Merkel Backs New Law Set To Criminalize Offensive or False Social Media Posts
Five months ahead of election, law could be used to intimidate critics of Merkel’s ‘Migrant Policy’
The government of Angela Merkel has approved draft legislation that seeks to combat certain content on the social media.
The proposed law will force social media companies to remove content that German government may find offensive or ‘false’. In its broadly defined parameters the law wants social media companies to act against hate speech, and other contents that may be “in breach of German laws”, Bonn-based public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported. Companies could face up to €50 million, or $53 million, in fines if they fail to remove ‘criminal content’.
All the major social media providers are based in the U.S. and by enacting this law Merkel government clearly wants to circumvent the free speech rights granted under the U.S. Constitution.
“We do not accept the fact that companies in Germany do not adhere to the law. Therefore in future, if it doesn’t get better, we will impose high fines on these companies,” German Justice Minister Heiko Maas told a local TV channel. The law will also force social media companies to reveal the identity of the users suspected of posting ‘hateful’ content.
But the 50 million euro question is, who gets to decide what is ‘criminal’ on social media, and what is ‘false’ in news reporting. Despite blanket media support for Merkel’s policies, individual posts and blogs still have the potential of challenging the official narrative in Germany. It was the popular outrage on the social media that forced the German media to cover last year’s mass-sexual assaults at Cologne central station. Prior to popular pushback, German media was actively involved in supressing the actual crimes and origin of the perpetrators.
The law brought forward by Germany’s Ministry of Justice would require social media companies to publish quarterly reports detailing their efforts in combatting undesirable speech as well as the profiles of the ’employees responsible for deleting and blocking content that breaches Germany’s hate speech and slander laws’. German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported today:
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet on Wednesday approved draft legislation that would foresee major fines for social media companies like Facebook and Twitter if they fail to delete hate speech, libel or other content in breach of German laws. Given the grand coalition government’s monster majority in the lower house of parliament, approval there should be a formality.
Ahead of Wednesday’s decisive cabinet meeting to tackle internet hate speech, Justice Minister Heiko Maas reiterated his warning that online companies failing to delete criminal content themselves could face financial punishments of up to 50 million euros ($53 million).
Social networks would have 24 hours to delete or block obviously criminal content and seven days to deal with more ambiguous cases. They would be obliged to report back to the person who filed the complaint about how they handled the case.
Failure to comply could lead to fines up to 50 million euros for the company and 5 million euros for the company’s chief representative in Germany. [DW, April 6, 2016]
The move by Merkel’s lame duck cabinet — just 5 months ahead of the country’s general election — is not concerned about the real hate being spread by Muslim radicals in German mosques and online, or the accuracy in media reporting in the country, but the new legislation will be wielded as a campaign tool ahead of the polls to intimidate and silence the troublesome critics of Merkel’s migrant debacle.
German media has been fully on board with Merkel ‘Migrants Policy’. Media has been more than willing to paddle government’s happy talk on mass-migration and cover up its disasters. However, the effective use social media by Trump campaign has alarmed Germany’s liberal establishment. Determined to prevent the repeat of similar scenario in Germany, Merkel and her left-wing Social Democratic Justice Minister Maas have sharpened the rhetoric against ‘hateful’ posts and ‘fake news’ on social media.
In an election year, social media can allow right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to circumvent the media filter and directly reach millions of voters. By enacting this new legislation, Merkel government hopes to blunt this instrument and muffle the critics.
If the approved draft becomes law, it could be criminal in the country to shout ‘the emperor has no clothes’. And if you so much as even hosted such ‘offensive’ comments: you could be dragged to court by the all-powerful state and face crippling sanctions.
Video: Merkel says ‘fake news’ driving Right-wing populists in Germany [subtitled, November 2016]
[Cover image courtesy BR, YouTube]
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
George Orwell is turning in his grave.
