Take a look at The New York Times’ story on Sept. 23, 2022 — “Where online hate speech can bring the police to your door.” The story focuses on Germany, which has laws against what it defines as “hate speech.”
German law enforcement is active against hate speech, which ranges from denying the Holocaust to harassing people with insults and threats. A few people have gone to jail, but others have had their houses raided, seen their computers taken, and paid fines.
As the story says:
In doing so, they have flipped inside out what, to American ears, it means to protect free speech. The authorities in Germany argue that they are encouraging and defending free speech by providing a space where people can share opinions without fear of being attacked or abused.
“There has to be a line you cannot cross,” said Svenja Meininghaus, a state prosecutor who attended the raid of the father’s house. “There has to be consequences.”
But even in Germany, a country where the stain of Nazism drives a belief that free speech is not absolute, the crackdown is generating fierce debate:
How far is too far?
The mention of freedom in America is interesting. Freedom House’s 2021 report says Germany earned a 94 out of 100 for free speech overall, but 79/100 for online speech. America scored 83 overall, and 73/100 online. Germany ranked in a tie for 16th worldwide. America ranked tied for 59th.
The rankings, which of course are one group’s methodology, suggests that you’re more “free” when you can be prosecuted for “hate speech” in Germany than in America, where you can be more hateful and deny the Holocaust. In America, the social media site takes the initiative to remove speech — and often with controversy. In Germany and elsewhere, social media sites must remove what the government defines as hate speech within a day — or risk punishment.
On the other hand, the story notes that chasing offenders may go too far. The example is a guy who wrote on Twitter about a German politician who hosted parties during the pandemic: ““Du bist so 1 Pimmel” (“You are such a penis”). The police showed up a few months later…
Also, consider this in the context of Karl Popper, whose “Popper’s Paradox” about tolerating the intolerant came from this 1945 writing:
Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
Popper, K. (1945) The Open Society and Its Enemies: Vol 1: The Spell of Plato. Routledge.
Free speech – and tolerance – can be a paradox.