia.

Bild Editor-in-Chief Julian Reichelt said the new law requires the removal of social media posts that are “manifestly unlawful.” Yet it fails to define what is unlawful and therefore can apply to anything, he said.

As of Jan. 1, social media sites must investigate and block or delete offensive content within 24 hours. Websites that fail to promptly remove anything deemed to be hate speech can face fines of up to 50 million euros ($60 million), Reuters reported.

“The law against online hate speech failed on its very first day. It should be abolished immediately,” Reichelt wrote.

The law is turning AfD politicians into “opinion martyrs,” he added.

Beatrix von Storch, deputy leader of the AfD, was unable to tweet for 12 hours after she criticized Cologne police for posting information in Arabic on Twitter.

According to reports, police filed a complaint on her because she tweeted: “What the hell is going on with this country? Why is an official police site … tweeting in Arabic? Did you mean to placate the barbaric, Muslim, gang-raping hordes of men?”

How is the law defended?

Justice Minister Heiko Maas defended the law by saying free speech does not include inciting hatred or spreading criminal content online.

“Calls to murder, threats, insults and incitement of the masses or Auschwitz lies are not an expression of freedom of opinion but rather attacks on the freedom of opinion of others,” Maas said.

Germany’s laws on defamation, threats, and incitement to commit crimes are among the toughest in the world, Reuters noted. People are sent to prison for denying the Holocaust happened or for expressing hatred toward minorities, for example.

“Those who care about protecting freedom of opinion can’t just look on as criminal incitement and threats inhibit the open exchange of views,” Maas said, according to Reuters.

What websites are impacted?

Companies impacted by the Network Enforcement Act include Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram, Gizmodo reported. Professional networking sites and messaging services (LinkedIn, Xing, and WhatsApp), are excluded from the law.

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Voyeurism Not Limited To Men

Nursing home employee secretly recorded seniors having sex, posted video to Snapchat

WFLA Web StaffPublished: March 22, 2017, 9:42 pm  Updated: March 22, 2017, 9:44 pm

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PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — A nursing home employee in Florida is in police custody on Wednesday after detectives say she filmed two senior residents having sex without their knowledge or consent and shared the video with her followers on Snapchat in August.

The victims, who haven’t been identified are an 81-year-old woman and a 59-year-old man.

Authorities have identified the suspect as 20-year-old Alexis Williams, an employee at the Bristol Court Assisted Living Facility on 3479 54th Avenue North in unincorporated St. Petersburg.

Detectives say Williams was working at the facility when she secretly recorded the victims having sex in a private room and later posted the video to Snapchat.

One of her followers saw the video and informed staff at the facility who contacted the authorities and terminated Williams.

Williams confessed her crimes on Wednesday when she was interviewed by Pinellas County detectives at her home in St. Pete.

She was arrested and charged with one count of video voyeurism and one count of video voyeurism dissemination and was released this evening on a $10,000 bond.

Is Your Internet Company Protecting Your Privacy?

BEST AND WORST COMPANIES FOR INTERNET PRIVACY

See how Comcast, AT&T, Snapchat measure up

Published: 14 hours ago

 BOB UNRUH About | Email | Archive

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A consumer organization concludes that when it comes to protecting customer information from government requests, Snapchat has a dismal record of failure, and Comcast, AT&T and Amazon aren’t far behind.

The report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation,”Who Has Your Back,”  surveyed major Web companies from Adobe to Yahoo regarding their policies and practices regarding the personal information of customers.

The report examines how 26 of the top technology companies handle customer privacy in six categories.

Snapchat was found to be publishing law-enforcement guidelines but not requiring a warrant for delivering content, not telling users about government data requests, not publishing transparency reports and not fighting for users’ privacy rights in court or in Congress.

EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman credited Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked thousands of classified documents, with forcing changes.

“The sunlight brought about by a year’s worth of Snowden leaks appears to have prompted dozens of companies to improve their policies when it comes to giving user data to the government,” Reitman said. “Our report charts objectively verifiable categories of how tech companies react when the government seeks user data, so users can make informed decisions about which companies they should trust with their information.”

EFF’s report awards up to six gold stars for best practices in categories such as “require a warrant for content” and “publish transparency reports.” Last year, just two companies surveyed earned a full six stars – Sonic, a California ISP and Twitter.

This year, Apple, CREDO Mobile, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all joined Sonic and Yahoo in receiving six full stars. Several others – LinkedIn, Pinterest, SpiderOak, Tumblr, Wickr and WordPress – only missed getting all six stars because they did not have to bring public court battles on behalf of their users, EFF said.

See all the privacy-related reports at WND’s Superstore, including “Police State, U.S.A.,” “One Nation Under Surveillance” and “How American is Becoming a Police State.”

Significantly, most of the companies surveyed “have made a formal commitment to inform users when their data was sought,” adopting a practice pioneered by Twitter, the report said.

“Additionally, 20 of the companies EFF reviewed published transparency reports detailing government requests for user data, which is a striking increase from last year, when only seven companies in EFF’s report published them. This is now a new standard in the tech industry: corporations are actively and voluntarily working to shed light on the government attempts to access user data,” the report said.

“Snapchat joins AT&T and Comcast in failing to require a warrant for government access to the content of communications. That means the government can obtain extraordinarily sensitive information about your activities and communications without convincing a judge that there is probable cause to collect it,” said EFF Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo. “We urge these companies to change course and give their users this simple and needed protection from government overreach.”

EFF reported that the legal landscape for consumer privacy right now remains unsettled.

“Both Congress and President Obama are negotiating legislative reform that could curtail or even end bulk surveillance programs, while other congressional proposals would instead enshrine them into law. In multiple recent public opinion polls, the American people attest that they believe government surveillance has gone to far,” the EFF report said.

“In the face of unbounded surveillance, users of technology need to know which companies are willing to take a stand for the privacy of their users.”

The report points out some areas of concern.

“Amazon earns two stars in this year’s ‘Who Has Your Back’ report. Amazon should be commended for repeatedly fighting in court to protect the privacy of its users’ book purchases and for requiring a warrant before giving data to government. However, Amazon has not publicly adopted industry best practices in other categories, such as providing notice to users about government data requests.”

The report expressed disappointment that AT&T was “silent on the issue of mass surveillance.”

“In 2006, EFF sued AT&T for its cooperation and collaboration with the NSA spying program, which was confirmed by whistleblower documents. In 2008, Congress passed retroactive immunity for AT&T, which ended our case but not the telecom’s participation in mass surveillance.”

The report said Comcast has not joined other technology companies in publicly opposing mass surveillance.

EFF said Snapchat earned the lowest score, with only one star.

“It does not keep pace with industry competitors when it comes to transparency around data requests, giving users notice when their data is sought by the government, or requiring a warrant for user content. Snapchat also does not publicly oppose mass surveillance.”