These are nazi-like tactics. And we should start treating Merkel like the Nazi she is.
Plus, she’s a un-repentant East German Communist!
Was she Stasi too?
Coming soon to a North American continent near you. Oh, wait. Canada!
Mutter Merkel is a typical leftist despot: they don’t seek to win the debate. They seek to shut down debate and silence their opposition.
Andrew Klavan gave a good exposition on his podcast about the left’s view of truth and reality. IE: The left views truth and reality as a story to tell, and who ever controls the language and narrative controls truth and reality. It’s why the left loves political correctness, and calling others nasty names. It defines their truth and their reality, and those who disagree can be branded as ‘deniers’ or ‘criminals.’
Mutter Merkel is well aware of the power of language and silencing opposing views. She is a typical leftist despot and needs to be voted out.
Merkel you and your media are offensive.
In fact everything about you and your media is offensive.
Go arrest yourselves and report to prison immediately!
All websites have legal statements to the effect that all use of the site is in accordance with the laws of (insert a state name here). Unless the site as actual physical presence in Germany, the terms of use prevail. If Germany wants to impose their laws on us, they can use the normal financial, political, diplomatic, or military approaches.
They are German so “book burning” is in their blood.
It’s like that line in the movie, “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown”.
“Forget it, Jake, it’s Berlin.”
Angela Merkel goes a long way to demonstrate the reasons for the leftist/Islamic alliance. Both Islamic and leftist-dominated societies are police states ruled by terrorism, draconian punishments, and ultimately with the goal of crushing the individual.
Since the French revolution whenever the left has successfully overthrown the previous regime it’s always been followed by “revolutionary terror” that while the leaders proclaim it to be a temporary measure, never ends. The same with Islam.
There is a reason why Iran gets along with North Korea and Venezuela so well.
Both the left and Islam hate the West, which developed the finest civilization ever seen on this planet. It’s based upon reason and justice. Two qualities that are anathema to both the left and Islam. And, worse, that result was dependent upon Judeo-Christian morality. Godless communists like Merkel and devout Muslims hate all of what goes with that with equal passion.
Which is why Merkel is doing what she is doing, and why Obama wanted to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America exactly the same way using exactly the same method.
It’s important to remember that both leftists and Islamists (I’m using the term differently than most; an Islamist in my view isn’t advocating a “perverted” form of Islam but covertly advancing mainstream Islam which, if widely understood, would be soundly rejected by nauseated and disgusted Western populations) don’t actually care about what they pretend to care about. Their cows aren’t sacred to them; they pick them because they think they’re supposed to be sacred to you, and they are using them against you.
Read the Muslim Brotherhoods Explanatory Memorandum on their Strategic Goals in North America for a deeper understanding of what I’m saying.
https://clarionproject.org/holy-land-foundation-terror-financing-trial-documents-50/
“Enablement of Islam in North America, meaning: establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims’ causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic State wherever it is… the Movement must plan and struggle to obtain “the keys” and the tools of this process in carry out [sic] this grand mission as a ‘Civilization Jihadist’ responsibility… The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…”
This document was never supposed to see the light of day. Because if your goal is to get people to act against their own interests you can’t let them in on your plans (documents discovered in the PM’s office in Britain dating from the early ’60s about the EU’s plans to strip member states of their sovereignty fall into the same category, as the only way to advance the EU cause would be incrementally and to be able to lie about the next step as some sort of right-wingnut loony conspiracy theory [we got gay marriage by the same method]).
Here’s a dirty little secret, although just as with the EU, the Ikhwan’s intentions for North America, the advocates of SSM did so to destroy marriage and how those bigoted girls who don’t want to shower with boys must be crushed because their bigotry is a result of Judeo Christian morality, there’s nothing really secret about it. Reccep Erdogan just can’t bring himself to shut-up.
This so-called Syrian refugee crisis is manufactured. It’s Erdogan’s way of sending terrorists into Europe to bring Europe to heel.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/23/erdogan-warns-europeans-will-not-walk-safely-if-attitude-persists-as-row-carries-on.html
And it’s Merkel’s, and was Obama’s and Clintton’s, intention to let them in. Because rerrorizing your own population is probably the most useful tool you can have to fundamentally transform your own country.
You just can’t say that openly. But actions speak louder than words.
What happens after every Muslim terror attack? First of all the government and media close ranks and deny reality. That the attack had anything to do with Islam. It’s “Islamophobic” to say that. This is a form of gaslighting. Anybody who accurately perceives the reality of the situation must be denounced as some sort of mental defective. Islam is praised up and down as a relgion of peace. Again, anybody who reads the Islamic source documents and knows anything about all about Islamic history knows better, but again anybody who speaks up is a mental defective. They denounce Islamophobia. They’ll condemn the non-existent backlash; Loretta Lynch and Jeh Johnson are dispatched to conferences sponsored by Muslim organizations to pledge their support for Muslims. We see calls for restrictions on speech. We must have more Muslim immigration.
All Muslims, not just the “radicals,” and leftists benefit from terrorism. Terrorist attacks are actually followed by increases in conversions to Islam. There are an amazing number of airheads in this country who will actually believe what Imams Obama, Lynch, et all tell them about just how wonderful and tolerant real Islam happens ot be. And leftists use Islamic terrorism to advance their cause to transform their societies.
Again, leftists don’t care about what they claim to care about. You might think the slaughter of 50 gays in Orlando might have raised their ire, but no. They care about destroying marriage and the right to privacy (in the USSR and other communist totalitarian states privacy is always suspicious and must not be tolerated as anyone alone might start thinking for themselves). So gay issues are important to them, not gay people. As leftist revolutionaries have always demonstrated, they’re callous murderers even of their own because being a revolutionary means being willing to “break a few eggs to make an omelette.
Leftists don’t care about their own people. Besides they don’t even consider the vast majority of the people currently residing within their borders “their own.” Frankly they dislike them. But again they can’t say that openly. But seriously, why should they care about them getting killed, since they’re in the way? As this becomes more obvious they have to make sure the ones who have caught on shut-up or else. Hence Merkel’s assault on free speech. Free speech is a pillar of Western civilization and can and should be defended. But why would a leftist who wants to see Western civilization destroyed just as much as Abu Bakr al Baghdadi or the Ayatollah Khameini wish to defend it? Rather, it’s an obstacle to the tyrants who would rule over you. No matter who their god happens to be. Allah or themselves.
Frightening analysis – and spot-on.
Maybe Zuckerberg will wind up in one of Merkel’s ‘camps.’
Karma is a bitch.
Let’s call this what it is: Sharia blasphemy law.
OK, “somebody,” looks like a bearded gent of non-Nordic stripe if the person they cops put in handcuffs had anything to do with it, just crashed a truck into a Stockholm department store.
Let’s see if my checklist holds up.
1. The government and media close ranks and deny the attack had anything to do with Islam.
2. Accuse people who say otherwise of “Islamophobia.”
3. Denounce Islamophobia and the non-existent backlash.
4. Call for restrictions on free speech (bonus points for increasing monitoring of social media).
5. Insist they need more Muslim immigrants.
The Islam I refer to in point 1 is unicorn-and-skittles “real” Islam Western fantasists keep talking about as if such a thing exists. Granted, they may admit the perp acted according to some sort of twisted perversion of a “great religion.”
But as long as they say something along the lines of the attack had nothing to do with real or true Islam it meets my criteria.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/terror-stockholm-truck-rams-crowd-10178926
Sorry if I seem callous about this. I’m not callous. I assure you that I care more about Sweden and individual Swedes than than the @$$hat leftist pols who did this to Sweden and made this inevitable.
The left is, and always has been, about control. Speech, guns, you name it. Control, above all, control.